Top Higher Education Digital Marketing Agencies in 2025

Key Services

SmartSites offers enough services to be the sole partner for a higher education organization. The agency’s web design services are suitable for both new websites and redesigns. 

Besides creating new websites, the agency also makes your existing ones more mobile-friendly or optimizes them for better usability. The agency’s partnership with Termly, a compliance partner, helps higher education businesses keep their websites compliant with governmental regulations. 

 With PPC services, SmartSites can help your institution create and manage effective ad campaigns on search engines and social media platforms. These campaigns are widely effective during admissions season, as they can help drive targeted traffic to your website.

SmartSites also offers organic SEO services to keep its clients’ websites ranking high on search engine result pages. The agency also dabbles in paid search, and even shares tips with its clients for them to incorporate in their strategies. 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by SmartSites (@smartsitesnj)

BrightEdge data shows that 53% of all searches come through SEO-backed organic searches. Leveraging SmartSites’ SEO knowledge and tools, higher education institutions can cash in on these high-volume searches.

Search’s dominant channel share

SmartSites further supplement your digital marketing funnel with email marketing, which the agency uses to keep your institution’s prospective and current students updated about admissions, courses, scholarships, and more. 

On top of that, the agency also helps establish a social media presence for your institution and runs targeted social media advertising campaigns.

The SmartSites Approach

There’s a lot of competition in the higher education space, especially in high-in-demand degrees. SmartSites knows how to make your institution stand out from the crowd.

The agency did this for the New Jersey Institute of Technology by setting up a PPC campaign to help the institute give a tough fight to the University of Phoenix, which was previously the main market shareholder in the online learning space.

NJIT case study results

Instead of overwhelming the audience with a ton of options, the agency focused on the institute’s main courses: WebMaster, Green Belt, Amazon Web, and JavaScript. The agency also implemented phone call tracking to identify sales and resolve issues faced by potential students. The blend of efficient targeting and personalized messaging made all the difference.

It was due to the strategic and well-planned PPC campaign that SmartSites ran that NJIT saw a 300% increase in conversions, with a 700% increase in impressions.

Key Services

Sculpt’s digital marketing services are mainly focused on social media platforms. The agency creates vertical and episodic video series for clients, which can be promoted through paid social media advertising campaigns. Sculpt understands the conventions of each social media platform, so the agency optimizes each piece of content for maximum engagement. 

Moreover, Sculpt actively shares social media marketing tips on its social media platforms. Higher education institutions can engage with this content to learn how to improve their social media presence. 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Sculpt (@wearesculpt)

The agency also provides community management services, responding to comments and messages on social media platforms on behalf of their clients. Community management is extremely important for higher education clients since they have to be prompt in responding to inquiries from students and potential applicants. Sculpt follows a proactive engagement strategy, which the agency’s experts explain in this post. 

Sculpt LinkedIn event

Sculpt also partners with relevant influencers to promote its clients’ content and programs. For higher education institutions, this could bring in more prospective students and credibility through industry experts and thought leaders.

Sculpt doesn’t merely set up the social media strategy for higher education clients; it also creates content consistently to keep your social media presence active. The agency creates and schedules posts, curates relevant content to share, tracks engagement, and reports on social media analytics.

The Sculpt Approach

Sculpt’s approach to digital marketing is evident in the campaign the agency ran for Pearson Education, one of the largest education publishing companies in the world. Even though Pearson serves millions of higher education students, the client couldn’t get traction on its Instagram profile.

On top of that, Sculpt recruited college ambassadors for Pearson Learners to create an authentic voice for the brand. The content created by these ambassadors, such as college life tips and study secrets, was relatable for the client’s target audience, who could see themselves reflected in the posts.

Altogether, these tactics resulted in an 88% increase in average engagements per post. Pearson Education also increased its Instagram followers by 209% in just nine months. 

Pearson case study results

In addition to these services, ED also offers community management solutions. The agency ensures your internal community and external stakeholders are aligned with your institution’s goals and values. Even better, ED uses insights from community management to drive marketing success for clients.

For example, the agency’s team went to the University of Winnipeg and talked to the people there about what made the university special. Then, they used those insights to market the university to students and donors. 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by ED. Marketing (@edmarketing.agency)

ED also focuses on keeping the brand identity of higher education intact during their marketing campaigns. Unlike other industries, higher education institutions have to stick to an identity for the long run since it becomes their mark of identification among students and faculty. 

For example, when Queen’s University wanted to redesign its brand and marketing material for the digital space, ED kept the original colors and visual elements intact while modernizing the design for a more contemporary look. These designs were then translated into a well-kept Facebook page and an Instagram profile with a regular posting schedule.

Queen’s University campaign

ED also develops recruitment campaigns for universities to build a community of students for the long run. These campaigns are tailored to attract potential students who are fit for the institute’s positioning and convert them into loyal alumni.

The ED Approach

As an agency with vast experience providing digital marketing services to higher education institutions, ED understands the importance of emotion and storytelling in the education industry. So, the agency’s approach focuses on creating authentic and compelling narratives that resonate with students and parents alike.

That’s what ED did for Winnipeg’s Booth University College. Before ED stepped in, most people did not know that the college was the only degree-granting institution of the Salvation Army, one of the most renowned nonprofit organizations.

ED used the college’s students as influencers to get this message out to the public. The agency created a series of videos featuring students sharing their experiences at Booth UC and how they aim to “be the change” they want to see. These videos helped clear the misconception that was keeping many potential students away from the college.

ED’s efforts were quite successful, as these videos garnered 4,034,384 impressions, resulting in the college’s highest enrolment to date of 476 students.

Booth University campaign results

Key Services

HEM’s inbound marketing services are designed to take your higher education institution’s digital marketing strategies to the next level by boosting your online visibility and converting visitors into applicants. The agency provides extensive SEO services to help your school’s website rank higher for relevant keywords and attract more organic traffic.

In doing so, HEM also creates engaging content for your institution. The agency takes a storytelling route since it is most effective in attracting and informing leads. During these campaigns, HEM also measures the standing of your student enrollment efforts and provides actionable insights that can help inform your future steps. Higher education institutes can couple these insights with the learnings from the agency’s webinars for informed marketing decision-making. 

HEM’s services aren’t limited to search engines. The agency also provides social media marketing for higher education institutions, particularly on Instagram and TikTok, where the majority of prospective students spend their time. Since 75% of students use TikTok a few times every month and 47% use it daily, it makes sense for higher education institutions to be present on social media.

HEM also provides paid advertising services to reach out to a larger audience and connect with potential students. You can work with the agency to advertise your institution to international students on social and search platforms. The agency specializes in fostering personalized interactions to engage students from all around the globe. 

The HEM Approach

One of the main reasons for HEM being such a trusted name is that the agency really understands its clients’ positioning. Merely enrolling students isn’t the end goal for every educational institute.

For example, when Business School Lausanne in Switzerland reached out to HEM, their objective was not simply to bring in more students but to attract international students who could afford the country’s cost of living.

Business school campaign

The agency saved time and resources by specifically targeting this audience, instead of a broader global market. However, this level of targeting did not stop the agency from diversifying the client’s reach. HEM did not only target upper-class students from the US and Europe but also from Asia and Africa to ensure a diverse student body.

The campaign had such impressive results that David Claivaz, the acting dean at the school, said that they plan to: