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Are your campaigns guilty of these classic pitfalls?
I’ve audited hundreds of education campaigns. Here are the ten mistakes that cost schools leads, clicks, and trust—and how to avoid them.
This article is a sub-article of the piece: The State of Digital Marketing for Education in Singapore (2025 Report).
Singapore’s education market is one of the most competitive in Southeast Asia. From preschools to tuition centres, parents are bombarded with ads every day. With CPCs in education ads averaging $3.50–$7.00 per click on Meta and Google, schools can’t afford to waste budget.
Yet, many campaigns still fall into the same 10 traps. These mistakes don’t just burn money—they also erode trust with parents.
I’ll break down each mistake, show you real-world cases, and link you to related strategies we’ve already published, so you can dig deeper.
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Connect with us! →Many schools chase the lowest CPL (Cost Per Lead). But as I explained in Why Cheap Leads Cost You the Most in the Long Run, cheap leads often mean unqualified leads.
👉 A preschool in Toa Payoh ran a $1.20-per-lead campaign. Out of 200 leads, only 2 enrolled. That’s a cost per enrolment (CPE) of $120—not efficient.
✅ Solution: Track Cost Per Enrolment (CPE) instead. Here’s how to track CPE, not just CPL.
Most schools ignore SEO until parents can’t find them online. As we showed in Why SEO is Underutilized in the Education Sector, organic rankings reduce long-term ad dependency.
👉 68% of parents research preschools on Google before visiting a centre. Yet, 7 in 10 preschools in Singapore don’t appear in the top 3 results for “preschool near me.”
Solution: Build a content hub answering parent FAQs, MOE regulations, and PDPA compliance.
High CTRs and likes don’t equal enrolments. We covered this in Boosting CTR Doesn’t Always Mean Boosting Revenue.
👉 A tuition centre celebrated a 9% CTR on TikTok ads. But 70% of clicks came from teens—not parents. Zero enrolments.
✅ Solution: Measure leads-to-enrolment conversion rates, not vanity metrics.
Meta Lead Forms deliver volume but poor quality. In our Facebook lead costs for preschools explained article, we show how schools pay $8–$15 per lead but struggle with follow-up.
✅ Solution: Use landing pages with remarketing, or integrate with a CRM for faster follow-up.
We’ve seen schools fined for misusing student photos without consent. As we detailed in MOE & PDPA rules every education marketer must know, compliance isn’t optional.
✅ Solution: Always collect written parental consent before testimonials, photos, or SMS campaigns.
TikTok is powerful for millennial parents—but only when used strategically. See TikTok vs Meta Ads for Millennial Parents.
👉 Case: A preschool in Punggol spent $5,000 on TikTok dance ads. Parents didn’t connect. Engagement was high, enrolments were zero.
✅ Solution: Use TikTok for storytelling + parenting content, not gimmicks.
A tuition centre that invested only in cold ads lost 70% of potential conversions. In our case study on remarketing for tuition centres, remarketing doubled their enrolments.
✅ Solution: Set up Google Display + Meta remarketing with parent-focused copy.
Schools often blame “platforms” for poor results when it’s really an attribution issue. See Why Your Agency Might Not Want You to Understand Attribution.
✅ Solution: Use multi-touch attribution (Meta, Google, SEO combined).
We’ve written about this in Preschool ads: high CTR vs high enrolments.
👉 One preschool celebrated 12% CTR, but their CPE was 3x higher than average.
✅ Solution: Always ask: Did this campaign increase enrolments?
Platforms like Xiaohongshu are changing preschool marketing. As we covered in The rise of Xiaohongshu in preschool marketing, many parents from China trust reviews there more than Google.
✅ Solution: Build bilingual campaigns. Share real parent experiences on Xiaohongshu.
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Education is a high CPC industry in Singapore. With ad costs rising 18% year-on-year, SMEs are pressured to chase fast leads. Add cultural buying habits (parents comparing multiple preschools before choosing), and you see why short-term tactics dominate.
But as HubSpot’s inbound marketing benchmarks show, long-term content + remarketing consistently beats short-term hacks.
Education marketing in Singapore is getting tougher—but also smarter. By avoiding these 10 mistakes, schools can save money, build parent trust, and scale sustainably.
For deeper strategies, read:
• The $10,000 Lesson I Learned About Tracking the Hard Way
• The Hidden Reason Agencies Push Vanity Metrics
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