Developed by QuantPlus, the AI technology has analysed as many as 60 billion ad impressions across 30 countries to identify the statistically highest-performing creative elements.

It can also reference pre-existing data on higher education campaign performance to further enhance results.

TAFE Queensland approved a move away from its global advertising campaign to a more localised creative delivery after the ad-tracking data convinced them that it would result in higher enrolments.

The new localised adverts reportedly reached and engaged twice as many South Korean students compared to their previous campaign, at a much lower cost per click.

In Japan, the campaign attracted 90% more visitors to its landing page and 30% more enrolments tracked from the lead generation.

Marty Lock, manager of international engagement and communications at TAFE Queensland, explained “the data, the reporting and the support we have received [from our external partner] has helped us drive returns back into enrolments. This has helped us strengthen our brand in those markets”.

QuantPlus was founded in 2021 by the owners of GlobalRevGen, an Australian media buying and digital strategy agency. Designed specifically for the education sector, the machine learning technology now references billions of impressions across the world.

Standard AB testing can analyse a range of elements within ad creatives, ranking them against performance data and then optimising the efficiency for future advertising. The difference with QuantPlus is the ability to pre-optimise campaigns using data specifically collected from international education trials.

The technology was tested with a range of pilot customers in Australia to enlarge their central data lake first before moving forward with clients including GO8 universities.

Speaking about the system, Bosco Anthony, head of strategy and growth, said, “We are revolutionising the digital advertising ecosystem and how industries view creatives. Our clients at GlobalRevGen have started to incorporate QuantPlus insights in their everyday creative advertising decision making.”

The higher education industry has traditionally been slow to adopt data-driven sales tools, instead relying heavily on the experience of staff and manual processes to form recruitment campaigns.

However multiple factors such as image composition, colour palette, age, gender and ethnicity of models or authenticity of imagery can all affect the regional impact of advertising and require a more dynamic approach to design and delivery.

Other factors such as timing and copy phrasing can all be AI tested to improve advertising performance and many universities are now turning to powerful e-commerce tools to achieve better return on investment on their advertising spend.