Optimized Digital Advertising Campaigns Boost Admissions Inquiries & Visibility for Local Trade School

In 2025, Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, a Pennsylvania-based trade school that serves students across the state, partnered with GRIT to enhance their digital advertising efforts. While the college had existing digital advertising campaigns in place, they sought GRIT’s strategic support optimizing performance and maximizing available resources to drive visibility and increase admissions inquiries from their core target audiences.

Securing Ownership of Digital Assets

To start, GRIT collaborated with Thaddeus Stevens College and their previous agency partner to seamlessly transition all existing campaigns. As part of this process, GRIT helped to facilitate access and setup logistics, enabling the college’s team to take full ownership of all digital accounts moving forward.

Setting Up Campaigns & Establishing Robust Online Dashboards

With the new accounts setup with proper access, GRIT worked with Thaddeus Stevens College to execute campaigns across Meta, Google, YouTube, and geofencing platforms. Spotify was also utilized to promote open house events. GRIT’s goal was to ensure a seamless transition and overall budget alignment through the agency transition.

To guide ongoing strategic campaign evaluation, optimization, and related advertising decision making, access to real-time data was essential. GRIT worked with Thaddeus Stevens College to set up reporting dashboards that provide important visibility and insights. The shareable online dashboards can be accessed at any time and customized by date range to pull performance updates.

Delivering Strategic Recommendations for Ongoing Campaign Optimization

During the first quarter of the partnership, GRIT analyzed campaign performance and collaborated with Thaddeus Stevens College to implement strategic improvements, including:

Defined key audiences—prospective students and parents—and deployed tailored messaging and creative for each.

Launched audience-specific campaigns on Google PMAX and Meta for programs needing enrollment or awareness support.

Rolled out refreshed open house campaigns across Meta, Google, Spotify, and geofencing platforms with new copy, creative, and calls to action.

Updated legacy creative using client-provided assets optimized for each placement and channel.

Integrated landing pages to drive priority enrollment actions such as information requests, tour scheduling, open house registration, and applications.

Optimized budgets and campaign structures to maximize the college’s marketing resources.

Tracking Success

As part of the partnership, GRIT continues to manage and monitor Thaddeus Stevens College’s digital ad campaigns and deliver and execute ongoing optimization recommendations to drive success.