Northbridge Learning

(Business name changed for confidentiality)

Role

Digital Marketing & Operations Lead

Timeframe

June 2021 - November 2022

Scope

SEO, Google Ads, Email Marketing, Content Strategy & Funnel Design

Operating Model

Agile In-House Team (2 developers, 1 graphic designer, part-time admissions & support)

The Situation

A fast-growing UK education platform had achieved early product–market fit and was beginning to scale nationally. Demand for tuition was rising, but growth was constrained by:

  • Marketing spend was generating volume, but the cost of each new student and first lesson was limiting how confidently the business could scale.

  • Not all enquiries reflected genuine intent, creating inefficiencies for both the sales process and the tutor matching team.

  • The journey from initial search to confirmed booking lacked a joined-up structure, making it harder to optimise conversion and forecast growth reliably.

By mid-2021, the business was delivering around 587 lessons per month, with paid acquisition costs limiting how quickly growth could be scaled sustainably.

The Challenge

The leadership team needed to move from “campaign-driven growth” to a repeatable, commercially efficient growth engine poised for buyout that could:

  • Increase lesson volume consistently throughout the academic year

  • Reduce cost per acquisition

  • Build long-term organic demand and buck seasonality trends

  • Align marketing performance with tutor supply, student experience and operational capacity

  • Create confidence in forecasting during peak exam seasons

The Approach

The strategy focused on first aligning the full funnel, then scaling what worked:

ALIGN

  1. Clarified the commercial growth model: from traffic → sign-up → qualified match → introduction → first booking → repeat lessons

  2. Rebuilt tracking and attribution across the entire funnel

  3. Aligned messaging, content, and intent with real student and parent needs

  4. Integrated marketing performance with operational workflows and tutor availability

SCALE

  1. Systemised SEO and content around high-intent search demand

  2. Restructured Google Ads for efficiency and intent matching

  3. Designed lifecycle email journeys to improve activation and conversion

  4. Built forecasting and performance dashboards to guide spend and capacity decisions

The Execution

Delivered through close collaboration with development, design and operations:

  • Authority-led content and technical optimisation drove sustained organic growth, reducing long-term dependency on paid media.

  • Intent-led campaign structure, query sculpting, and conversion optimisation improved both volume and efficiency.

  • Automated nurture and reactivation journeys improved sign-up to booking conversion and repeat lesson rates.

  • Booking flows, form design and messaging alignment increased throughput without increasing support load.

The Results

Peak Monthly Lessons

Exam season high of 3,665 up from 587 at the start of the academic year.

Lessons Delivered

28,343

A 4–5x increase in total platform usage, up from around 6000 lessons at project start.

Cost Per Sign-Up

£30

Down from £70 through funnel optimisation.

Cost Per New Lesson

£50

Reduced from £120 at scale.

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