đđ˝ Use this guide if:
Youâd like to increase the volume of sign-ups to your platform
You want to optimize the placement of your traffic drivers to boost engagement
Youâd like to balance the workload of your student ambassadors
You want to provide a relevant and appealing experience to prospects
đ Our best practice recommendations
Use one of the available traffic drivers per page of your website. Multiple traffic drivers on one page can compete for studentsâ attention, and make it confusing for students to pick an ambassador to chat with.
Be wary of altering the snippet codes provided to you in your dashboard. The codes are customized to your Unibuddy platform, and editing them may cause issues.
Each traffic driver provides different value: Want a traffic driver to stand out and highlight your students, diversity and varied programs? Use the popcard. If you want something that lives directly in your page and highlights more than one student at a time, use the carousel. Want to highlight staff? Use a staff popcard or staff buddy card.
While our traffic drivers are a great way to quickly weave the value of peer-to-peer connections throughout your website, theyâre not the only options available to you. We encourage all of our partners to consider adding your own calls-to-action and traffic drivers to your website. You can simply have these buttons redirect students to the page on which your Chat platform is embedded.
đ Improving yield
Itâs important to consider where within the hierarchy of your website youâre placing your traffic drivers. Higher in the hierarchy (on more visible pages like your homepage, or student life page) will generate much greater awareness, leading to increased student sign-ups, and eventually more applications for your institution.
If youâre looking to improve yield, try adding our âPopcardâ traffic driver to the homepage of your website. If you already have lots of competing calls-to-action on the site, you can build your own call-to-action for Unibuddy, so that it can fit into your existing navigation. Or, you can consider swapping an existing CTA with the Unibuddy traffic driver to see which performs best.
If you have an area of study that is not yielding well, consider highlighting a student and/or staff ambassador to ensure prospective students know how wonderful your programs are. Use a popcard or buddy card on relevant academic pages to improve your customer service, inform your prospects and ultimately enhance your yield efforts.
đŚIf you have a particularly high traffic homepage, you may find that prospective students are using Unibuddy to ask simple questions, such as high-level âtransactional questionsâ about admissions. A âchat bubbleâ would be best on these pages.đŚ
đĄ If youâre worried about replacing existing CTAâs with the Unibuddy platform, remember that you can train your student and staff ambassadors to redirect students to the areas of your site that youâd like students to visit and explore.
đ Managing the placement of traffic drivers
How can you ensure that you have maximised coverage, and have placed your traffic drivers on the pages that will generate the most sign-ups?
There is no one-size-fits-all approach as each website is unique. Like all marketing initiatives, experimentation is the best way to improve those visitor-to-sign-up conversions.
Pay close attention to the traffic drivers youâve embedded on your site, and consider auditing them to understand where they sit on the page, and if the ambassadors or content they show is relevant.
Carousel traffic drivers work well when embedded among the content of a particular page thatâs lower in your website hierarchy (e.g. on specific degree program pages).
Make sure youâre using the filtered versions of your carousels, buddycards, and popcards - so that the ambassadors shown are relevant to the students current search.
Even better, include mentions to specific ambassadors inside the content of the page, and place a buddy card adjacent to the mention for maximum impact.