3 key trends in tertiary education to maximise your roi

Australian colleges enrol hundreds of thousands of students each year, with international students making up a significant portion. However, the sector is facing mounting challenges including increasing competition across education pathways, the emerging risk of AI impacting course demand, and major regulatory changes affecting international student enrolments.

To stay competitive, colleges must rethink how they acquire, engage, and retain students in an environment that is evolving faster than ever.

At ADMATIC, we bring more than 10 years of tertiary education experience, working alongside some of Australia’s leading education institutions. We understand that the college sector is now more competitive than ever and facing new pressures that demand sharper strategies.

With students increasingly exploring non-traditional pathways and emerging technologies disrupting course relevance, colleges need to navigate shifting trends, changing student behaviour, and new marketing challenges to stay ahead.

In this article, we explore three key trends colleges must prioritise to drive enrolments and secure their position in the future education landscape.

Today’s students are savvier than ever and their path to enrolment is rarely straightforward.

Google’s “messy middle” concept highlights the non-linear nature of student decision-making: students now loop between exploration and evaluation stages repeatedly before making a final decision. Prospective college students don’t simply research a college and enrol; instead, they engage with dozens of digital touch points from social media and peer reviews to industry forums and job-readiness rankings.

For instance, a prospective student considering a diploma in IT might begin by searching “best colleges for IT courses in Australia,” but over several weeks they’ll watch TikTok career videos, explore student vlogs on YouTube, browse LinkedIn job pathways, and discuss options in online communities. Only after this extensive engagement will they make a shortlist and apply.

Relying mainly on Google and Meta ads means missing key moments in the student journey. Modern students engage across a wide range of platforms, including TikTok, LinkedIn, digital TV networks, and student forums. Colleges must map out the full student journey to ensure they are present at every crucial touchpoint. This approach reduces wasted marketing spend and ensures institutions connect with students when they are ready to make a decision.

As of 2025, nearly half of all digital engagement occurs outside of Google and Meta ecosystems. While these platforms remain key players, 48% of student interactions happen across alternative platforms such as TikTok, LinkedIn, Snapchat, digital TV networks, and Spotify.

Over-relying on Google and Meta limits reach and overlooks key opportunities. Many colleges focus their digital marketing budgets on these platforms without considering how their audience is distributed across emerging channels. While search engines are critical during the evaluation phase, a broader multi-platform strategy is required to attract prospective students earlier in the journey.

ADMATIC advocates for a bottom-up funnel approach, determining optimal investment in conversion channels while allocating budget to capture audiences beyond Google and Meta through our proprietary solution, ADIndex. ADIndex analyses diminishing returns for each channel using hundreds of data points, enabling universities to pinpoint exactly where additional spend generates real impact and where it’s wasted. This ensures no more over-reliance on Google and Meta at the expense of high-performing emerging platforms like TikTok and digital TV networks.

A bottom-up funnel approach where colleges optimise core conversion channels while investing smartly in upper- and mid-funnel brand building is now essential. A strong multi-platform presence ensures colleges capture student attention early, when preferences are still being formed. Recognising the diminishing returns from a single-channel approach and expanding into diverse platforms is essential for colleges seeking sustained growth.

With the decline of third-party cookies and tightening privacy laws, precision targeting has become both more challenging and more critical.

Platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, and LinkedIn offer advanced segmentation tools that go beyond basic demographic targeting enabling colleges to reach students based on interests, career aspirations, and behavioural signals.

First-party data strategies are now a must. Colleges that build and leverage CRM-driven lookalike audiences and predictive models will be able to maintain targeting accuracy even as broader digital tracking becomes restricted.

At the same time, colleges must shift from broad, brand-focused campaigns to course-by-course marketing strategies. Students are increasingly searching for specific career pathways and niche qualifications whether it’s a Certificate IV in Cyber Security, a Diploma of Early Childhood Education, or an Advanced Diploma of Leadership and Management.

An always-on, course-level approach enables colleges to tailor messaging, creative assets, and targeting for each course offering, ensuring they meet students’ real-world career ambitions at the moment of interest. Instead of only promoting the college as a whole, successful institutions position each course as a direct gateway to job outcomes and future success.

Final Thoughts

The Australian college sector is entering a period of transformation. Those who adapt to emerging challenges – rising competition, AI-driven course disruption, and shifting regulatory landscapes will emerge stronger, while those who stick to old models risk falling behind.

At ADMATIC, we help education providers navigate these shifts with smarter marketing strategies engineered for today’s dynamic environment. If you’re ready to future-proof your college’s recruitment strategy, let’s connect and build the next generation of student success together.