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The $10M Google Ads Funnel for Online Schools

  • Modified on November 27, 2025
Nik Vdovenko founder at nn.partners
I hope you enjoy reading this blog post. If you want my team to do ads and analytics for you, schedule your call here
Author: Nik Vdovenko | Founder of nn.partners

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Most online schools are wasting ad spend. Not because their offer is bad, but because their Google Ads account is structured backward.

After helping education providers generate over $10M in revenue, we’ve developed and tested a full-funnel Google Ads strategy that consistently lowers cost per enrollment, improves ROAS, and creates a system that actually scales.

If your current setup isn’t delivering results, here’s the exact framework we use to fix it.

Google Ads Funnel for Online Schools by nn.partners

1. Demand Generation (YouTube and Discovery)

This is your top-of-funnel engine. It’s often overlooked.

While most advertisers compete over a small pool of search traffic, you can reach a much wider audience by targeting users similar to your best students.

What works well right now:

  • Program teasers and explainer videos
  • YouTube Shorts
  • Student spotlight stories
  • Carousel ads that highlight course benefits

The goal here is not immediate conversion. It’s to build awareness and interest, then send traffic to a mid-funnel landing page where they can learn more and begin to engage.

2. Demand Capture (Search, Performance Max, DSA)

This is where most of your enrollments will come from. But only if the campaigns are structured properly.

We break campaigns down by:

  • Program-specific keywords
  • Admission-related queries
  • Competitor brand terms
  • General high-intent searches like “best online coding bootcamp”

Broad match search campaigns often deliver the best results at scale. Use Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) and Performance Max (PMax) to fill in the gaps, but each campaign must have a clear focus.

And always send traffic to relevant landing pages. That might be an admissions overview, a specific program page, or a course comparison.

3. Branded Search and Remarketing

This is where many schools quietly lose a lot of revenue.

To fix this, we recommend:

At this stage, messaging should build trust and help people complete the next step without confusion or hesitation.

Why This Structure Works

This isn’t a bunch of disconnected campaigns. It’s a system where each part plays a specific role.

  • YouTube and Discovery generate attention
  • Search and PMax capture intent
  • Branded and remarketing campaigns convert those who need a final push

Each campaign has a job. Each stage feeds the next. That’s what makes it scalable.

Want to See This in Your Own Account?

If you’re running Google Ads for an online school and spending $30K or more per month, we can help you apply this structure and scale with confidence.

Book a free strategy call and we’ll show you what this would look like in your business.

Nik Vdovenko founder at nn.partners

Nik Vdovenko

Hi, I’m Nik Vdovenko—founder and CEO at nn.partners. I’m on a mission to match great businesses with great marketing and analytics. I work with an awesome, globally-distributed team from my base in Portugal, and together, we focus on making sure every dollar you spend on Google, Meta, and Microsoft ads drives more sales and profit for your business. Follow me for industry insights, practical guides, and proven strategies to help you grow your business, save time, and get a lasting competitive edge in the digital marketplace.
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Google Ads Funnel for Online Schools FAQ

When schools first encounter this funnel, the reaction is almost always the same: “Why has no one shown us this before?” And it makes sense. Google Ads for online education is noisy. There are endless tactics, countless opinions, and a lot of half-finished setups that drain budgets long before they ever drive predictable enrollments.

That’s why an FAQ is useful here. Not to repeat the article, but to clarify the mechanics behind the $10M funnel: how the stages work together, what mistakes to avoid, and how to know whether your own account is structured to scale. Think of this section as the connective tissue that fills in the gaps, removes uncertainty, and helps you understand exactly why this approach works so consistently for online schools.

If you want the full picture before you rebuild or restructure your campaigns, start with the questions below.

Most schools don’t mess up their Google Ads because they’re careless – they mess up because the fundamentals get lost in a sea of trends, outdated advice, and rapid platform changes.

Google’s best practices shift constantly. User behavior shifts even faster. What worked two years ago can quietly become the worst thing to do today. So schools end up copying whatever tactic is trending, whatever another school claims is working, or whatever Google pushes in the interface.

Meanwhile, the fundamentals: tracking the right conversions, structuring campaigns in a way the algorithm understands, and matching messaging to intent, get ignored. And when the foundation is weak, even the “right” strategies collapse.

This is how well-meaning schools end up with overly complicated setups, missing demand generation entirely, relying on outdated “SKAGs” style structures, or letting Performance Max eat out their branded traffic and run wild without guidance.

Real Results:  One California training provider had spent over $800K on bottom-funnel search ads alone before we stepped in. After restructuring the account into a full funnel, their cost per enrollment dropped by nearly half and revenue hit historic highs within 12 months.


Takeaway: Schools run Google Ads backwards because trends are loud, fundamentals are quiet, and both Google and human behavior evolve too quickly to rely on outdated playbooks. When you return to the basics — tracking, structure, communication — the entire system starts working again.

You’re likely losing enrollments if any of this is happening:

  • You get clicks but no real lift in enrollments.
  • Your results swing week to week with no clear reason.
  • Your ad costs grow, but you aren’t seeing more enrollments.
  • PMax spends on broad traffic instead of your key program pages.
  • You can’t trace revenue back to specific campaigns or keywords.

These are classic signs of a funnel that isn’t aligned with how students search or how Google optimizes.

Real Results: One California school we audited saw the same symptoms. After restructuring their funnel, cost per enrollment dropped 35 percent and they hit their best revenue quarter.

Takeaway: If performance feels unpredictable or disconnected from actual enrollments, your setup is leaking demand. A well structured Google Ads account should feel stable and explainable. If it doesn’t, something is off.

Yes. They absolutely can, but not in the way most schools expect.

YouTube and Discovery aren’t meant to close the sale on the spot in most cases. They create demand. They put your school in front of people who look like your ideal students before they ever search for you. When set up correctly, these campaigns warm up large audiences, increase branded searches, and dramatically lower the cost of capturing intent later through Search, Direct, and other channels.

If you only judge them by last-click conversions, they’ll look weak. If you track branded lift, conversion rate lift across the website, and mid-funnel engagement, you can see the real effect.

Real Results: For one certification school, YouTube alone boosted branded searches by more than 100% percent in six months, which directly fed cheaper enrollments in Search. Within a year, their total revenue climbed to the strongest in company history.

Takeaway: YouTube and Discovery won’t close the enrollment, but they make your Search campaigns far cheaper and far more scalable. They’re the fuel that makes the rest of your funnel work.

Top-of-funnel campaigns work, but they need time, volume, and consistency. If you’re new to YouTube or Demand Gen, you don’t want to overspend or underfund the part of the funnel that takes the longest to mature.

A good starting point is 10 percent of your total ads budget. This gives you enough reach to warm up audiences without starving your core Search and PMax campaigns.

If you want to be more aggressive, you can push this to 20 to 30 percent, but only if the rest of your funnel is strong and you’re ready to commit to a longer time horizon. Think in terms of quarters, not weeks. People who see your videos today may not search for your program until next month.

Real Results: One California education provider allocated roughly 15 percent to YouTube for a full quarter. Their branded search volume rose consistently, and three months later they recorded one of the strongest enrollment periods in company history.

Takeaway: Start lean at 10 percent, scale up to 20 to 30 percent once your tracking and structure are solid, and always budget with multi-month timelines in mind. Top-of-funnel is a momentum engine, not a quick win.

Branded search is the lowest cost, highest intent traffic your online school will ever get. These are people who already know you, trust you, and are actively looking for your name. Ignoring branded search means leaving that prime real estate unprotected.

If you don’t bid on your brand, your competitors will. And when someone searches your school name but sees their ad on top, they’ll click it. They’ll enroll with them. And you’ll pay for the awareness while they collect the revenue.

On the flip side, a well-run branded search campaign costs almost nothing and delivers some of the best ROAS in the entire account.

Real Results: When one of our California clients finally launched branded search, their ROAS doubled almost overnight. Competitors who had been quietly stealing their demand were pushed out, and enrollments increased by double digits within weeks.

Takeaway: Treat branded search as your school’s front door. Guard it, own it, and never leave it open for competitors to walk through to take your students.