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Bolkas

Case study

American University in Bulgaria

Higher education · International recruitment

Engagement result

+55%

Application growth

Seven-year record

Students in a tiered lecture hall watching a presentation

Scaling international student acquisition across 21 markets.

Performance campaigns across 21 markets turned AUBG’s online recruitment into a repeatable acquisition engine, delivering the university’s best results in seven years.

Focus
Student acquisition, performance
Published

By Apostolos Bolkas

The results

Best performance in seven years.

The programme marked the university’s strongest recruitment cycle in seven years, winning a Gold Bright Award for best digital campaign.

Fragmented international recruitment was replaced with a scalable acquisition system the university could repeat year after year.

  • 21

    Markets activated

    International markets

  • Bright Awards Gold

    Award

    Best digital campaign

Project context

My role and the results.

My contribution
I planned and ran international recruitment campaigns across 21 markets, covering market weighting, budget allocation, localised messaging, paid media, and improvements to the application journey.
What the figures describe
The 55% increase refers to online student applications. The 21 markets describe the campaign’s geographic coverage. Applications are an earlier stage than admission or enrolment; the figure describes recruitment activity alongside the university’s wider admissions work.

The challenge

AUBG’s challenge wasn’t volume. It was consistency. Each market behaved differently, budgets were fragmented, and previous recruitment efforts relied on one-off campaigns that could not scale year after year.

My brief was to design and operate a recruitment engine that respected local nuance while scaling globally: align budgets to market potential, tailor messaging to audience motivations, and keep the funnel efficient from first touch to submitted application.

Operating realities

  1. Media consumption varied significantly across all 21 international recruitment markets
  2. Messaging had to be localised without fragmenting the overall institutional strategy
  3. Competition within international higher education was intense and heavily funded
  4. Success meant converting cross-border interest into completed applications, not just enquiries

Key architectural decisions

  • Decision 01

    Centralise intelligence, localise execution

    Market weighting, segmentation, and data-driven budget logic ensured every euro worked harder in high-propensity regions.

  • Decision 02

    Design one acquisition engine, not 21 campaigns

    Unified funnel logic and multi-channel orchestration allowed me to manage complexity without losing local relevance.

  • Decision 03

    Optimise for completed applications, not clicks

    Conversion optimisation, continuous funnel testing, and lead quality scoring focused efforts on students actually likely to enrol.

Implementation

  1. Market analysis

    Market analysis & segmentation

    Built a market-weighting model across 21 countries using behavioural and demand signals to guide budget allocation.

  2. Multi-channel

    Multi-channel execution

    Ran coordinated social, search, and programmatic campaigns using shared messaging frameworks and market-specific creatives.

  3. Conversion

    Funnel optimisation

    Continuously tested landing flows, retargeting cadence, and lead handling to maximise completed applications.

Selected proof

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Repeatable systems

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Most growth programmes fail because they’re built to run once. Let’s design something that compounds.

What happens next

  1. You share your website, work email, and any context.
  2. I review your website, messaging, and enquiry journey myself.
  3. Within five business days, I email you three prioritised improvements. No sales call is required.
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