How to mitigate marketing fatigue in higher education

“Marketing fatigue” is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot these days. But it is a real phenomenon, one that I’ve seen first-hand working on Appily Advance digital ads. The average person sees around 5,000 ads per day, and some national online giants are spending well over $100 million a year to saturate the market with ads, which means prospective students who are constantly being marketed to by colleges are inundated with messaging.

Competition among graduate and adult-serving programs is increasing for a limited pool of students—so how does your program avoid getting lost in the shuffle? As institutions face mounting pressure to meet enrollment goals, it’s crucial to understand and combat marketing fatigue in order to ensure your outreach efforts continue to generate high-intent leads.

What is marketing fatigue in higher education?

Marketing fatigue in higher education is when prospective students become desensitized to or overwhelmed by repetitive digital advertisements, leading to lower engagement. One of the clearest signs of marketing fatigue is a drop in key performance indicators (KPIs) like click-through rates (CTR) on long-standing digital ads. When ad performance stagnates, ad platforms deprioritize them, which further limits reach and effectiveness.

Stealth shopping behavior makes this phenomenon even harder to track. Many prospective grad and adult learners research programs independently without engaging with institutions, making it harder to identify and recruit leads. On top of that, US institutions added nearly 14,000 new graduate programs between 2005 and 2021—a 69% increase. This has flooded the market and intensified competition, driving up digital marketing costs and making it harder for programs to break through the noise.

When marketing fatigue sets in, prospective students engage less often and institutions lose out on opportunities to identify interested leads. And as engagement declines, so does the efficiency of your marketing spend.

Are You Allocating Your Marketing Budget Wisely?

4 strategies to mitigate marketing fatigue in higher education

Though marketing fatigue is inevitable to some degree, you can address this issue with a strategic approach that combines messaging, creative testing, and platform diversification.

Align audience insights with institutional goals

Take time to conduct research into what messages would resonate most with your audience. This could look like interviewing or polling current students and alumni to understand what their priorities were when they applied. Then, choose 2-3 themes to test in your creative based on your research findings. Examples could include flexibility, modality options, and financial aid. Make sure that your chosen themes also support your institution’s unique objectives.

Create a messaging framework

Develop an A/B testing framework that allows you to test themes with multiple versions of messaging and imagery. For example, you could test:

• An image of an individual student vs. a group of students
• Digital art vs. real-life photography
• Different color palettes

This process ensures that you’re spending your budget on the ads that will be most impactful, maintaining engagement even in highly competitive environments.

Regular iteration and adjustment

Keep an eye on your ads’ KPIs to recognize when they may need a refresh. Sometimes, fatigue can be lessened with simple creative refreshes—for example, switching out a picture of your campus with one of a person. These subtle shifts can help solve for true fatigue, where prospects begin to numb themselves to the same creative images over time.

We have found that these subtle shifts can help revive otherwise fatigued campaigns and bring back consistent performance. But if simple switches are no longer providing a boost, it may be time to start from the top and rethink your messaging themes. This can be a larger lift, but keep in mind that you can try using previously successful imagery with your new messaging. No need to reinvent the wheel!

Platform fatigue management

Beyond ad creative, platform fatigue can also play a role in declining engagement. Platforms often optimize ad performance over time, but when fatigue sets in, pausing a platform temporarily can sometimes help reset performance. But this approach should be a last resort, because stopping campaigns entirely can disrupt long-term optimization. Instead, if you have a limited budget, you may benefit from maintaining low-cost “sacrificial” ads to keep analytics on a specific platform active while exploring alternative channels.

The importance of high-volume, high-quality leads

Even the best testing strategies have their limits. Institutions should supplement their paid advertising efforts with high-intent lead sources to work towards consistently reaching enrollment goals. Sources like Appily Advance can help by providing a high volume of pre-qualified, high-intent leads, helping institutions offset the impact of marketing fatigue. By connecting with students actively seeking programs, enrollment teams can maintain a strong pipeline without relying solely on traditional paid advertising.

Stay ahead of marketing fatigue and boost enrollment

Marketing fatigue is an unavoidable reality, but it doesn’t have to derail your enrollment efforts. By implementing strategic message testing, refreshing creative elements, and leveraging high-quality lead generation solutions like Appily Advance, you can maintain steady engagement even in a crowded digital landscape.

By staying agile and data-driven, institutions can overcome marketing fatigue and continue connecting with the right students, at the right time, with the right message. Focus on sustainable practices and diversified lead sources to keep your enrollment pipeline strong and resilient, no matter the competition.