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Does AI personalization improve virtual tour engagement?

Why personalized experiences are essential and tips for maximizing impact

April 8, 2025, By Steven Lambert, Associate Director, Partner Success, Virtual Tours

Topic

Marketing and Enrollment

Tag

Breaking through the noise to reach today’s high school students is hard. With 51% of US teenagers spending at least 4 hours daily on social media—and seeing an estimated 1,260 ads per day—college outreach can easily get lost in the shuffle. In this environment, colleges need new and creative strategies and tactics to engage prospective students. That’s where personalization can help.

According to our new student survey, students want personalization. Ninety-three percent of students said that receiving a personalized message from a college would encourage them to explore a school further. The majority of students also said that receiving personalized communications from colleges makes them feel “desired as a prospective student” and “connected to the college.”

How personalization can drive up virtual tour engagement

We already know that virtual tours are a uniquely effective tool for engaging students, and incorporating personalization can help your institution stand out even further. Our EAB Appily Tours offer an AI Personalization feature which allows students to use pre-select categories or enter open text to indicate what they hope to learn in their virtual “visit.” This new feature has been impactful, with students spending an average of two minutes and forty-two seconds longer on a school’s virtual tour when they personalize their experience.

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average increase in time students spend on virtual tours when they personalize their experience with our new AI feature.

Tips to maximize the impact of your personalized virtual tour content

While AI Personalization is a powerful tool, it’s important to optimize your virtual tour for best results. Here are a few tips to help you maximize the impact of personalized content within your virtual tour.

1. Use data to optimize your tour experience

It’s essential to review data to learn what topics students find most engaging and adapt your content strategy to ensure your personalized content is resonating, We aggregated Appily Tours partner data to highlight the top search categories generated by our AI Personalization feature. Students are most interested in topics related to student life, like dorms/residences, dining, recreation/clubs, and more. Given that these are students’ most sought-after topics, it’s essential to have robust, highly engaging content from a variety of voices in these areas.

How EAB partners can optimize their experience with AI Personalization data

It’s important to review your own school-specific tour data to understand where you can optimize your experience. For EAB partners who have AI Personalization active in your tour, simply log into the Content Management System to review the top search categories along with the destinations visited from those search results. The data from the modules can help guide you on where to add or edit content in your tour, rearrange destinations, or update your audio guide content. Partners can also add content in the Media Galleries for each destination to expand what students can learn about your campus. Use our AI Descriptions tool to help you write strong narrations for images that further tell the story of your school. Healthy Media Gallery content fuels our AI Search feature, providing student visitors multiple opportunities to find the right content at the right time.

Seemingly small updates to user experience can have a big impact. When Appily Tours partner Point Loma Nazarene optimized their Media Galleries based on AI Personalization data and best practices, they saw an impressive 33% increase in visitor interactions and longer average time on tour.

2. Feature student voices to ensure that your content feels authentic

Sixty-six percent of Gen Z report that they’ve purchased a product that appeared in user-generated content. This reflects the high value today’s teens place on authentic messaging. Student voices can tell them about experiences on your campus that they will trust and value.

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Having real students talk about their experience at the school was extremely helpful, along with showing facilities and their favorite spots on campus.
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Current First-Year College Student

Incorporate student-generated content to boost your tour’s trust factor. Check out how Oakland University’s athletics tour stop features interviews from current student athletes.

Stay ahead with personalized engagement

Personalized virtual tours can help your school stand out in a world full of demands and distractions. By making small but strategic updates—like incorporating real student voices and optimizing your content based on data—you can create a more engaging experience that keeps prospective students exploring longer.