Samenvatting

The following research justification report explains to what extent the current tracking of performance of the IHS digital communication channels is effective for the decision-making process. Having a clear monitoring strategy is a crucial component for the success of any marketing campaign. The research is based on the following information gaps:
1) The role of digital marketing in higher education and student recruitment.
2) The importance of tracking the performance of digital communication channels.
3) The anticipation of the marketing officers regarding digital marketing, utilisation of communication platforms, and monitoring their performance.
4) The level of performance of the general marketing & recruitment channels.
5) The level of performance of social media channels.

To fill in these gaps, literature research and field research are conducted. The field research consists of two parts – semi-structured interviews with four full-time employees from the Marketing & Communications team at IHS, and evaluation of performance using web analytical tools. The results from the interviews prove to be reliable and internally valid.
However, due to certain research limitations and enough insights from the literature review and the interviews, the work of other educational institutions has not been considered. The discussions have been transcribed and deductively coded. The main tools used for web analytics include Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics and Facebook Ad Manager, eMarkteteer Analytics and YouTube Studio.

Results show that the performance of the digital marketing channels and campaigns of IHS is already quite satisfying. Yet, several things can be optimised in terms of reporting. Five main points of improvement have been identified after the literature review and the interviews, which have provided a basis for building the professional product.

To increase its effectiveness and the success of its activities, it is recommended that the marketing team considers the subsequent five suggestions for improvement:
1) Create a template with the key metrics, topics & channels
2) Provide future interns with tutorial materials and a training
3) Create a dashboard that presents overall performance of channels
4) Change towards more frequent meetings
5) Improve certain aspects of the campaigns and the channels

These recommendations can be implemented in the IHS strategy in a time frame of one week to six months, depending on the level of easiness.

Taking these recommendations into account, will help IHS improve the current performance of the online channels and progress further the reporting system that tracks this performance.
This paper can be considered a valuable source of information as it examines three different types of research methods and can be used by other institutions as a starting point for reporting
of web performance.