Illustrative report · Early-education campaign — anonymized 2025 results with 2026 planning estimates.
A young child smiling brightly, joyfully covered in washable craft paint
Digital Advertising  ·  Full-Year Performance Report

National Early-Education Brand
Metro Enrollment Campaign

More reach. Less spend.

Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025 ◆ Goal: New-family enrollment ◆ Market: Major U.S. metro
Scroll to read the year
01 The headline

Clicks exceeded the revised forecast.

Total spend fell 12% year over year — $40,000 pulled mid-season. Yet the campaign beat even its lowered forecast. Clicks came in 40% above the post-cut projection, while average cost per click fell.

Clicks delivered
0
▼ 2% vs 2024 +40% vs 128,500 projected
Impressions
0
▼ 10% YoY vs 37.5M forecast
Cost per click
$0
▲ 11% more efficient
Cost per thousand
$0
▲ 2% more efficient
Unique users tracked
0
▲ 98% brand-new
Monthly cadence
0
impressions / mo · 15,050 clicks / mo
02Forecast vs. delivered

Results exceeded the revised forecast.

After the mid-year reduction, the plan was re-forecast down. Impressions and clicks both exceeded the revised forecast.

Post-cut forecast vs. actual delivery

Each pair compares the revised forecast after the $40,000 reduction with actual results. Bars use the same scale within each metric.

Re-forecast Actual delivered
MetricRe-forecastDeliveredΔ
Impressions37,500,00037,988,837+1.3%
Clicks128,500180,597+40.5%
03What actually happened

How the budget reduction changed the plan.

The original 2025 plan leaned into awareness: custom local video and a co-branded social push meant to lift Brand Media and Content Sponsorship. Then the budget dropped $40,000 mid-year. The social plan was scrapped; the video never cleared production. Because spend had already been shifted toward those bets, the pullback cost momentum elsewhere.

In Q4, spending shifted toward ads intended to generate inquiries. The revised plan

The response was to re-point the back half of the year from awareness to consideration — the tactics that drive inquiries, not just impressions. New retargeting went live. Employer geofencing was added. Budget concentrated behind the highest-clicking creative. The results below show the change in cost per click.

↓ Leaving in 2026

  • —Content Sponsorship & publisher takeovers
  • —Streaming Audio
  • —Streaming Video (OTT/CTV)
  • —Q4 Retargeting (pilot, not renewed)

↑ Keeping & growing in 2026

  • ✓Responsive / Native display — prioritize high-click content
  • ✓Addressable & Competitor / Employer geofencing
  • ✓One email / month + a resend-to-openers drip
  • ✓State Fair sponsorship
A jumble of colorful early-learning building blocks
The revised plan concentrated spending on tactics that generated more clicks per dollar. The 2025 approach
04Where the work came from

Impressions and clicks favored different tactics.

Within Brand Media, the tactic with the most impressions delivered the fewest clicks. Compare each tactic’s share of impressions and clicks when planning the 2026 budget.

Share of impressions vs. share of clicks

Within Brand Media (18.1M impressions · 126,535 clicks). Each tactic’s slice of total reach (left dot) connected to its slice of total response (right dot). When the line slopes up to the right, the tactic accounts for a larger share of clicks than impressions.

% of impressions % of clicks
TacticImpressions% impr.Clicks% clicks
05Content performance

Parenting content generated 76,059 clicks.

Native ads featuring parenting articles generated 76,059 clicks at a $0.38 cost-per-click and a 2.83% CTR — nearly 2× the 1.50% benchmark. Use the topics families clicked to plan future content.

A student writing a lesson on a classroom chalkboard
Review the topics readers clicked.
Native / blog clicks by topic

Bar length = clicks. Every topic beat the 1.50% CTR benchmark; the label shows each topic’s CTR. Emotional-development articles received the most clicks.

Blog topicImpressionsClicksCTR
06Compared with benchmarks

Every channel beat its benchmark.

Each tactic exceeded the benchmark shown below.

Actual vs. benchmark, by tactic

Each row is scaled to its own metric. The │ tick is the benchmark; the bar is what the campaign delivered. Every tactic ▲ beat its mark.

TacticMetricBenchmarkActualvs.
07The year in email

Email results across the year.

Fifteen Brand sends averaged a 18.97% open rate and 2.37% CTR — both above the benchmark. Engagement peaked mid-summer and around back-to-school.

Brand email open rate over 2025

Open rate per send. The dashed line is the 15% benchmark — every send but two cleared it. Hover for the send.

Send dateOpen rate
08 Model the next move

Now plan 2026.

Reallocate next year’s digital budget across the tactics you’re keeping. Projections use each tactic’s actual 2025 efficiency — its real cost-per-click and cost-per-thousand. Adjust a slider to see the updated estimates.

Budget allocation

Start from a preset, then fine-tune each tactic.

State Fair sponsorship Committed  $31,540
Your conversion assumptions
3.5%
10%

Cost per click and cost per thousand impressions use the 2025 results. Set the conversion rates using your own inquiry and enrollment history.

Projected 2026

Digital budget $130,110

Incl. $31,540 committed State Fair · $161,650 all-in

Impressions
—
vs 2025
Clicks
—
vs 2025
Inquiries
—
at your rate
Enrollments
—
projected
Where the digital budget goes