Carnegie Higher Ed connects the right prospective students with the right universities through digital strategy and enrollment marketing. In this episode, Amy Orlando, Director of Social Media Marketing at Carnegie Higher Ed, shares how her team leaned into TikTok early and built a full-funnel approach for clients that lowered cost per click by 75% while increasing clicks by 640%. Amy explains how the team integrated community interaction with traffic campaigns to unlock those results without a major budget lift.

She breaks down how TikTok-specific creative workflows power their playbook, including TTO, TikTok Symphony, Spark Ads, and leveraging organic content for paid. Amy also covers how Carnegie tests new features and creative formats, helping clients reach prospective undergrads, grad students, and parents while positioning Carnegie as an innovator in higher ed advertising.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• How Carnegie Higher Ed used a full-funnel TikTok strategy to lower CPC by 75% and increase clicks by 640%.

• The role of a community interaction campaign alongside traffic campaigns to drive efficient performance with a minimal budget increase.

• How to build TikTok ad creative at scale using TTO, TikTok Symphony, Spark Ads, and organic-to-paid workflows.

• Why meeting audiences where they are on TikTok matters for undergrad, grad, and parent segments.

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This is a TikTok case study and is solely for informational purposes. Past performance does not guarantee or predict future performance. All claims related to brand products including, without limitation, the effectiveness, sales, or quality of such products are brand-reported and not endorsed or verified by TikTok.