Education Advertising Benchmark Report (Flywheel)

Summary:

This report looks at how much education companies pay for leads and students from digital ads, broken down by segment and platform.

It was published by Flywheel, a marketing agency selling growth and ad services to education companies. The benchmarks blend Flywheel's own client data with outside research and industry conversations, without breaking down how much comes from each source.

Key insights:
• Online learning is the cheapest category: average cost per lead is $35 and cost per customer is $190; top performers reach $10 and $63.
• Career prep costs far more: average cost per lead is $150, and cost per customer is $2,500; top performers reach $60 and $1,000.
• Higher education is the most expensive: average cost per lead is $300, and cost per customer is $9,000; top performers reach $25 and $4,000.
• Lead quality also differs by segment — online learning and career prep have higher SQL rates than higher ed.
• Google takes the biggest channel share for career prep, while higher ed and online learning spread spend more evenly.
• On ad engagement, Google search has the strongest CTRs in the report. Meta works best as a testing ground, LinkedIn suits career-focused offers, TikTok reaches younger learners, and Reddit performs weakly.

Margin notes:
This is a vendor report, and the final pages pitch Flywheel's own services directly. The numbers can work as directional benchmarks, but sample size, selection rules, and calculation methods aren't disclosed, so they're hard to verify.
Blending client data with outside research and unnamed insider input makes the findings weaker than the headline figures suggest.