Making better decisions and making them earlier: institutional marketing strategies are changing.

A more competitive, volatile and complex landscape

I’m lucky to spend a lot of time working with marketing, strategy and planning teams at the UK’s great universities. Right now, in the thick of a very competitive 2026 undergraduate recruitment cycle, conversations share a familiar tone. As well as some confidence, there’s a great deal of pressure, a degree of anxiety and a sense of urgency. And there is an understanding that decisions made now will help shape results into the next recruitment cycle and even beyond.

I looked back at some observations I’d made in previous years on how competitive student recruitment is, and it’s clear that the competition has always been there, but today it involves every institution, whatever their ranking, mission group or tariff. It exists, across both domestic and international markets. But the landscape is more volatile now, shaped by offer making strategies, sudden policy changes, and unpredictable patterns of demand. And, while the sector has access to more data than ever before, that doesn’t always translate into strategic clarity.

Why making the right calls earlier really matters now

As Confirmation and Clearing approaches, those working at (and with) universities need to balance short term impact with the value that more significant, resource intensive strategic projects will deliver. At this difficult moment, there is less tolerance for any activity that feels speculative or low impact. So, we are focusing on helping our university partners make better decisions earlier and ensuring that what they choose to do makes a real difference. We are working hard to help them understand demand sooner and refining targeting strategies so they can be clearer about where investment will deliver the greatest return.

The current market context also means we are seeing demand for insights that can be deployed quickly and that answer very practical questions. Universities need to understand which groups of students are most likely to enrol at their institution and how much effort is realistically required to convert them. They’re asking us who should we be prioritising and how hard do we need to work with a campaign to get a positive result? Our audience targeting work (propensity modelling) helps answer those questions and is delivered in 6 to 8 weeks. This is high impact work.

Our analysis has helped institutions prioritise audiences and budgets, delivering success that hasn’t required more spend, just greater precision. Another important output is clarity on performance. At universities everyone is paying much closer attention to marketing ROI and our work enables teams to explain strategic decisions and outcomes very clearly to internal stakeholders.

When targeting and portfolio strategy work together

Alongside a more rigorous approach to targeting, universities are also taking a more considered view of their portfolio. Demand trends remain important, but they are not enough on their own. Understanding where demand exists is very different from understanding where an institution can genuinely compete and win. We see situations where fast‑growing subject areas appear attractive on paper but are dominated by a small number of well‑established providers. At the same time, other parts of the portfolio — perhaps with less dramatic demand growth — offer stronger conversion, clearer differentiation and better short‑term recruitment potential.

Our horizon‑focused portfolio insight helps institutions make decisions with confidence. This might be which courses to prioritise now, where to focus recruitment effort and where a longer‑term strategic response may be more appropriate. I’ve seen some of the biggest positive impacts when a data-led, targeting and portfolio strategy combine, giving a university a much clearer picture of where to focus, who to prioritise and how success is most likely to be achieved. This combination ensures campaign budgets are not wasted.

Turning insight into action across the applicant journey

Lastly, all this insight is most powerful when it helps shape decisions right across the marketing and communications team. Universities making the most progress are those that use these insights to support the whole applicant journey, whether that’s outreach, messaging, media investment or conversion strategy. At this stage in the cycle, our university partners don’t need more demands on their time, they need insights that directly improve recruitment outcomes. As we approach a very important C&C period do get in touch if you’d like to have a conversation about what’s still possible for this cycle and the next.