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About

NYC College Line supports New Yorkers to prepare for, get into, and complete college by connecting them to New York City-based programs as well as useful web-based resources. NYC College Line was created by Graduate NYC!, the City University of New York, the NYC Department of Education, and the Options Center of Goddard Riverside.

The Challenge

Having created an incredible online resource for college students in the five boroughs, NYC College Line then needed to grow its audience and better understand how students were using the site. They had a small and mighty team that needed extra help analyzing their social and web analytics to find actionable insights. Additionally, they wanted help A/B testing key areas of the site to better drive engagement.

What we did

Over the course of 2 years starting in 2013, Whole Whale worked with NYC College Line to improve the tracking and performance of their digital college resources.

Google Analytics

Whole Whale worked closely with the digital team to identify key engagements students could take on the platform and then map them to Google Analytics. We set up Google Dashboards that clearly displayed the website goals and performance.

A/B Testing

Whole Whale optimized the landing pages used for social referrals by performing A/B testing. This lead to a higher percentage of traffic conversions from partners and Google AdWord advertising. Through creative testing, we were able to identify a simple value statement that increased requests for advisors by 500% per month.

Digital Strategy

We also developed custom strategies for NYC College Line’s Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr platforms, all of which helped to build their online brand while sending more traffic to the site. As one example of this strategy, we used Followerwonk to identify the optimal times for Twitter activity based on when followers are most active.

Activity of College Line’s Twitter Followers by Hour

Testimonial

“It was a lifesaver to find the team at Whole Whale and work with them when we did. They are exceptionally talented and professional, and our organization benefitted greatly from working with them to add tech and analytical capacity when we didn’t have it internally. By sharing their expertise, we were able to make changes that immediately enhanced our product and drove positive results. Not only are they true professionals, but also great human beings. When we staffed up and our engagement ended, I felt like I was losing part of the team.”

-Lisa Castillo, Executive Director of Graduate NYC! (Feb 2014)