2026 EDUCATION ADVERTISING BENCHMARK REPORT
This free report shows what “best-in-class” student acquisition really looks like, and where your numbers stand by comparison.
Built from real campaign data from digital ads for online learning, career prep, and higher ed programs.
From the agency behind some of the world’s top learning brands:
See how you really stack up
Compare your CPL, SQL rate, and CAC to industry peers so you know whether to celebrate or course-correct.
Learn if your ads are resonating
See “top” and “average” click-through rates for ads on every major ad platform.
Get new insights from the data
For example: Career Prep programs average a 40% SQL rate, but top performers hit 60%. Learn what separates them.
Your ad performance needs more context.
Budgets are tight, attribution is murky, and every team is looking at different numbers: marketing, admissions, and finance. CPL is $75, CAC is $2,500. But is that good? Should it be half that? Or higher?
Without benchmarks, every decision becomes guesswork. Every budget meeting becomes a battle.
The good news: education advertising is not as unique as it seems. After working with dozens of programs, we have seen that performance metrics follow predictable patterns. And most teams are under- or over-investing without realizing it.
In this free 15-page guide, you’ll get real performance benchmarks from real ad accounts.
We’ve also thrown in performance insights from real campaigns,channel-by-channel ad benchmarks, and tips from our team on what to do when your numbers are off. All built for education marketing.
Includes data from:
Hear from marketers who put it into practice:
This doc is amazing–lots of great info that marketers can really benefit from. As a numbers nerd, you know I’m all about the metrics! This is a solid collection of the tools and tactics marketers need to bring their attribution models to life.
Packed with actionable tactics! This guide helped me understand what we’re doing right and what we’re missing. Whether it’s communication with leadership or working through the execution with my team – this guide connects the dots.
About Flywheel
We help education brands attract every kind of learner and drive transformational results.
We take a data-led, fractional approach, embedding with your team to align closely with your brand, metrics, and stakeholders. The education vertical is a core focus of our work at Flywheel, and our team brings deep expertise for driving student enrollments of all types. Read more about our education work.
FAQs
Our team compiled these numbers by reviewing anonymized data from our own clients, then cross-referencing additional third-party resources and each Flywheeler's historical experience.
The result is an unbiased look at what "good" benchmarks are for education brands specifically.
Our report is designed for anyone who wants context on their education advertising budget. This might be a Marketing Manager reporting to a VP of Enrollment. A VP presenting to a President. A founder of an online learning platform updating your investors. A coordinator supporting the head of student success.
We provide separate benchmarks for three types of education businesses:
- Online Courses & Certifications
- Career Training (Cohort-Based & Intensive Programs)
- Higher Education (Degree Programs)
You will learn:
- How your Cost per Lead, CAC, and SQL Rate compares to similar education programs.
- How your ads stack up by platform, with top-performer and average CTR benchmarks for Meta, Google, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit.
- Where most education programs lose performance and how to prioritize what to fix first.
If your CAC is higher than our benchmarks, the report's Insights section helps you diagnose where to start.
Most education programs have a gap in one of three areas: ad quality (CTR), offer strength (CPL), or lead quality (SQL rate). We'll show you how to identify which one is holding you back, and point you toward the right next step.
We highlight which channels perform best for each program type and how CTR benchmarks shift across Meta, Google, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit for Online Learning, Career Prep, and Higher Ed.
About the authors
Get Confident In Your Numbers.
Set you and your team up for success. Download Flywheel’s Education Advertising Benchmark Report to see how your numbers stack up, and where to optimize next.
