AI Search, Cross-Border Demand, and Performance Channels for Universities Launching and Scaling Online Programs

Description

Audience-building for online programs is undergoing a meaningful shift in 2026. Across major markets, universities launching new online and professional programs are actively rebuilding how they reach, engage, and enroll prospective students. What was once handled through familiar paid search and brand campaigns is now becoming more integrated with cross-border channel strategy, AI-mediated discovery, and multi-platform performance. This discussion will explore how leading universities are approaching audience strategy for newly launched online programs, from channel mix and source-market prioritization to creative positioning, attribution, and the prospective student experience. We will examine how institutions are identifying audience signal, improving acquisition efficiency, and building internal alignment across enrollment, marketing, and program leadership as the digital landscape continues to evolve.

Speakers

Shawana Singletary

Assistant Vice President and Chief Enrollment Officer, Adelphi University

Toby Wang

Business Development Manager, ADTiger

Jennifer Wells

Director of Marketing, Goldey-Beacom College

Lisa Ellrich

Director of Admissions & Assistant Vice President for Enrollment, University of Maine at Farmington

Dr. Emmanuel Lalande

Senior Vice President of Enrollment Strategy and Student Success, Columbia College Chicago

Mirka Martel

Head of Research, Evaluation and Learning, the Institute of International Education (IIE)

Guided Questions

Shawana Singletary

Shawana, Adelphi put international, undergraduate, and graduate admissions and enrollment under your leadership after a career spanning admissions, financial aid, and marketing. When your graduate, undergraduate, and international teams read the same new audience differently, how do you decide whether the university is looking at one growth opportunity that deserves coordinated investment, or three recruitment problems that need separate plans?

Lisa Ellrich

Lisa, UMF says you oversee recruitment, marketing, and financial services and helped expand the university’s reach globally through CRM and recruitment plans. For a college that describes admissions as learning a student’s personal story and finding fit, when should digital marketing create first awareness, and when does a counselor need to carry the story personally?

Jennifer Wells

Jennifer, Goldey-Beacom made you its first marketing director to shape brand identity and enrollment-focused marketing, and you’ve written that you enrolled there to understand the product you market. When a prospective student first meets a small college through social, search, or an AI answer, what should that student see immediately so the brand feels specific rather than interchangeable?

Dr. Emmanuel Lalande

Emmanuel, you wrote a piece for The Hechinger Report arguing that the real crisis in higher ed isn't who shows up, it's how many who do show up never make it out, and that we watch enrollment obsessively while barely watching completion. As schools pour money into just getting found and getting people to apply, where's the risk that we're putting all our energy into the front of the funnel while the thing that actually matters for the student happens much later, and a lot more quietly?

Mirka Martel

Mirka, you oversee IIE’s Open Doors report and Project Atlas, which practitioners use to map U.S. and global student mobility. When India, Vietnam, Nigeria, or another source country starts rising in the data, where does the national trend stop being useful and local program-level proof need to take over before the institution invests?

Toby Wang

Toby, AdTiger’s brief puts you closest to cross-market performance across Google, Meta, TikTok, and regional platforms, with the goal of adding international demand rather than replacing a university’s existing partners. When a university runs an international test, how do you decide which layer to localize first—creative, landing page, follow-up, or channel mix—so the results teach the institution something it can actually use?