Expert Q & A: How to Approach Paid Media for EdTech

Paid media is often one of the most misunderstood growth levers in EdTech.

Some teams treat paid media for EdTech like a magic switch you flip on, and leads will immediately start rolling in. They assume ads alone will make up for unclear positioning or a website that isn’t quite ready to convert.

Other teams avoid it altogether, hoping that focusing solely on organic will achieve every goal, while underestimating how long it takes for organic efforts to compound.

In reality, paid media sits somewhere in the middle. It’s powerful, but only when it’s well-timed and grounded in a real understanding of who you’re trying to reach and why.

We sat down with one of our in-house paid media specialists, Carissa Richardson, to talk candidly about what paid media actually makes possible for EdTech brands and how teams can make the most of it. Here’s what she had to say.

What does paid media make possible for EdTech brands and startups that organic alone usually can’t?

I believe the most beneficial aspect of paid ads for EdTech brands is the ability to target the precise audience they are looking for. You can easily target audiences like teachers, educational leaders like school administrators, parents of young children, parents of teens, and serve them with custom messaging that resonates with them. 

Organic marketing is vital, but it’s also much slower to build, especially when you are a smaller, less recognizable brand with less established credibility. Paid ads give you a boost, help you build brand awareness and credibility faster, and reach your highest-value audience segments.

When you’re building a paid media strategy for an EdTech brand, what foundations have to be in place before you ever launch ads?

Tracking is number one. It’s vital that you have the background infrastructure on the website to measure true conversions. This ensures you optimize your ad spend toward metrics that truly matter, not just vanity metrics that don’t directly impact your bottom line. 

If you’re using multiple platforms (Google, LinkedIn, Meta, etc.), understand each channel’s role in the funnel and balance your spend across awareness, consideration, and conversion rather than over-funding just one stage.

You also need to know your audience. EdTech buyers aren’t monolithic. Teachers, parents, district admins, and higher ed decision-makers all care about different things and respond to different channels. Define those segments upfront, or you’ll waste spend on people who were never going to convert.

Finally, strong landing pages or a website optimized for the buyer journey with clear messaging, proof points, fast load times, and low-friction CTAs are essential. The best campaigns fail when they drive the right traffic to the wrong destination.

Which paid channels are performing best for EdTech right now? 

As we often say, that really depends on the audience. I would say that for B2B audiences like teachers, Meta works well, and for administrators, channels like LinkedIn are helpful, as are display advertising and retargeting. 

For parent audiences, Pinterest is an untapped platform that we really like. We see great performance, and we like how you can target ads based on search queries in addition to behaviors and interests.

What’s the most common (or costly) mistake you see EdTech teams make with paid media?

I would say not knowing who your most valuable audience is and, as a result, trying to reach too broad an audience with limited ad dollars and spreading your ads too thin. Especially with a brand that isn’t known by the audience, it’s important that they see your message many times in order to remember your brand. 

If you spread your budget over too large an audience, everyone may see your ad, but not enough times for any of them to truly remember who you are.

How should EdTech brands approach paid media when they have multiple buyer personas with very different needs? 

The first step is to prioritize the personas from most valuable to least. Then evaluate how many of these personas your budget can effectively support. 

From there, develop separate ad strategies and messaging for each persona to reach each one at a time and place they are ready to engage, and with a message that feels highly relevant to them.

Build an EdTech Paid Media Strategy That Actually Works

If there’s a throughline in Carissa’s answers, it’s this: paid media for EdTech works best when there’s a clear, strategic reason behind every dollar spent. Don’t run ads just for the sake of running ads. 

When EdTech brands say “paid media doesn’t work for us,” it’s usually not because the channel failed. It’s because the foundation was shaky, the audience was too broad, or the strategy tried to be all things to all people with a very finite budget.

If you’re considering paid media for your EdTech brand or questioning whether your current efforts are truly delivering results, the Clever Lucy team can help. Book a 15-minute call with us to get started.