Building a marketing function around qualified student acquisition

Client: PIBT, higher education
Market: Sri Lanka
Services: Fractional CMO, marketing operating model
Year: 2026

The client

PIBT is a Sri Lankan higher-education institution offering academic and professional study pathways to prospective students.

The challenge

PIBT was investing in digital advertising and generating student enquiries, but marketing and admissions needed stronger structure. The problem was not lead volume. It was improving the quality and conversion of the leads already coming in.

Heavy dependence on lead-generation advertising
Inconsistent visibility into lead quality
Gaps between marketing enquiries and admissions conversion
Sales follow-up processes that needed improvement
Limited clarity on marketing roles, accountability and KPI ownership
A need for more reliable performance reporting

What Grovuu did

Designed the marketing operating function

Marketing organisational structure and role definitions
Responsibility frameworks for two principal roles: a Marketing Manager accountable for strategy, channel performance, budget, lead quality, analytics and organic growth, and a Digital Campaign Executive accountable for paid campaign execution, optimisation, creative testing and tracking
Recruitment and role-assessment support
Marketing KPIs and performance scorecards

Built lead quality and funnel discipline

Lead-quality rules, with MQL and SQL definitions
Scholarship and lead-generation campaign planning
Lead reactivation through email and WhatsApp
Sales-call reviews and conversion-process analysis
Sales cadence development
CRM, reporting and marketing-to-admissions alignment

Recommended next steps

Meta advertising account review, with optimisation recommendations
Sales training recommendations
Diversifying acquisition through search and organic channels

The KPIs that matter

Leads generated, marketing qualified leads, sales qualified leads, cost per qualified lead, lead-to-registration conversion, student registrations and campaign efficiency, reported in a weekly funnel review.

Who did what

PIBT kept ownership of admissions counselling, student conversion, hiring decisions, media budgets and implementing internal processes.

What changed

PIBT now has a clearer marketing operating model: defined responsibilities, campaign governance, lead qualification rules, sales follow-up processes, and a measurement framework that connects marketing investment to student registrations. It is the structure needed to improve acquisition efficiency and hold marketing accountable for results.

The model is now in place. PIBT runs a smooth, AI-driven performance marketing unit that works to defined processes rather than ad hoc campaigns.

Need marketing to run as a function, not a set of campaigns?

Book a 30-minute call. We will look at your team, your lead flow and your reporting, and where the structure needs to change first.

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