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Case Study · Higher Education

How SUNY College of Optometry turned stronger digital visibility into admissions momentum.

Across the 2025 calendar year, SUNY College of Optometry grew total website traffic 29.3%, increased user interactions 13.2%, reached 266,318 prospective students and influencers through paid media campaigns, and lifted applications 26% year over year - more than 3x the national optometry application growth benchmark.

The Client
State University of New York College of Optometry
SUNY College of Optometry
Public graduate optometry college - New York, NY
+29.3%
Total website traffic
+26%
Applications year over year
266,318
Paid media reach
17%
Better CPC efficiency
The Client

A trusted brand, ready for AI-era search.

SUNY College of Optometry is a public institution focused on optometric education, clinical care, and research. The college needed its digital presence to support multiple audiences at once: prospective students comparing optometry programs, applicants evaluating fit and outcomes, patients engaging with clinical services, and search engines and AI systems learning which institutions deserve to be surfaced for high-intent education and eye-care queries.

The Challenge

A respected institution needed stronger visibility across a changing applicant journey.

Prospective optometry students were discovering schools across traditional search, paid media, and emerging AI-powered search experiences. SUNY College of Optometry had strong institutional authority, but the marketing program needed to turn that authority into measurable visibility, engagement, and admissions demand.

!
Broader discovery paths. Prospective students and influencers were no longer relying on one search channel, making visibility across organic search, AI search, and paid media increasingly important.
!
Admissions pressure. The college needed to grow applications while maintaining selectivity and attracting committed candidates in a competitive national market.
!
Technical readiness. Ongoing improvements were needed around structured content, broken links, accessibility compliance, and trust signals to support both users and search engines.
The Approach

We put the S.T.A.R. framework to work.

MAXPlaces focused the 2025 program on measurable visibility, efficient audience reach, stronger technical infrastructure, and admissions-aligned reporting.

S

Strategic Planning

Connected marketing priorities to the applicant journey, key geographic markets, admissions outcomes, and the performance indicators that showed whether visibility was turning into qualified demand.

T

Technical SEO & AI Crawl Readiness

Supported stronger site visibility through technical improvements, structured content signals, broken-link remediation, and accessibility-focused web quality initiatives.

A

Audience & Authority Growth

Expanded awareness through paid campaigns, AI-visibility tracking, and clearer digital signals around the college's authority, programs, and student outcomes.

R
Results Measurement Reported on website traffic, event count, engaged sessions, AI-search visibility, paid media efficiency, applications, deposits, yield, selectivity, and market-level admissions signals.
The Results

Digital growth that aligned with real admissions gains.

The 2025 program produced gains across the full funnel: more people found the college, more visitors interacted with the site, paid media reached a large relevant audience at below-benchmark CPC, and admissions outcomes outpaced national optometry application trends.

Website traffic +29.3%
BEFORE
AFTER
Applications +26%
BEFORE
AFTER
✓+29.3% total traffic year over year, showing stronger overall site visibility and reach.
✓+13.2% event count indicating more button clicks, form submissions, and other meaningful user interactions.
✓266,318 paid media reach across Facebook and Instagram brand awareness campaigns launched in 2025.
✓$1.43 CPC compared with a $1.72 industry average, creating a 17% cost-efficiency advantage.
✓+26% applications versus approximately 8% national optometry application growth, with more than 40 deposits and an 85% yield on acceptances.
“
The strongest story in the report is that visibility gains did not stop at traffic. They showed up across engagement, paid media efficiency, AI-search discovery, and admissions performance - the mix that matters for a modern higher-education brand.
MAXPlaces Strategy Team, Higher Education Case Study SUNY College of Optometry
How We Did It

The services behind these results.

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