Overview

Carl Remigius Fresenius Education Group (CRF), a major private education provider, has worked with RevOps Automated (ROA) since 2023 to connect its CRM infrastructure and develop scalable, programme-specific student nurturing.

The original impact study focused on the early Fernstudium (distance-learning) rollout, which launched its first lead campaign on 19 December 2024. Nearly two years later, the partnership spans online and On Campus journeys, a revised On Campus workflow architecture introduced in December 2025, data-health operations and controlled tests of marketing effectiveness.

Analysis of monthly performance through September 2026 shows stronger lead-linked funnel efficiency across both educational formats. The work has also established a practical measurement foundation for the next phase: testing whether AI-assisted content can improve application conversion and accelerate enrolment.

Challenges

As CRF scaled its student engagement programmes, its marketing operation needed to address four connected priorities:

•  Programme and journey complexity.  Multiple brands, education formats, campuses and student decision paths required relevant communication at scale.

•  Reliable activation data.  Marketing workflows depended on accurate, associated records flowing between Salesforce and HubSpot.

•  Full-lifecycle conversion visibility.  Both lead-to-application and application-to-sale performance mattered, including applicants who entered without a recorded lead.

•  Proof of marketing effectiveness.  CRF needed to distinguish promising content and nurturing approaches using application and won-deal outcomes.

The Solution

ROA helped CRF establish and refine a connected operating model for student acquisition, combining systems architecture, journey strategy, automation delivery and performance measurement.

•  Connected CRM and marketing data.  Salesforce data is transformed through BigQuery and synchronised by Hightouch into HubSpot, supported by record and integration health monitoring.

•  Fernstudium lifecycle nurturing.  Programme-specific communications support prospective students from recorded product interest through application and downstream progression.

•  On Campus journey development and redesign.  Workflows introduced from February 2025 were simplified and revised in December 2025 to improve consistency and maintainability.

•  Performance intelligence.  Monthly funnel reporting and HubSpot split tests compare conversion and closed-won outcomes, creating a feedback loop for continuous improvement.

•  AI-ready content operations.  The emerging content initiative aims to combine governed brand, persona, lifecycle and programme knowledge with human review and controlled testing.

What the Longer-Term Data Shows

•  Fernstudium:  Lead-originated application yield rose from 7.48% in Jan–Sep 2025 to 10.09% in Jan–Sep 2026. Application-to-sale conversion for applicants with leads remained approximately 35% across both years.

•  On Campus:  Lead-originated application yield rose from 14.19% to 15.68% across Feb–Sep 2025 and 2026. Each of the eight comparable months improved; with-lead application-to-sale conversion rose from 32.22% to 34.59%.

•  Full-lifecycle value:  On Campus application-to-sale conversion for applicants without recorded leads rose from 8.00% to 9.16%; Fernstudium rose from 16.70% to 21.96% in comparable reporting periods.

•  Commercial context:  2026 lead volumes were lower in both formats. On Campus total sales were broadly stable year on year (+0.4% for Feb–Sep), while Fernstudium total sales were down 6.9% for Jan–Sep despite higher efficiency.

The Next Phase

CRF can now connect nurturing strategy with measurable downstream outcomes. The next opportunity is to test alternative, AI-assisted content approaches against one another, using comparable audience groups and defined application, deal-conversion and time-to-close measures. This would turn growing content capacity into an evidence-led programme of marketing improvement.