How to Increase Student Engagement: 5 Cross-Channel Marketing Strategies for eLearning Marketers

Before discussing what works, let’s talk about what doesn’t.

Here’s what’s happening:

• Messages aren’t personalized, so students tune out.
• Communication is scattered, with no consistency across channels.
• Campaigns are reactive, not proactive. By the time a student is disengaged, it’s already too late.

If your strategy isn’t built around real-time personalization and cross-channel marketing, it’s not built for today’s learners. And if you’re worried your marketing isn’t landing, you’re not alone. Research shows that 65% of school administrators are concerned about how hard it is to market new online programs effectively. The pressure is real, and the playbook needs an upgrade.

So how do you increase student engagement? It starts by aligning your data, tools, and workflows to support real-time personalization and cross-channel marketing.

Here are five actionable strategies to boost student engagement, each framed around a key question we know eLearning marketers are asking.

1. How Can You Improve Student Engagement with Smarter Segmentation?

Don’t build segments and walk away. Start by developing a segmentation strategy that evolves as your students do – how they behave, what motivates them, and when they’re most likely to take action. 

Use historical engagement and behavioral cues to prioritize who needs support now versus who’s ready to level up. Keep your targeting agile, not rigid. This sets the foundation for every personalized message, recommendation, and engagement.

2. How Do You Personalize Course Recommendations for Maximum Impact?

Help learners discover what’s next before they even realize they need it. That means building recommendation strategies that mirror their goals, not your catalog priorities. 

Your first-party data is your best friend. See what course they are most interested in, past engagement, and current behavior to predict what they’re most likely to act on next. Whether it’s nudging them to complete a nearly finished course, resuming where they left off, or introducing them to a new skill area, relevance is your biggest lever. 

Remember, it’s not just about pushing content. It’s about providing real value to students and making the experience uniquely tailored for them. 

3. How Can You Deliver a Consistent Cross-Channel Learning Experience?

Build a strategy that connects every channel into a single, cohesive experience to meet students where they are. Whether they engage via email, push, SMS, or web, students should encounter consistent messaging that reflects their individual journey. A well-orchestrated, cross-channel journey keeps students engaged and moving forward.

4. What’s the Best Way to Test and Optimize eLearning Campaigns?

Think like a product manager. Every email, landing page, or message is a test, so treat it like one. What makes students click? Why do they drop off halfway through the onboarding sequence? The answers are in your data, but only if you’re willing to ask better questions and test smarter hypotheses.

5. How Can AI Help You Scale Personalized eLearning Content?

Embed generative AI into your content strategy. Instead of manually writing every subject line, headline, or course description, use AI to instantly generate variations tailored to different student segments and stages of the journey.

The key? Don’t hand it the wheel. Give it clear direction and stay in the driver’s seat.

Udacity has been a global leader in upskilling the workforce, serving over 15 million students across 190 countries. Despite their global reach, the team faced a familiar challenge: how to personalize student experiences at scale to drive acquisition, engagement, and long-term value.

The Challenge

Udacity set out to improve the full student journey, from course discovery to completion, while also scaling their marketing impact efficiently. Their key hurdles included:

• Converting more leads and encouraging free members to become paid learners.
• Building momentum with timely communications that reduce drop-off and re-engage alumni.
• Managing growing campaign complexity across channels, regions, and student segments.

The Solution: Intelligent Customer Engagement

To solve these challenges, Udacity partnered with Blueshift to unify their data, simplify orchestration, and activate personalized campaigns using Blueshift’s Intelligent Customer Engagement Platform. This enabled Udacity to: 

• Target Smarter: Build dynamic audience segments using real-time behavior and lifecycle signals.
• Recommend Intelligently: Deliver relevant course suggestions based on students’ past actions and browsing patterns.
• Connect Channels: Orchestrate student journeys seamlessly across email, mobile, and social platforms.
• Optimize Continuously: Leverage deep reporting and A/B testing to fine-tune every touchpoint.

The Results

The impact of these efforts was immediate and measurable:

• 19-41% increase in student engagement
• 36-48% lift in course purchase rates
• 30 hours saved per week, enabling the team to focus on strategic growth

Udacity’s transformation shows what’s possible when smart strategy meets scalable technology, and when learners are placed at the center of every campaign.

Udacity’s success story proves that meaningful engagement and scalable results come from aligning the right strategy with flexible, data-driven execution. When marketers are empowered to deliver personalized experiences across the full student journey, the impact is undeniable, from boosting engagement and enrollment to reclaiming time and efficiency.

In fact, a recent survey revealed that 86% of marketing leaders prioritize Customer Engagement Platforms (CEPs) over point solutions, proving that a unified approach to data and orchestration isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the new standard. 

That’s exactly what Blueshift’s Intelligent Customer Engagement Platform (ICE) offers. It unifies a Cross-Channel Marketing Hub, a powerful Customer Data Platform, and predictive intelligence powered by Customer AI. With this foundation, student engagement becomes not just scalable but sustainable.

Want to see how your eLearning strategy stacks up?

Learn how Blueshift’s Intelligent Customer Engagement Platform can help you turn data into action and students into lifelong learners.