Saunders College of Business | Linden Digital Marketing

Creative By Design: The Strategic Value of A/B Testing at Saunders College of Business

Background

The Saunders College of Business at RIT is a nationally accredited business school embedded within a leading technical university, offering career-focused, experiential education at the intersection of business and technology. With a diverse mix of undergraduate, graduate, doctorate, and executive programs, Saunders sought to expand its reach among prospective students, both domestic and international, while showcasing its unique approach to business education grounded in technology, entrepreneurship, and applied learning. To support this growth, the college partnered with our team to refine its digital advertising strategy and optimize for efficiency.

Objectives

In collaboration with Saunders’ internal marketing team, our objective was to test and measure how different creative strategies influenced prospective student engagement across key markets. By implementing structured A/B testing across paid digital channels, we aimed to identify which visuals resonated most with distinct audiences, particularly comparing local and international responses. These findings would then be used to inform future content development, maximizing campaign efficiency and ensuring media spend was aligned with effective content.

Solutions

We designed a series of controlled A/B tests across paid social platforms, featuring creative variants that differed in visual style (muted versus colorful), but were consistent in all other aspects. Through this testing, clear trends emerged:

Local audiences responded better to the original muted creative, with lower cost-per-click ($0.60) and higher click-through rates (0.92%) compared to their brighter counterparts
International audiences, conversely, showed stronger engagement with the vibrant test creative, even though these designs came with higher CPCs ($0.71) and lower CTRs (0.81%), suggesting they were more effective at generating brand awareness than driving immediate action

The results demonstrated the value of tailoring creative to audience preferences and market context, not just to boost performance, but to uncover insights that inform long-term strategy. By pursuing this approach, Saunders gained actionable data to guide future content and media decisions, reinforcing A/B testing as a powerful tool for building smarter, more effective campaigns.