JAHNAVIMAHINDRAKAR

AMBER

Omnichannel Campaign in a Cost-of-Living Crisis

Year2024
RoleGrowth & Omnichannel Marketing Intern
StatusCompleted

Amber is a UK-wide student accommodation platform, matching students to rooms across university cities, often at a distance. I picked this up after the social team flagged that engagement had been flat for two months while inbound inquiries were down roughly 25% year on year, coinciding with a UK-wide rise in cost-of-living concerns.

200%growth in monthly views, from ~19,000 to ~57,000
3xclick-through rate on cost-transparency posts versus lifestyle content
45minute WhatsApp response time, down from roughly 6 hours
30%higher conversion from retargeted audiences versus cold traffic
AMBER

Reach was holding around 18,000 to 20,000 monthly views, but inbound inquiries were down roughly 25% versus the same period the year before. The audience hadn't left; it had changed what it cared about.

Reading through roughly 150 comments across the prior two months of posts, close to 60% were questions about cost or logistics: "does this include bills?", "how far is this actually from campus?", sitting under content that never addressed either directly. The brief was essentially written in the comments section.

I mapped the funnel (view, message or click, viewing booked, tenancy signed) and split platform roles. Instagram and TikTok kept the visual property tours aimed at students. Facebook shifted to carry price breakdowns and walk-time-to-campus detail for the slightly older, more cost-focused audience. WhatsApp Business became the tracked fast-response layer after one thread showed a prospective tenant messaging three providers the same evening and booking with whichever replied first. Average response time went from roughly 6 hours to under 45 minutes.

Content turned around within 48-hour cycles using Canva and CapCut, with every link UTM-tagged into a shared tracking sheet. Retargeting audiences were built in Meta Ads Manager from the roughly 2,000 people per week who engaged with a post but didn't click through, and those ads carried the cost-transparent messaging as a second touch.

  • Views increased 200% over the prior two-month period, from ~19,000/month to ~57,000/month
  • 9 qualified leads generated (budget-matched inquiries with a viewing or virtual tour booked), up from roughly 5 in the prior comparable period
  • 30% higher conversion rate among the retargeted audience compared to cold traffic exposed to the same creative
  • Average WhatsApp response time cut from ~6 hours to under 45 minutes
  • Cost-transparency posts on Facebook saw roughly 3x the click-through rate of the previous lifestyle-only format

The comments section under the old posts basically had the whole brief written in it already. I also learned that engagement and conversion aren't the same audience behaving the same way. Figuring out that gap, and putting numbers to it, was the actual job.

( Next Project )AFRO-ASIAN REINSURANCE