The Y Early Learning Centre

345.5% uplift in leads, after ad creative went static to Sticki.

Not all ads are equal. There, we said it. 

Different ad formats definitely have their own time and place, but it’s just a matter of whether they’re right for your brand and marketing campaign objective.

Let’s talk about The Y’s Early Learning Centre (ELC)

Before our elusive (for now…) creative overhaul, the account’s ads were informative. Obvious branding, straight-forward messaging, and static ads that clearly implored audiences to take action. “Book A Tour Today!” labelled on the tin, they were… Paid ads for sure.

But after partnering with a digital marketing agency like us, the account felt human.

The Y’s ads started to evoke emotion, prove credibility, and truly speak parent-to-parent. When it comes to Meta Ads, never underestimate the power of making people feel.

The Challenge:

Even without paid social advertising in the equation, The Y’s Early Learning Centre was already everything parents could want in a childcare provider.

Nurturing, purpose-driven, and deeply rooted in community.

But how could parents possibly know that through static ads with 10 words of copy (or less), and no real vote of confidence? When a brand’s digital presence doesn’t match the real warmth they deliver, the connection breaks before it even begins.

So, our digital marketing experts introduced something new.

Creator-led user-generated content (UGC) produced by our sister-agency, Sticki – featuring real parents, real stories, real outcomes. 

Sweet. Sounds perfect. 

But that itself already posed a few key hurdles. Why?

• It concerns children, and early learning. Instilling trust via UGC ads in general is one thing, but when it comes to kids? The light of parents’ lives? Their babies, their priority, their entire world? That calls for trust and reassurance on steroids.
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• It’s a competitive category. Don’t fact check us too strictly, but there are approx. 18,990 approved Early Childhood Education & Care services across Australia. And as much as The Y runs 150 of them, that’s still a microscopic fraction of the pool. Knowing that childcare considerations like these are deeply personal, how do we make The Y’s ELC the most favourable option?
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• It involves multiple offerings and age brackets. Needs of a 4-year-old differ dramatically from that of a 6-month-old. The Y knows this. It’s why they offer a range of services (incl. long day care for babies and toddlers, and sessional / integrated programs for Kindergarteners aged 3-4). Our ads had to mention this – all without information overload or coming across too salesy.
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• It had to communicate value without sounding like a corporate brochure. The Y is shaped by values like inclusion, play-based learning, community building, and adopting a holistic approach to child development. We’ve written this here as a list, but imagine all that on a single static ad. How boring! What is this? A pamphlet? 

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Plus, going from static ads to UGC videos involves a substantial jump in time, effort, content production budget and collaboration. Canva unfortunately won’t cut it anymore, and we needed to get content creators / micro-influencers involved in this new process.  

Spoiler: Our eventual videos (with the help of Sticki) tackled all this, and then some.

Compare the before versus after for yourself:

Before:

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After:

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The Results:

Tell us that isn't just light and day.

After introducing Sticki’s user-generated content (UGC) into the account, performance metrics came alive. Within just one month of launching this new creative refresh…

• Leads increased by 345.45% 
• 37.14% increase in click-through rate (CTRs)
• 45.12% cheaper cost-per-click (CPCs)
• Costs per lead (CPLs) decreased by 65.17% 

But we can’t say we’re surprised about such ROI.

UGC ads have been tried, tested and proven – especially effective when your campaign objective isn’t just transactional, but emotional. Beyond features, into feelings.

The Solution:

You can read more about Sticki’s content strategy here.

But a quick TL;DR on our part – This UGC campaign was structured into two parts: The Discovery Phase and The Research Phase. 

1. Discovery was all about education and relatability. 
2. Research focused on building trust and tapping on emotion. 

Each video ad then closed with a clear, actionable call-to-action (CTA) – “Book a personalised tour of The Y’s Early Learning Centre today.” 

Low commitment, fully about exploration, and not expecting any investment or lock-in yet. 

Ads that felt as warm and compassionate as the team at The Y,  and worked because:

1. They brought trust to the surface, by speaking parent-to-parent (incl. real faces, real voices, real kids) instead of through the mouthpiece that was The Y themselves.
2. They added movement to a “static” account, which naturally felt like a breath of fresh air – both to audiences and the Meta Ads algorithm.
3. They made extra research feel easy. Parents no longer needed to be 25 tabs deep in Google search, since the answers were already in the ad creatives.
4. They reframed the brand – from just a childcare provider to an evidently nurturing choice for families, kids and even parents alike.
5. They integrated The Y’s USPs into each script without making it feel like a sales deck.

Summary:

And given numbers like these? This Meta Ads campaign / creative angle truly proved what many in content marketing still overlook – facts don’t build trust, people do. 

By swapping static graphics for creator-led storytelling with UGC ads, The Y’s ELC achieved both better performance metrics AND genuine emotional cut-through.

• Read more about the UGC campaign via Sticki’s case study here, 
• View our creative process / content marketing services here, or… 
• Get in touch with us here to show (not tell) your audience what makes you tick.