Overview

Outcome: Delivered 6x growth in leads over 24 months, from 284 monthly leads to 1,992.

Approach: Consolidated marketplace strategy, indexing and subject spotlight optimisation for high-converting courses, and ongoing content refinement to lift conversion at scale.

Partnership Value: A trusted, single-channel partner that Monarch scaled with confidence, backed by consistently stronger lead quality than other channels.

Business Challenges: Growing enquiry volume without compromising lead quality, while maximising visibility for both an established high-converting course and a brand-new course category.

The Candlefox Partnership: An evolving, hands-on relationship. Candlefox worked as an extension of Monarch’s marketing function, continually testing and refining rather than treating strong performance as a finish line.

Meet Monarch Institute

Opportunity

Monarch needed a way to scale their lead generation efforts without sacrificing lead quality. They had access to multiple lead channels, but recognised early that the quality behind Candlefox leads consistently outperformed the rest. The opportunity became less about finding more channels and more about how far a single trusted partnership could scale.

At the same time, Monarch had two distinct growth opportunities to capture. Their Accounting and Bookkeeping scope was already a strong performer, and needed a strategy to extract more volume from that success. Separately, Monarch had launched the Diploma of AI, the first accredited AI course of its kind, which needed visibility to find its audience. Together, these two courses became the twin engines behind Monarch’s lead growth.

How Candlefox Helped

Consolidating spend into a proven channel. Once Monarch identified the strength of Candlefox’s lead quality, they made the call to scale their investment with Candlefox rather than spread budget across multiple lower-performing channels.

Driving visibility for a first-to-market course. As one of the first accredited AI courses on the market, the Diploma of AI entered a category with limited competition. Candlefox’s marketplace exposure gave the course a ready audience of learners already searching for their next qualification, making it one of the two biggest contributors to the overall lead increase.

Optimising the highest-converting course. Accounting and Bookkeeping remained Monarch’s strongest performer throughout the partnership. Candlefox improved indexing across this scope and installed a dedicated subject spotlight, increasing volume to a course that was already converting well.

Results

This resulted in a 6x+ growth in monthly lead volume over 24 months and 7,500+ student enquiries generated year to date.

• January 2024: 284 leads
• January 2025: 1,461 leads
• January 2026: 1,992 leads

“Growth is easy to chase and hard to sustain without wrecking quality. What’s made the difference is how the relationship has grown. Candlefox stopped being a vendor and became a true partner, helping us scale enquiry volume while keeping the quality that makes those leads worth chasing in the first place.”

—Wade Johnson, Head of Marketing, Monarch Institute.