The challenge
The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics (OCCA) had already reached over one and a half million people globally through its videos and footage. The challenge was moving from that scale of reach to an organisation with a growing email subscriber base, filling its apologetics courses and programmes consistently.
We were commissioned by OCCA to increase engagement across its core metrics, and to improve user engagement across all channels — predominantly the website.
Finding what made OCCA different
We began by looking at the level of ministries and organisations already offering deep, intellectual Christian apologetics. In a short space of time, it became clear that OCCA's combination — real theological depth, delivered through relationship, friendship and genuine winsomeness — was a rare combination in the sector, and one worth building a strategy around rather than working against.
Building content around real search intent
We started by reviewing OCCA's existing materials and resources, looking at what could be repurposed and redeveloped against the strongest search intent — understanding not just what people are searching for, but what they intend to do once they find an answer.
We found a strong, consistent pattern: people searching questions like "Did Jesus really say that he was God?" and "What is the Christian response to the occult?" By identifying these questions and building genuine, well-researched content around them, what started as a small trickle of new visitors grew to over 1,000 new visitors every month.
From visitors to students
We tracked the specific content that led people to OCCA's site, and what happened once they arrived. Visitors subscribed to OCCA's emails, and began investing in education programmes such as the Foundational Apologetics course — now fully booked — with Summer School places for the following year filling well ahead of time after a complete sell-out.
Taking the One-Year Course further
From there, our focus shifted to OCCA's longer programmes, including the One-Year Course — featuring well-known teachers such as John Lennox alongside OCCA's own team — offering something genuinely unique to students and equipping them in the process.
Despite being a genuinely unique offering in the marketplace, the course was under-subscribed until 2026. Organic search alone couldn't reach everyone who needed to find it, so we moved into Google Ads and Google Marketing — built around careful keyword and audience research, not the generic retail advertising most people associate with paid search.
People who never thought a one-year programme would be right for them were applying for it. People in America, Australia, Canada and Singapore are now buying tickets and flying across the world to attend OCCA's five-day Summer School.
With the right research and the right keywords, we found people who wanted to engage more deeply in Christian apologetics — not just locally, but internationally. Through considered advertising and marketing, we were able to capture something harder to put into a campaign brief: the discipleship that comes from meeting other Christians and learning together.
The result
By combining organic, search-intent-led content with careful, targeted advertising, we delivered exactly what OCCA needed: a growing subscriber base, fully booked courses, and a genuinely international reach for programmes that had previously struggled to find the audience they deserved.
With thanks to Khadija Paul, Marketing Manager at The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, for sharing this story with us. Find out more about OCCA's courses and programmes at theocca.org, or get in touch with the OCCA team directly at hello@theocca.org.