Scaling Personalized Advising: Three Proven Strategies That Drive Results

A message sent to everyone is a message sent to no one. 

Generic campus-wide reminders—like class registration prompts—are easy to overlook without personalization. Targeted outreach, such as messaging students who’ve started but not completed registration, is far more effective. 

The 2024 analysis in our 2025 Student Success Impact Report found that institutions are not only increasing outreach—they’re measuring its impact. Across nearly 30 institutions and 150 initiatives, one theme stood out: students respond best to timely, personalized communication that makes them feel seen and understood. 

Advisor outreach, in particular, plays a critical role in improving student experiences and outcomes, showing a 6.8 PP (percentage point) lift in persistence.

So, how can institutions deliver this kind of connection at scale?

While individualized support may work for small cohorts, it becomes unsustainable when advising caseloads exceed 100 students. That’s where centralized, real-time student data becomes essential—making it possible to scale meaningful engagement without increasing staff.

The Playbook for High-Impact, Personalized Advising

Here are three ways institutions have enhanced their advising and communication practices to achieve greater impact on student outcomes:

1. Rethinking 1:1 Advising

The students who need the most support are often the ones who aren’t walking through the door. But more emails aren’t the answer. Instead, institutions can use current-term data, like LMS activity, course performance, advisor notes, and persistence predictions, to tailor outreach.

For example, students with low persistence predictions and minimal LMS engagement may warrant a 1:1 meeting. At the same time, those with stronger indicators might benefit from group advising or a targeted message about upcoming workshops. This was the case for Snow College (Snow) when initiative analysis revealed that one-on-one advising boosted persistence by 20% for lower-performing students, compared to 3% for high-performing students. This insight led to strategic adjustments like group advising to free up capacity for those needing individualized support. 

2. Using Group-Level Tracking for Proactive Support

When every student gets the same kind of support, it’s easy to miss the ones who need it most. By moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach and using data to drive decisions, support teams can better connect with students by tailoring outreach to the specific needs of individual students and groups. Segmenting students based on their level of risk helps pinpoint challenges and implement precise interventions that address students’ needs in real time.

For instance, SUNY Broome shifted from a reactive advising model—where students dropped in to see any available advisor—to a proactive approach using the Civitas Learning platform. Now, advisors track key groups, like first-year students with GPAs below 2.5 or those with multiple alerts, and send reminders about tutoring or important assignments.

This kind of real-time insight allows advisors to stay ahead of issues and follow up consistently—making sure students get the help they need before small problems turn into major ones.

3. Give Automated Messaging a Second Look

How you communicate matters. While automated alerts can help scale outreach, they often lack context and human insight—limiting their ability to truly support students. 

According to findings in the Civitas Learning Advising Playbook, nearly one in three automatic alert messages, whether kudos or warnings, have neutral or even negative impact on student success. Messages about attendance, participation, or academic progress may flag an issue, but generic phrasing like “You have four absences left” rarely inspires action.

As you shape your outreach strategy, focus on messaging that drives behavior change—not just compliance. Small adjustments to tone, timing, and content—especially for alerts—can make a meaningful difference.

Institutions that tailor communication by persistence likelihood are better equipped to evaluate what works and improve over time. But not all tech-driven solutions deliver value. In fact, our analysis showed that AI chatbot initiatives were linked to a 6.8 percentage point drop in persistence, reinforcing the need for thoughtful implementation and meaningful follow-up.

Automation should be used to enhance, not replace, connection. 

The Bottom Line

Generic messaging is easy to ignore. But when outreach is timely, relevant, and personalized, it can be transformative, as we’ve seen in this year’s findings. By using data to prioritize outreach, tailoring communication to students’ real-time needs, and scaling support strategically, institutions can engage students before small challenges become barriers. In today’s higher ed environment, individualized advising isn’t just possible—it’s proving essential to persistence and success.

Download the 2025 Student Success Impact Report to read more about what our partner institutions uncovered in 2024.