Good Enough Isn't

Career Education Report: How Speed, AI, and Brand Are Rewriting Higher Ed Enrollment

• Patrick Patterson • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Career Education Report: How Speed, AI, and Brand Are Rewriting Higher Ed Enrollment

Higher education is operating in a more competitive and consumer-driven environment than ever before, and new data reveals what actually drives enrollment growth.

In this episode of the Career Education Report, Patrick Patterson, CEO of Level Agency, and Prithwi Dasgupta, President of LeadSquared North America, join host Dr. Jason Altmire to unpack findings from a national benchmarking study analyzing more than 500,000 student inquiries and $100 million in higher education advertising spend.

Together, they discuss how student behavior, marketing channels, and operational execution intersect, and where institutions are falling behind.

In this conversation, you’ll learn:

  • Why responding to student inquiries within the first five minutes can increase enrollment conversion rates by nearly 30%
  • How AI and automation enable faster, more personalized student engagement
  • Why brand building is a critical (and often underestimated) driver of enrollment performance
  • How channel mix decisions impact cost per enrollment, not just cost per lead
  • Where institutions are misallocating marketing dollars—and how to course-correct
  • What “great execution” looks like from first inquiry to enrollment

Practical insights for enrollment leaders, marketers, and executives looking to move beyond surface-level metrics and design student-first experiences that convert.

Resources & Links

To learn more about Career Education Colleges & Universities (CECU), visit:
https://www.career.org

Myles Biggs

Welcome back to Good Enough Isn't, as always, this is your pal Myles Biggs coming in with a little bit of a primer because today's episode is a bit different from our usual format rather than your standard. Good enough isn't conversation. We are sharing a special crossover appearance featuring my co-host. And Level Agency, CEO, Patrick Patterson. Patrick recently joined the CQ podcast with Career Education Report hosted by Dr. Jason Altmire, president and CEO of career education colleges and universities. We wanted to bring you this conversation directly to our audience because it closely aligns with the themes we explore here on Good enough. Is it? Challenging the status quo, raising the bar, and pushing beyond what's merely acceptable. So while the format might be different, the thinking and the insights are absolutely similar. And with that, let's kick it over to Patrick Patterson on the CQ podcast with Dr. Jason Altmire.

Jason Altmire

I am Jason Altmire and welcome to another edition of Career Education Report, and we're talking about higher education marketing today, and we hear a lot. About this issue because, uh, schools obviously are in a very competitive environment, both for students and for their programs. And I was interested in this because a recent study came out, a benchmarking report. That was jointly done by Level Agency and Lead Squared two of the leading entities in that marketing sphere. And what they did was they analyzed over 500,000 student inquiries and over a hundred million dollars in advertising data. And then with the results, they achieved performance benchmarks for higher education marketing. And I just was interested because a few of the things that they found. Was that schools responding in under five minutes, see higher conversion rates, 28% higher. In fact, performance max Google searches, those campaigns drive 18% increased enrollment. And I think most interestingly, brand building focusing on your own brand correlates with faster growth. And there's some other things related to time of response to student inquiries and so forth. But in order to have this conversation, I wanted to bring two of the. Experts who were involved in that, and they are Patrick Patterson and Prithwi Dasgupta, and they're going to talk to us about that. So gentlemen, thank you for joining the podcast.

Patrick Patterson

Thank you so much for having us. This is great. I'm excited.

Jason Altmire

I wanted to ask, I, I'll throw it open to either of you on this one. Uh, what motivated this study? What motivated your two organizations to come together and partner on the a national survey? A benchmark study of this scope?

Patrick Patterson

I think this is really important, right? You know, lead Square being one of the, the top technologies in the space specifically for higher education around, you know, lead management and, you know, really access to a lot of information and, and data that is useful to, to other orgs. And you know, we are one of the leading performance marketing agencies for in the higher education space as well. And so when we were talking, I think it was last year, we were getting together at a as partners and it was how do we really. Take all this data that we have and help higher education institutions really kind of close that gap and figure out how to go from good to great when it comes to the marketing that they're doing or the pre-admissions work that they're doing, and. I have been doing higher education marketing, Jason, as you know, for, for about 20 years now. And it's, and it's really changed and I think a lot of institutions are, you know, struggling to keep up, not just with ai, but with what students are expecting and you know, how they're now, consumers are now looking to make these choices. And so we wanted to do what we could to kind of bring it all together and give folks some insight into what we're seeing and what's working today versus what was working a year ago or even six months ago.

Prithwi Dasgupta

And just to add on a little bit, I think firstly, thanks Jason for having me. Uh, very happy to do this jointly with Patrick. Like Patrick mentioned, I think one of the reasons for us to do this is, uh, the speed of change, both in consumer behavior, a k student behavior. When you look at enrollments and the speed of change in technology is so rapid these days, we felt this is a very good time to analyze. The hundreds of thousands of inquiries, which we handle jointly across the country, and try and get some insights out of it.

Jason Altmire

Chris, I mentioned the speed of response being an important factor according to that benchmark study. I actually found that to be one of the more striking findings in the report. Can you talk about that concept, speed to lead and, and what the first five minutes means in response to an inquiry.

Prithwi Dasgupta

Absolutely. I think time as a key differentiator. Uh, Jason has not been new to businesses, you know, whether it's time to market, it's time to the next hire time to raise funds. I think today what the result of this report shows is the time to first contact or the speed to lead is an extension of that same fundamental concept point. Simply put is if an organization does not do it fast enough. Someone else will. And you mentioned, you know, what we saw in that report is very striking, that only 14% of institutes are today responding within the first five minutes. And the ones which actually do they see around 30%. More conversions in enrollment. It's not surprising. Also, if you look at this in the backdrop of a few, uh, consumer behaviors, we are seeing more and more time spent on online, more and more time spent on digital every year from the consumer standpoint. And all that it does is provide that instant gratification, I think. Patrick briefly mentioned about the move into AI and ask engines taking over top of funnel. I mean, that's largely because it provides much simpler, faster, instant gratification. The third point on the consumer behavior is really there's a self-serve era, which, which you know, students want to consume at their pace. Now, if you couple all of these. The personalization angle becomes important and then the most important is what we are discussing, that who reaches out first and that first five minutes becomes absolutely, absolutely important.

Patrick Patterson

Yeah, and I think that race, Jason, is more about let's talk to consumers when they want to talk to us. Let's talk to students when they're in that phase. And this is something that the, the much larger. Education institutes have done for many years. They were winning the speed to lead race and it was really hard for mid-market or you know, smaller institutions to really compete with that speed. And I think, you know, with the advancement in technology today, it is now much easier. To be a part of that and be in that conversation when the student is looking for that information. And just take yourself, if you're looking for something and you submit you, you did all your self-service, you did all your research, you, you asked chat, GPT, and Gemini for you know, what the best thing is. And then you submitted a lead. Do you wanna wait 24 hours to talk to someone? Right? No. Like you've done all that self-research before, before. The phone call was the research, and that was the big difference. You know, you were like, well, this, this institution sounds okay. I'll submit my lead and I'll get the packet in the mail or the email, or I'll talk to an admissions rep. Now I've done all that research and now I wanna talk to someone. So it's more important than ever that we're getting to them while they're in that, that mode and as quickly as possible. And, and as pre said, like that's what people expect now. Right, because we're, we're talking to AI agents, we're talking to websites, and they're giving us instant response. When I'm actually ready to talk to a human, I wanna talk to someone now. Right? And so I, I think that that winning, that that race is now more important, but it's also easier than ever with the technology that exists.

Jason Altmire

The, the report, Patrick, shows a big difference, a substantial difference in channel quality. So what, what should schools think when they're thinking about their channel mix, especially, uh, given all of the options that are available now with regard to how to reach people?

Patrick Patterson

Yeah, this is really important. You know, I think if you've been doing this for a while, you remember a time where you could just be running paid search. You were capturing the bottom of the funnel and that was all you needed to do. And a lot of institutions, especially over the past 10 years, which were on a what, what's called a last click, first source attribution model, right? They were looking at what was the last thing someone clicked on and what was the first source that they came in on, and they were giving all the credit to that. Individual channel. And what that means is in a traditional funnel, and the funnel has kind of changed today, but in a traditional funnel, that means a lot of the credit was going to paid search. And what we have found through media mix modeling and machine learning and, and our tools that we have, and, and the analysis is that while paid search is part of the consideration phase, there are other channels that are. Just as important if not more important when you look to look at, you know, cost per enrollment and you really go past that cost per lead. And I think we get stuck a lot because it's easy, because it's fast to look at cost per lead and you have to do work to get down to cost per enrollment. When you start to look at cost per enrollment, things like social, things like display that were, you know, maybe considered five to 10 years ago, more brand building are actually driving. The searches that lead to better cost per enrollment and better lead to enrollment. And so, you know what, what we have found, and I I, we actually had an institution that was like, Hey, they were last click, first source. And they were, they said, Hey, we're gonna cut all display advertising because it's not performing. And what ended up happening is their organic search plummets. Their search plummets, their referrals plummets, their inbounds plummet. And they're like, what happens? Like, well, you didn't do any brand building. You didn't do any awareness. And so what we have seen from a channel mix standpoint is, uh, kind of twofold. One, people moving money from. Rented and paid sources like pay per lead sources, uh, and into more branding and display where you get to own the message, you get to own the outcome, and that's having a great impact into search. But the important thing with that is you need the right partners. You need the right technology partner, you need the right data, you need the right, uh, you know, marketing team that's able to connect all of that. So then you can make really smart decisions on cost per enrollment.

Jason Altmire

And where does program type and credential come into the equation? How should institutions approach varying performance based upon those factors?

Patrick Patterson

And, and I think, you know, in general, the way we look at it, and, you know, unfortunately the answer is gonna be, there's not a one size fits all solution to this. There's not a, Hey, this is the marketing mix that works for all education. You know, we work with a lot of career schools. We work with some post-secondary, uh, doctoral programs, duke University, uh, you know, a a, a bunch of different in institutions and each one. Has a different mix of what works and what doesn't, and then what's acceptable from a performance standpoint. And so what we look at is first of all, break down your data by degree level, which is really important. You can't just look at it and say, Hey, my certificate program has a. $67 cost per lead. My doctorate has a $300 cost per lead, so I'm gonna cut all of my marketing spend to my doctorate. Right. You know, you have to be looking at. Each individual program and saying, what is my acceptable cost per lead? And then what is my acceptable cost per enroll? And then what we are finding as well, diploma certificate, that's going to be a lot more important that you're showing up in search. You're doing a lot more awareness. Doctorate, they're gonna be doing more research. Brand building is gonna be more important. The trust symbols are gonna be more important there. But what is really important? Is, yeah, get the marketing mix right, but make sure that you're looking at this and that by credential you're setting a specific enrollment target on your cost per enrollment, and then managing the different channels within that degree level. Towards that cost per enroll. And, and I, I've seen a lot of folks just, you know, even, you know, combining master's and doctorate is a mistake. We see both of those degrees levels act very differently in the market. And so understanding how they act and then making decisions specifically down to the channel plus degree level,

Jason Altmire

I don't think we have had a podcast recording. In months, perhaps a year or more, where ai, the subject of AI does not come up. It's just everywhere, justifiably and I I wanted to ask, uh, pwi, if we talked about that five minute response, but more generally. Automation and ai, how can they realistically help schools achieve that five minute response? And, and how, how can they help schools with the more broad based concept of student inquiries and providing an accurate response based upon the programs that students are interested in?

Prithwi Dasgupta

No, I agree with you. I think we haven't had a conversation in a long time where AI hasn't come up. I think, uh, from what we are seeing, Jason, it is the technology both from an automation as well as an AI standpoint is absolutely available today. And talk a little bit about where and how it impacts taking on From what Patrick also mentioned, I think we are looking at. Deep diving into a lot of personalized approaches, whether it's the programs itself, whether it's the channel, and then the focus from, uh, just the cost per lead to actually, the cost per enrollment makes you look at lot of operational gaps to be fulfilled in that enrollment cycle, right top of funnel today. It is possible for AI agents to aggregate data and signals across all of these channels. And create those micro segments, which earlier used to take, you know, a lot of time and effort and practically would not be possible for a lot of these organizations and institutes today. It is very much possible we see the utilization of, uh, generative AI being used to fast track personalized content creation today. Again, very easy to do, very, very quick to include into the workflows and then the automation across your front office, middle office, and back office. What I want to spend a little bit of time on though, whilst we are saying that this technology is available, the challenge and a little bit of word of caution for institutes is this has to be deployed personalized to the institutes themselves. You know, the technology just does not work on its own whilst the AI agents are there. Institutes have to spend time to provide the foundational layers and the business context, which is relevant to that particular institute and their workflows and processes. See, an AI agent is like a new hire. You may have the all the skills available, but if you don't spend time training it, you don't spend time on the cultural integration. It's not gonna work. It's the same with AI agents. We need to provide the business context and then across the workflow from top of funnel to middle of funnel to the bottom of funnel, I think there are multiple interjections which can drive those operational gaps, which historically have slowed schools down.

Patrick Patterson

Jason, you're, you're not gonna, you're not gonna get off the podcast without me talking about ai. I was, I was

Jason Altmire

gonna go to you. I know this is your expertise,

Patrick Patterson

so No, I think, you know. Pre three is a hundred percent correct. Right. I see really three, three things that, uh, and I do a lot of speaking with the leadership teams at universities, trying to get them to understand what is possible and where we need to go. And three, three areas where I think there's a lot of, you know, where, where I would focus. Right now, the first thing I hear everyone say is, okay, I'm gonna automate my my admissions team, which is the wrong place to start. Absolutely the wrong place to start. I think the first thing you need to do is say, how can I improve the student experience? Using the tools that are available today, not how can I replace the experience with ai, but how can I improve the student experience? This could be things like fifth three's talking about on Microtargeting. You know, when I was running a, a 40 plus million dollars marketing budget, uh, at one of the largest education systems, I dreamed about a world. Where I could have one-to-one personalization in my marketing. I couldn't, right? I only, I had five personas, six personas, and then we had to create marketing campaigns specifically to those personas and, and experiences to those. Now we can create, you know, all the way down to the person with the information that exists in the CRM with the tools that exist, you can get really, really, really personalized. And what I mean by that is maybe you have someone in Poughkeepsie that is looking for your. Looking for your degree program and you're offering them grant programs and scholarships to research that are right within their town. And that's something that really just couldn't happen even three or four years ago, and now it can happen in seconds with ai. So that's the first thing. The second thing is we just talked about the consumer journey changing, about how the research phase is done before I talk to a human. So what's important to understand is that people are using things like Chap, GPT and Perplexity and Gemini to do the research. So how are you showing up for those LLMs? And so I think it's really important that while SEO is still a thing and the the agents are still gonna be reading your website, how are you, uh, being talked about? By the LLMs and we have some discoverability things, but you can even do it yourself. Go into ChatGPT T and just say, Hey, what's the top degree program for X in, in, in this area? Right. And it's gonna give you the thing, it's gonna show you the sources, you're gonna see where you're being talked about. So I think that's the second thing. And then the third thing is we have done lead scoring now for a very long time. And you know, we're now at a point where we can do, we're, we're refreshing our models. Every day to better score leads that are coming in to ensure that we are giving them the, the right path or the right kind of, uh, routing throughout the universities that, that are here. And that, that, that's really, really important. You have 10 inquiries. How are you going to give them the experience? And so we're using lead, lead scoring. That is being, you know, the model's rebuild every day. It's looking at all the data that we have every day and that's really given us the ability to say, okay, these folks need this type of thing. They need, these folks need to understand finance, these, these folks need this. And it's really allowed us to route folks to the right person within a a university. And I think like that specifically, again, it's how do I improve the student's experience? Not how do I replace, uh, you know, cost within my organization And that's, those are gonna be the universities that win, the ones that adapt like that.

Jason Altmire

And I think to, to bring this all together, I would ask both of you, what does great execution look like? With regard to these issues, what, from the first contact to enrollment of that student, what would be the ideal way that process should work? I'll start with Prith. We,

Prithwi Dasgupta

yeah. I think, uh, leading on from what Patrick said, a little bit. See for every organization, whilst there is a generic theme here, we know the first five minutes are important, but how you enable first contact within this five minutes will be very specific to each institute. It's not going to be, you know, a standard template everyone follows. And when you look at whether it's media, whether it is marketing automation, or whether it's CRM, I think what we are seeing a big change in right now is. Design outcome first. So you have to figure out here is what the outcome we desire by channel, by program. And I think Patrick mentioned that a little bit. And now the entire flow from first contract to enrollment has to be designed accordingly. What we do not see though, uh, what we are. Sort of evangelizing a little bit more is organizations spending enough time upfront designing what is right for their own ecosystem. So whether it is the data flow, whether it's the functions involved, whether they actually have a contact center or not, whether it's required. What's the front, middle back office impacts? Very importantly, what's the experience you want your prospective students to go through? So I think we know that we want self-serve, we want personalization, we want speed, but it takes a lot of effort whilst the technology is available today, so, so for us, Jason, what we are seeing as a marketing automation and CRM vendor, it's not about the CRM functionalities and features anymore. It's more about whether you have the ability to understand the context in the industry and very specifically with the institutes and universities you work with, and then evolve this entire journey from first contact to enrollment, utilizing, you know, automation, utilizing AI layers, et cetera, uh, cohesively along with, uh, partners at this. We have what we have with level. So I would look at it end to end, uh, design first from an outcome standpoint, and then work backwards from there. Is the big change we are seeing.

Patrick Patterson

And Jason, I, you know, I think I ditto everything there. I, I think it's really, really important. In our world, the best marketing is the marketing that doesn't feel like I'm being marketed to. Right. And I think that's really important. It's how do we create an experience that is student first that is personalized and the way that you do that. And I think if, if, if I were to spend from now until the end of Q1 on anything, it would be how do I ensure that I have the right data going into my CRM? How do I then use that data? To better inform the campaigns that I'm doing, so that I'm being personalized. How do I meet consumers where they are in the right way? That means calling them immediately when they want to be talked to. That means showing up in the LLMs the right way. That is the future of what we're looking at. And so for me, if I get, if I'm looking for school, if I'm actively looking. Or maybe I'm not, maybe I'm, you know, that we, we do a lot of marketing for folks that aren't, don't even know that they, they, they want to go back to school yet, but there's a need there. There's a want, there's something unfulfilled. I'm not gonna get that by blasting 10,000 unpersonalized emails out to a mailing list. I'm gonna get that by really understanding my consumer and showing them something that is valuable. A lot. The universities that, that we work with and the universities that are part of your organization, Jason, they do really important things. And so tying that need that the student has to the important things that these these institutions are doing in a personalized way as quickly as possible, and showing up in that journey that won't feel like advertising, that will just feel like creating value. As soon as you can do that, as soon as you can use this data, you can use the information to, to do that, you win As an organization,

Jason Altmire

this benchmark study is an incredibly valuable resource. As I mentioned, looking at and analyzing over 500,000 student inquiries, a hundred million dollars in advertising data. If somebody out there wanted to learn more and actually see this report and, and, uh, benefit from your recommendations, how would they find it?

Patrick Patterson

Yeah, uh, you can just Google, uh, level 2025 higher education performance report. You can go to, uh, level agency and find it there. Hopefully it shows up in the LLMs, Jason, when you search for it there as well. But lots of different ways to do it. And you can follow us on LinkedIn or our podcast as well where we, where we post those things.

Jason Altmire

Our guests today have been Prithwi Dasgupta. He is the president of North America at Lead Squared and Patrick Patterson. He is the CEO at Level Agency. Gentlemen, thank you both for being here.

Patrick Patterson

Thank you so much. Thank you, Jason.

Jason Altmire

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Career Education Report. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information, visit our website@career.org and follow us on Twitter at cq ed. That's at CECU Ed. Thank you for listening.