Over the last few months both schools and lead generation firms have become increasingly nervous over pending regulation changes. More schools seem to believe that changes will come effecting cost per lead marketing, most vendors while increasingly stressed just don’t think it will happen. Arguments can be made against the proposed changes include:
- That lead generators don’t contact/interact with the student prospects
- The the entire process is driven by the prospective student choosing and requesting
- That non-profits buy data on people who aren’t aware and the directly market them
- That the vendors are not in any way involved in the enrollment process
- That the education directories provide a valuable free service for prospective students
- That the lead generators have created much more outreach promoting education
Schools seem to think that if lead gen CPL has to either go away or change that CPC cost per click will remain…that doesn’t make any sense to me as ultimately the value of a click can be identified by conversions just as the value of a lead. However, many mention that Google CPC is different as they set the price. Other schools feel that placement fees/clotting fee will become the new normal.
What do you think?
Your lead generation article reminds me of a couple of recent for-profit institution complaints we were involved in. Details were not released to the public, but the complaints did center around calling consumers on the the National DNC registry. Both colleges claimed consumers had inquired, but the leads were provided by lead aggregators. This is always problematic because lead aggregators are famous for selling leads that do not meet FTC mandates relative to consumer discolsures.
That means that when colleges call people, those people don’t generally expect the call and feel they did not inquire directly to the college.
Consider your lead sources carefully to ensure they meet the FTC mandates which are:
1. The consumer must be informed they will be called.
2. The consumer must be told who they will be called by (if known by the lead aggregator)
3. The consumer must be told how many companies may call them.
3. The lead must be provided to the buyer in a timely way to ensure the lead meets inquiry exemption time limits.
If you have further aggregator questions, please feel free to give me a call 561-317-3001.
Bob Traylor, President, Do Not Call Protection. Contributed to by Ken Sponsler, CIPP, PMP