key performance indicators you must monitor when buying leads

KPI ’S YOU CAN’T L IVE WITHOUT

Steve Smith, Managing Director February 2012

Reach, Recruit & Enroll the Right Students

Spring Training

Marketing KPIs 101 – An Example

Total Leads = 100

Cost per lead = $100

Total Lead cost = $10,000

Accepted leads = -

Leads contacted = -

Leads application = -

Leads enrolled = -

Leads started = -

Cost per enroll = -

Marketing KPIs 101 – Scrubbed

Total Leads = 100

Cost per lead = $100

Total Lead cost = $8,000

Accepted leads = 80

Leads contacted = -

Leads application = -

Leads enrolled = -

Leads started = -

Cost per enroll = -

Marketing KPIs 101 – End of Week 1

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10

Contact Rate App Rate Enroll Rate Start Rate

Total Leads = 100

Cost per lead = $100

Total Lead cost = $7,800

Accepted leads = 80

Leads contacted = 24

Leads application = 1

Leads enrolled = 0

Leads started = 0

Cost per enroll = -

Marketing KPIs 101 – End of Week 2

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10

Contact Rate App Rate Enroll Rate Start Rate

Total Leads = 100

Cost per lead = $100

Total Lead cost = $7,800

Accepted leads = 78

Leads contacted = 40

Leads application = 3

Leads enrolled = 2

Leads started = 0

Cost per enroll = $3,900

Marketing KPIs 101 – End of Week 4

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10

Contact Rate App Rate Enroll Rate Start Rate

Total Leads = 100

Cost per lead = $100

Total Lead cost = $7,700

Accepted leads = 77

Leads contacted = 50

Leads application = 9

Leads enrolled = 4

Leads started = 0

Cost per enroll = $1,925

Marketing KPIs 101 – End of Week 10

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10

Contact Rate App Rate Enroll Rate Start Rate

Total Leads = 100

Cost per lead = $100

Total Lead cost = $7,600

Accepted leads = 76

Leads contacted = 52

Leads application = 12

Leads enrolled = 5

Leads started = 3

Cost per enroll = $1,520

Rookie Errors

Common Measurement Mistakes

Not measuring against a static pool

Not measuring against accepted leads

Not allowing data to season

Not assessing true lead cost

Using stale data

1

2

3

4

5

Getting to First Base:

Must Have KPIs

KPI #1: Volume, Cost and Pacing vs. Targets

• Target groupings (e.g. ground nursing programs)

• Volume and pace versus targets and vendor boast

• Cost, pacing versus target budget

• Percentage to target

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Lead

s

Day

Provider A - Cumulative Volume Provider A - Target Volume Provider A - Monthly Pace

KPI #1: Volume, Cost and Pacing vs. Targets

• Target groupings (e.g. ground nursing programs)

• Volume and pace versus targets and vendor boast

• Cost, pacing versus target budget

• Percentage to target

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Lead

s

Day

Provider A - Cumulative Volume Provider A - Target Volume Provider A - Monthly Pace

KPI #1: Volume, Cost and Pacing vs. Targets

• Target groupings (e.g. ground nursing programs)

• Volume and pace versus targets and vendor boast

• Cost, pacing versus target budget

• Percentage to target

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Lead

s

Day

Provider A - Cumulative Volume Provider A - Target Volume Provider A - Monthly Pace

KPI #2: Bad Lead Rates and Reason

DNC 3%

Q & T Call Centers

34%

Duplicates 29%

Geography 6%

Other 4%

Overcap 4%

Validation 16%

Scoring & Verification

4%

Average breakdown of bad inquiries by reason (Q3 2010-Q2 2011)

KPI #3: Conversion Rates

• Based on static pool of accepted leads

• Early and late stage conversion metrics

• E.g. Contact, Transfer, Visited, Application, Enrolled (Closed), Started (Funded), Graduated

Ground

Online

Representative EDU Metrics

Cost spent on a pool of leads divided by the number of conversions

Cost per closed loan, enrollment, start

Ground

Online

KPI #4: Acquisition Costs

Representative EDU Metrics

KPI #5: Operational Metrics

Speed to delivery

Cycle times

Volume vs. historical

Hitting a Double: Segmentation

Hitting a Double: Segmentation

Example Cost / Enrollment

TV

3rd Party Internet Leads

Paid Search – Branded

Paid Search - Unbranded

Ch

ann

el T

ype

$1733

$1325

$436

$1899

Lead source, sub affiliate

Target groups, program, campus, geography, market, level of education, degree type, team, other verticals - credit, LTV

Comparison of offline, aggregator, paid media channels

Hitting a Triple: Optimization

Hitting a Triple: Optimization

Multidimensional analysis

“Heat maps” to identify sweet spots and poor areas

Training for lower-performing teams

Reallocation of budget

Premium pricing strategies

Contact Rate

Akron

Alexandria

Allentown

Anne Arundel

Arlington

Augusta

Cam

pu

s

81.0%

73.7%

55.6%

53.3%

90.0%

60.0%

The World Series:

Marketing Measurements+

The World Series

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25

Age in Weeks

%Enrollments

Advanced volume pacing & conversion forecasting

The ever-elusive ROI number

Next Season: The Future of Data-Driven Marketing

Constraint-Based Optimization

Vendor A 118 23.9% 90 $ 74.73 $ 1,660.67 4 4.5% $ 6,711.40 90

Vendor B 2,189 34.2% 1,441 $ 32.82 $ 863.68 55 3.8% $ 47,289.80 1,580

Vendor C 225 17.6% 185 $ 117.27 $ 1,047.05 21 11.2% $ 21,738.06 200

Vendor D 305 30.3% 213 $ 96.58 $ 1,085.17 19 8.9% $ 20,544.30 230

TOTAL 2,837 26.5% 1,929 $ 49.92 $ 977.62 98 7.1% $ 96,283.57

Vendor A -74% 23 $ 1,718.79 1 30 $ 1,660.67

Vendor B 10% 1,580 $ 51,855.60 60 2,400 $ 863.68

Vendor C 3% 191 $ 22,398.57 21 232 $1,047.05

Vendor D -8% 197 $ 19,026.26 18 282 $1,085.17

TOTAL 3% 1,991 $ 94,999.22 100 2,945 $949.99

Good Lead Volume 62 3%

Total Lead Volume 108 4%

Monthly Cost -$ 1,284.35 -1%

Monthly Enrolls 2 2%

Cost/Enroll -$ 27.62 -3%

Takeaways

•Measure what matters and measure it right

•Segment and optimize for Moneyball results

•The investment will pay off

•You can do it even with a smaller budget

For additional questions:

Steve Smith steve.smith@cunet.com 416-323-1366 ext. 41224