Put yourself in the shoes of an adult who never completed his or her undergraduate degree and is thinking about returning to school. You’ve seen the television ads promoting the University of Phoenix and understand, in a vague sort of way, that you can earn a legitimate degree conveniently through a high-speed Internet connection. You want to learn more about the possibilities that exist out there for earning a degree online, so you go to your Internet-connected computer at home, or at work, and type out the words "online degrees" into the Google search engine.

Here’s part of the results that came up on the first page of this suggested Google search, which I conducted on Sunday, September 14, 2003 at approximately 11:05 a.m. EDT:

Here’s what I saw at the top of the home page: "Congratulations. You’ve made the big decision to earn your college degree online. Now for the hard part...which college do you choose? With your career and your future on the line, it’s important that you make the right decision. We can help. After spending months researching online schools, we’ve identified the very best. You’ll find them listed below."

The list of schools prominently displayed directly below this message were University of Phoenix, DeVry University, AIU Online, Capella University, Kennedy-Western University, The University Alliance, The Art Institute Online, Cardean University, Jones International University, Clayton College of Natural Health, American Graduate School of Management and ITT Technical Institute.

The opposite of the pseudo DE portals are what I am going to refer to here as "real DE portals." These Web sites are much different than pseudo DE portals in that they typically provide a great deal of information geared toward educating prospective distance-education students about what it is like to be an online learner. Plus, the majority of these real DE Portals list many more distance-education programs than what you see on the pseudo sites.

It’s no secret that when prospective students visit either a pseudo or real DE portal and successfully fill out a request-for-more-information form through any one of the prominently displayed institutions that are customarily listed as "sponsored" or "featured," these students become qualified leads. My research (conducted primarily through informal interviews both on and off the record) has shown that advertising institutions can pay the DE portal providers anywhere from $10 to $25 per legitimate lead, frequently in minimum quantities of 100 or more. The ultimate goal, of course, is to convert these leads into matriculated students. This kind of cost-per-lead marketing service has turned out to be big business in the world of online-degree-program student recruitment practices.

Both pseudo and real DE portals, as well as many distance-education providers themselves (most of which are the for-profit institutions), are popping up on the first page of search-engine results when prospective students, searching for viable online education options, input a wide variety of words related to distance education. These words can be purchased through advertising programs driven by online bidding processes that allow the portals and distance-education providers to purchase "sponsored" and "featured" first-page placement results that are tied into key distance-education-related words. Some of the more popular words, such as "online degrees," "distance education," "distance learning," and "online learning," for example, garner the highest bids. My research reveals that in many cases, depending on the search engine advertising program being offered, winning bidders pay a per-click fee, meaning that every time their featured linked is clicked on, at least in relation to the more popular search terms, it could cost them anywhere from $4 to $6, which can add up very quickly.

Additionally, both the pseudo and real DE portals, along with Web-savvy institutions, might make it to the first or second page of major search engine results because their Web sites are effectively optimized by smart online marketers who know how to get the search engines to find them through proper meta-tagging. This is a process that costs them nothing but time well spent.

According to Steve Shapiro, vice president of marketing and communications for Jones International, the pseudo DE portals did not come onto the online marketing game field until mid last year. "I don’t think I am overstating this when I say, quite frankly, that the cost-per-lead offerings from some of these sites and vendors has revolutionized the way that universities can attract students," he says. "The cost-per-new-student acquisition has dropped precipitously as a result of it."

My research is showing, however, that reliance on the pseudo portals may be slowing because the traffic is not what it initially was when they first came into existence. However, reliance on cost-per-lead marketing looks to be increasing with the real DE portals.

When you look at search engine results using words related to distance education, many of institutions taking advantage of the cost-per-lead marketing strategy are for-profit institutions. My research shows that there are three primary reasons for this. First, many traditional non-profit institutions are not fully cognizant of these kinds of marketing strategies. Secondly, many traditional non-profit institutions don’t have the marketing staff to research and implement such effective marketing strategies. Third, many of the traditional non-profit institutions, particularly at the state level, don’t have the dollars to research and implement such effective marketing strategies.

This is not to say, of course, that non-profit institutions are not effectively taking part in this kind of marketing. Some that immediately come to mind that are very effective in this arena are the University of Illinois Online, which is the marketing arm of the University of Illinois three campuses in Chicago, Springfield and Urbana-Champaign; Penn State World Campus; and the University Alliance, comprised of Jacksonville University, Regis University, St. Leo University, University of Southern Florida, Villanova University and Tulane University.

One non-profit institution that did not wish to be named explained that a $12,000 investment in a cost-per-lead program over a period of six months resulted in five prospects becoming full-time matriculated students in full online degree programs. The estimated return on investment was calculated at approximately $88,000 if these five students remain in the program for one year.

This same institution said that they were getting on average of 100 qualified leads from one of the real DE portals over the course of three to 12 days, depending on which degree program prospects were inquiring about. The highest demand was for undergraduate degrees, with prospective students who had previously attended college being the largest demographic. Online MBA programs were also noted as being very popular.

Nonetheless, there are many who can’t afford to take part in this kind of marketing effort, and there are probably just as many that really don’t want to take part in any extensive online advertising, marketing and promotional campaigns for the simple reason that they believe their brand will carry them through any drive for increased enrollments.

However, Chaloux adds that non-profit institutions are "becoming more business sensitive," in part, just to keep up with the for-profit sector. "We are certainly being impacted significantly by the strategies and approaches of the proprietary institutions," he says. "In a sense you can probably make the argument that they beat a lot of institutions to the punch, and the question has become how quickly can the traditional institutions react and respond." However, it is "troublesome," he adds, that this comes at a time when state revenue support for public institutions has dropped to "abysmal" levels.