Driving enrollment efficiency through data-driven lead scoring
THE EPIC WIN
Level Agency partnered with StrataTech Education Group to transform lead quality and enrollment outcomes through a data-driven lead scoring model—powered by deep CRM insights from LeadSquared.
ABOUT STRATATECH
StrataTech Education Group empowers students to pursue careers in skilled trades, including HVAC, welding, electrical, electrical lineworker, and Industrial Maintenance Technology (IMT). Their brand portfolio includes Tulsa Welding School and The Refrigeration School. Like many in the higher education sector, they faced a persistent challenge: how to make the most of their marketing spend by focusing on leads that actually enroll, not just those that fill out a form.
THE CHALLENGE
In a crowded, competitive education landscape, StrataTech needed a smarter way to prioritize the right prospects. Key challenges included:
- Longer Sales Cycles (Biggest Challenge): Traditional Google Ads optimization focuses on two-week windows—misaligned with the extended timelines typical of education decision-making. This challenge was the biggest one impacting the flaw of Google’s auto-bidding system for StrataTech.
- Lead Quality vs. Quantity: Admissions teams faced an influx of low-intent leads, which challenged them to manage their time effectively and allocate resources wisely.
- Fragmented Data: With vast amounts of lead data in LeadSquared, connecting the dots between initial inquiries and starts was no small feat.
THE STRATEGY
Level Agency partnered with LeadSquared and StrataTech to build a predictive lead scoring model that prioritized quality over quantity, transforming data into actionable insights. Key strategic pillars:
- Historical Data Analysis: Level Agency analyzed two years of LeadSquared lead data to identify attributes that correlated most strongly with actual student enrollments, allowing them to move beyond surface-level metrics and focus on leads that mattered most.
- Offline Conversion Integration: By uploading lead scores into Google Ads as offline conversions, Level Agency empowered value-based bidding that prioritized high-intent leads over simple form fills, creating a direct link between marketing efforts and real enrollment outcomes.
- Custom Lead Scoring & Longer Optimization Windows: Factored in distance from campus, match type, brand affinity, and channel type. Expanded beyond Google’s default two-week focus to account for the real-world enrollment journey, addressing the challenge that Google’s auto-bidding struggles with products or services that have long sales cycles. Without the predictive lead scoring model, StrataTech couldn’t effectively optimize toward starts since they often fall out of the 2-week range.
-
Data-Driven Admissions: Rather than equipping admissions teams with a tool to score each individual lead, Level Agency provided them with a higher quality pool of prospects by using the predictive model to filter out low-quality leads upstream. This allowed admissions to focus on the highest-potential prospects.
THE RESULTS
The impact was transformative:
- 24% Decrease in Cost per Enrollment (CPE)
- 72% Increase in Lead-to-Enrollment Conversion Rate
These results illustrate the power of CRM-integrated milestone data to drive predictive marketing strategies that deliver real-world ROI.
STRATEGIC NEXT STEPS
Building on this success, Level is now extending the model to Google Performance Max campaigns. By incorporating offline lead scores, StrataTech can now let Google’s AI prioritize not just volume, but high-value prospects likely to enroll, turning every marketing dollar into a smarter investment.
And we’re not stopping there. With LeadSquared’s robust data integrations, the next phase will introduce behavioral data layers, adding engagement signals (like site interactions and page paths) to the model for an even sharper focus on high-intent leads.
Testimonial
“Partnering with Level Agency and leveraging LeadSquared has fundamentally changed how we approach lead generation and enrollment. The predictive lead scoring model has allowed us to shift from chasing volume to focusing on quality, which has improved both marketing efficiency and admissions effectiveness. We’re seeing stronger leads, better conversion rates, and greater confidence in our media strategy thanks to the downstream data visibility and value-based optimization approach.”
— Stephanie Gallo, Senior Director of Marketing and Public Relations, StrataTech Education Group
