EBureau and Datamark Form Partnership for Online Leads in Education Market

eBureau, an innovative provider of custom predictive scoring and information solutions, and Datamark, Inc., the nation’s leading direct response advertising agency for colleges, universities, and proprietary post-secondary academic institutions, today announced they have formed a strategic partnership that will result in utilizing eBureau’s predictive modeling to accurately evaluate, in real time, the quality of every online lead that Datamark purchases on behalf of its education clients.

The two companies will jointly demonstrate the recently-introduced eScores for Education solution at the upcoming Career Colleges Association (CCA) Annual Convention & Exposition, June 25-27, 2008, at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nev. The event is the country’s largest trade show and conference for presidents, owners, directors, and administrators of privately-owned and publicly-traded career colleges.

Datamark and its customers will use eBureau’s proven predictive modeling to generate eScores that accurately predict the likelihood an individual online lead will apply, enroll, and start school, regardless of where the lead was generated. The solution increases overall enrollment rates by empowering schools to focus admissions activities on those prospects with a reasonable propensity to enroll, start and stay in school, while improving the cost per student through more effective lead management by Datamark’s media team. The integration with LeadBin 5.0 allows Datamark’s team to accept and reject leads based on each lead’s individual value.

“Our partnership with Datamark allows us to deliver together a compelling total solution to the education market, a large vertical industry where we can clearly demonstrate the power and value of using real-time predictive scoring within online marketing strategies,” said Gordy Meyer, president and chief executive officer of eBureau. “With education institutions now spending over a billion dollars to procure, pursue, and convert inquiries and leads into enrolled students, eBureau’s eScores for Education offering serves as a major productivity enhancer and cost-savings tool that these schools can leverage to boost enrollment.”

“eBureau’s scoring technology is both a powerful addition to Datamark’s LeadBin lead management system, and a major strategic benefit to our many education sector clients, who are constantly searching for ways to boost enrollment levels while managing costs,” said Tom Dearden, president and chief executive officer of Datamark. “Now, with this capability, Datamark can deliver stronger lead management and qualification services to help schools achieve these important objectives.”

In today’s education industry, for-profit online, trade, and other post-secondary schools are now locating an increasing number of new students via the Internet instead of through traditional marketing channels, such as direct mail, print and broadcast advertising. Each year, these institutions spend nearly $1 billion on online marketing to uncover interested students, and then hundreds of millions of dollars more following up with and converting those leads into new students. The use of eBureau’s eScores for Education to optimize upfront lead purchases and back-end contact center strategies can boost enrollment while delivering millions of dollars in cost savings.

About eBureau
eBureau provides a powerful suite of online marketing and lead generation, credit risk management, fraud prevention and collections & recovery scoring and information solutions to industry-leading multichannel marketers, financial services companies, online advertisers, and agencies. Founded in 2004, eBureau has designed and built a patent-pending, state-of-the-art data warehouse and real-time predictive scoring system. The company is headquartered in St. Cloud, Minn., and has received $28 million in funding from its founders, Split Rock Partners, and Redpoint Ventures. For more information, please visit http://www.ebureau.com.

About Datamark
Datamark is the nation’s leading performance marketing agency exclusive to the education industry. The company’s research and technology-based marketing solutions help schools generate more starts, while reducing marketing expenses associated with student acquisition. Datamark’s core competencies include direct response services in direct mail, print, TV, and all interactive media, and it provides integrated media management services and custom research to clients. For more information, please visit http://www.datamark.com.