What's wrong with the way schools buy internet leads?
Some schools view the internet as a single source for leads.  In fact, it's a complicated communications tool. Often, a school will buy all their leads from one or two aggregators hoping to make their jobs easy. They may even allow the lead aggregator to handle their search engine campaigns.  Unfortunately many colleges taking this route end up buying a lot of bad leads and paying too much for others.  For example, a school may pay for leads that would have arrived free through a direct search like Google or Yahoo! 

Can a school improve the effectiveness of their purchased leads? 
Good internet lead purchasing and conversion software can improve efficiency when buying, managing, tracking, distributing, converting and analyzing internet leads.  
 
What's wrong with the way aggregators, brokers and other vendors acquire and sell leads?
Companies that sell leads to colleges have priorities that are different from those of their clients.  Internet lead vendors increase their profits by selling the same prospect to multiple schools. Take the online school directory for example.  In explaining such a page to their prospective clients, vendors liken it to the Yellow Pages, where competing schools are visible to the shopper. If the shopper completes a form and indicates interest in five schools, the vendor will be paid for that shopper five times.  However, unlike the Yellow Pages, an internet lead vendor also owns the information.  It's often used to re-contact those consumers to stimulate interest in other schools, and companies performing other services.  Their database of leads is an asset, which they are optimizing and monetizing continuously.

Why would a savvy school participate?
They may not be generating sufficient leads themselves.  They may be impressed by a site's high traffic figures.  They may like being able to specify a desired profile.  They may feel they need to be visible where their competitors are visible.  Online advertisers can purchase online space much more economically than they can.
 
What are other shortcomings of vendor-acquired leads?
Some vendors don’t understand the laws regulating education.  Some vendors are actually misleading prospective students, using false promises to lure people to a web page.  For example, I recently received an e-mail in which I could click on a financial aid check for $30,000 which sported the words "Find a school today.  Get loan now!"  In fact, some sites are so clever that consumers who have little or no intention of going to college become school leads.   
 
How can a school recognize a reputable vendor or aggregator?
Interestingly, most of the large education lead vendors are reputable.  But the industry has developed at the speed of technology with lots of wit and cleverness.  Schools need talent and systems in place to identify the questionable practices.