NEWS: Sparkroom successfully switches focus to Education and expands offering

I noticed today that Sparkroom has had several significant wins in the education space recently. Premier Education Group, which has 21 privately owned campuses in northeastern states, just signed up for Sparkroom’s Lead Deliver and Lead IQ platforms. In the past few months they also picked up US Education Corporation, a division of Devry Inc.

This is interesting for several reasons. First, just a few months ago false rumors were circling in the lead generation industry that Sparkroom was down and out. That is clearly far from the case, the resource changes appear to have been associated with a shift in focus from mortgage to education. Second, the breadth of what Sparkroom is trying to achieve is now a little clearer. It is quite ambitious in scope since if you line up their products it seems like they are aiming to do campaign management, which competes with companies like DataMark, lead validation, which competes with companies with companies like TargusInfo and eBureau, lead analytics which has always been Sparkroom’s core competency and some very basic lead distribution, which arguably could be a minor move towards lead management, which would compete with companies like Leads360.

The fact that Sparkroom has focused on the education vertical makes a lot of sense though. The average lead price and cost per aquistion are higher and the marketing departments far more analytically driven than other heavy lead-using verticals pointing to the fact that there is both the funds to pay for the sophistication that Sparkroom brings plus value placed upon what Sparkroom promises to bring to the table. Given that what Sparkroom has to offer pushes the sophistication of the Lead Gen industry to a higher level I look forward to seeing many more press releases of wins in the education industry over the coming months.