Hitting performance goals and growing enrollments for over 13 years.
Dorsey College and PX (formerly Edufficient) started working together in December 2013, first on pay-per-lead, then adding digital in November 2015. Across more than 13 years and a pandemic that reshaped campus-based programs, the partnership has met and beaten year-over-year benchmarks, with one north star: growing enrollments.
About Dorsey College
Since 1934, Dorsey College has delivered quality career education across Michigan, building the self-esteem, self-reliance, and professionalism students carry into the workforce. Today it runs seven campuses with programs in healthcare, nursing, EMS, beauty, culinary, and skilled trades.
The Dorsey family of schools also includes Dorsey School of Beauty in Taylor, MI, and Training Direct in Bridgeport, CT.
The long-term partnership between Dorsey and PX has allowed us to be both nimble and strategic in how we innovate, engage with prospective students throughout their decision-making process, and preserve our brand in what can be a noisy, crowded online environment. PX has become an extension of our internal team. They understand our goals and challenges, which is invaluable and lets us focus on driving positive outcomes for our students and for Dorsey overall.
The Challenge
Dorsey markets across many channels, campuses, and programs in one of the most competitive education markets. To keep growing enrollments, they needed a partner who could manage the complexity, not add to it:
- Campus-level complexity: running multiple online channels across multiple campus locations at once.
- Agility with compliance: staying nimble through shifting platform capabilities, compliance rules, and algorithm changes.
- Proving impact: making sure every dollar spent traced back to enrollment outcomes.
- COVID disruption: campus-only programs were hit while low-cost online competitors surged.
The Goals
Improve the quality of every interaction with prospective students, gain visibility, and grow enrollments.
- Conversion efficiency: hold cost-per-enrollment and lead-to-enrollment rates steady.
- Competitive edge: outperform competitors on ad presence and performance.
- Budget allocation: move spend toward top-performing channels and vendors.
- Data-driven decisions: act on historical performance, not guesswork.
- Scalable testing: test ad copy, placements, and platforms across audiences, programs, and campuses.
- Compliance: regular landing-page audits, call reviews, and enforced regulations.
How PX helped Dorsey grow enrollments
PX runs as the centralized acquisition engine behind Dorsey's seven campuses. Three things made the difference:
The power of centralized marketing
Dorsey runs all of its online marketing and operations through PX: paid social, paid search, third-party leads, marketing automation, SEO, and more. One team launches and manages every campaign. That gives Dorsey a single, consolidated view of performance across channels, so decisions get made on data, budget gets diversified toward what works, and demand gets pushed to the programs and campuses that need it. Centralizing also absorbs the admin load: integrations, compliance, and invoicing.
Continuous testing and optimizing
The PX team tests constantly: ad copy, landing-page formats, creative, placements, content formats, channels, and new Google products in BETA. One win was seasonal ad copy that lifted CPL and conversions, then scaled across campaigns. Localizing copy and imagery to each market raised engagement with a diverse student pool. The biggest lever was leaning fully into Google automation and machine learning to optimize paid search. That drove down CPL, CPE, and CPS, with CPL on Google falling 18% YoY in Fall 2024.
Heightened compliance standards
PX built a full compliance review process to keep Dorsey aligned with TCPA and accreditation requirements at both the campus and program level. Every third-party lead vendor is checked, and so is every new call center, source, or campaign before it goes live. Regular landing-page audits, detailed call-recording monitoring, and an up-to-date blacklist of non-compliant partners keep the whole system clean.
The result
By centralizing marketing, testing relentlessly, and holding the compliance line, PX helped Dorsey grow enrollments while bringing costs down.
Fall 2024 vs. Fall 2023
Enroll more students. Grow every campus.
PX centralizes your marketing, tests relentlessly across every channel, and builds compliance into every lead. One partner running it all, so your team can stay focused on students.
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