“It all started above a deli in Staten Island.” And so begins one of the lesser known and more intriguing stories in the world of online lead generation, one that has resulted in not just one successful exit but potentially three. Junkies of online lead generation will know the name ClassesUSA, and they will know it not for some of its innovative work on display today but for owning display before anyone, even the schools themselves, understood that it could be done. And, it all started above a deli in Staten Island.
The story which is today SeniorsForLiving.com began in 2000 when Jordon Keltz, who ran an internet consulting company ,became introduced to Luciano Rammairone, the founder of CollegBound. Today, they rank among the largest of online lead generation providers, easily in the top there, but in 2000, CollegeBound was an offline business, a series of publications for students and adults interested in higher education. Web guy meets education guy. They name their online venture ClassesUSA. The rest is history. Right? If only it were that easy. And, if it were that easy, the story wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.
The year 2000 was early for online education lead generation, but it wasn’t early for several of the larger for profit institutions. Apollo Group’s University of Phoenix for instance had just entered its third decade of existence, but unlike today, where liquidity / monetization for those entering the marketing of online education, there was no field guide for ClassesUSA aka “Classes.” Their first site in fact had none of the usual suspects that we find on today’s online education properties. Luciano knew he wanted to create an online business, hence partnering with Jordon and creating Classes. But, with neither knowing what exactly that entailed what do you do? In their case, the logical choice was creating a showcase of classes that could be taken online. And rather than compensation occurring on a per lead basis, they received payment on a per transaction level. These weren’t degree programs but vocational courses; think of it as an early version of EduFire.
Site built. Next was traffic, and this is where things start to click into place for amateur historians. In 2002, Jordon made a deal with MSN for placement. This wasn’t a straight banner deal but a more robust integration of their content and course listings. It was a cpc deal for MSN, where clicks on the courses would earn them money. It was still an arbitrage play for ClassesUSA, because they only received payment on a purchase. What they didn’t know at the time was that this deal and style of placement would become one of the best things that happened. He certainly would have guessed it when they were losing money each month over month. But that would soon change, and it would change the entire focus of their business as well. The placement attracted the attention of AIU who saw the Classes content as a natural fit for its certificates. That AIU wanted to pay on a lead basis was an initial stumbling block for a company that operated on an ecommerce model, but they went ahead and tried it.
Not long after, Jordon found himself hearing from Capella and the University of Phoenix. They too had seen the site, and now with AIU on there, they wanted placement as well. And, it was then that the business started to shift. Leads worked. They went from losing money to making money, and even better they had the premier entities coming to them as opposed to the other way around. The content deal started working too well in fact. Jordon negotiated a cap on the number of clicks they would pay out to MSN. After that cap, it was pure profit. Around the time that they began renegotiating the deal was the time that MSN introduced PerformancePlus, their display on a CPA program that was open to a select few big spenders, one of whom was Classes. Now, they started running individual school ads on display and on other placements throughout the site. And, guess what happened when they put Phoenix on the home page? Everyone wanted the same – from schools to other aggregators. The gatekeeper to that traffic for a period became Classes and on the path to exponential growth.
The next step became to own all of elearning on MSN, which they did, and then to apply that formula to other properties. Jordon proceeded to create a partnership with AOL, and in the next two years, he had crafted arrangements with almost all job and career sites. In 2005, Experian gave Classes an offer they couldn’t refuse, becoming part of Experian Interactive along with LowerMyBills and AffiliateFuel. Jordon moved Classes from its Staten Island headquarters that they shared with Luciano’s other business, CollegBound Network to the city, Manhattan. At about the same time, an old client from pre-Classes days was pitching a lead generation idea to him that Jordon invested in, and when his contract with Experian ended, he decided to take over the helm and apply his learnings to the senior housing lead generation space… which brings us to SeniorsForLiving.
The online lead generation space for seniors is a fascinating and tantalizing one. It has all the right makings for a successful vertical – a large audience (boomers and their parents), a high ticket price (senior housing is not cheap), a transactional component, and a decision that requires follow-up, i.e. you don’t buy it online. As any who has tried to get into a new vertical can tell you, it’s a grueling process. There is a huge sales undertaking as you work to get coverage for the leads and as you work on educating buyers who in the past haven’t used leads as part of their business. It is according to Jordon where education was about ten years ago. There are some national brands that buy leads, but the mid to long tail isn’t there. And, senior housing lead generation is more akin to ground schools lead gen as a physical presence is needed. If there is anyone who will have success beating down doors, though, it’s he. A key to success he tells me is making sure institutions understand performance based marketing is the way to go, and trying to institute some online dna into marketing teams that are often focused only offline. Sounds familiar to many, I’m sure.
Overall, Jordon is sticking to the formula he knows and believes in – user choice and exclusive leads. Their model focuses on a portal based approach where everything relies on the user making informed choices and understanding what happens next. That user doesn’t fill out a generic form but one for a specific institution. Not new to the game, SeniorsForLiving is focusing on quality of leads. As for traffic generation, they have made themselves very publisher friendly, and given what he did in the past, I wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t some interesting partnerships in the works.
