The missing link in education marketing

(Attribution, clarity & the cost of siloed data)

Ello there, education marketer!

Kicking off this edition is a perspective from our Founder & CEO, Xenia Muether — an industry-recognized education marketing leader who has worked with universities across the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. Before founding Pink Orange Media, Xenia led global acquisition at one of the world’s leading universities and has since spent six years helping institutions build modern, intelligent marketing systems.

And if there’s one challenge she keeps coming back to — it’s attribution.
Not the buzzword. The gap. The missing visibility. The fact that, in most institutions, no one actually knows what’s driving results because the data can’t speak to each other.

Xenia’s take: The missing link in education marketing

Here’s an excerpt from her reflection (full article on the blog):

“After six years of working with dozens of universities and education companies, there’s one limitation I keep coming back to: attribution tracking. Or rather, the lack of it.

I’m not criticising marketing teams — far from it. But universities are businesses just as much as they are educational institutions. And our sector doesn’t always operate with the agility or integration the commercial world relies on.

 So, what’s the solution? Realistically, no single tool can fix this. But there should be a business intelligence (BI) team working for marketing — feeding insights back, not just reporting upwards. Over the years, we’ve tested countless ways to improve attribution reporting for our clients. Most didn’t work. Until one did.

 If you don’t have one single source of truth, you need to create one. The most effective approach we’ve found is extracting raw data from every source via automated schedules into a central data warehouse (or even just a spreadsheet), manipulating and merging it there, and then visualising it in a BI tool. Think of it as an MVP — a proof of concept to show senior leadership how powerful real attribution insight can be.”

— Xenia Muether, Founder & CEO, Pink Orange Media

<a href="https://www.pink-orange.co.uk/blog/the-missing-link-in-education-marketing" class="finsweet-edvertise-cta" target=“_blank”>Read the full opinion piece here</a>

Why this matters

• Most universities are flying without real attribution
• Metrics don’t ladder up to decision-making
• BI for marketing is almost non-existent
• Teams spend more time reporting than understanding
• Leadership rarely sees the full picture

A thought Xenia leaves us with:

“If you don’t have one single source of truth, you need to create one.”

Want a practical attribution model your team can actually use? Reply “Attribution review” or contact Xen in just one click below.

<a href="xenia@pink-orange.co.uk?Subject=Tell me more about attribution in Education Marketing" class="finsweet-edvertise-cta" target=“_blank”>Contact Xen</a>

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Until next time,

Your friends in education marketing

Jayde & Ridhima