Collegis mitigates millions in wasted ad spend across higher education institutions

The challenge

• Marketing targeted unqualified, potentially fraudulent users who would never convert into genuine enrollment applications.
• Competitors artificially inflated advertising costs through systematic click fraud, particularly in high-competition program areas.
• Marketing attribution became unreliable when inflated by non-human traffic. Institutions struggled to understand which channels and campaigns were genuinely driving enrollment.

The solution

Recognizing that traditional campaign optimization wouldn’t address the root cause of their challenge, Collegis sought a solution that could identify and block invalid traffic in real-time. After evaluating multiple options, they selected CHEQ Acquisition for its comprehensive approach to Go-to-Market Security.

• Real-time detection: 2,000+ cybersecurity tests per visit analyze behavior, device, and network signals to 
stop sophisticated bots and bad actors in milliseconds.
• Multi-vector protection: Campaigns were shielded from threats including click farms, malicious scrapers, competitor surveillance tools, and automated bot networks.
• Granular reporting: CHEQ provided detailed analytics on threat sources, types, and cost implications that enabled Collegis to educate clients about traffic quality and make data-driven decisions.

Beyond the $2.2 million saved in ad spend targeting fake users and exploited by competitors, Collegis drove significant wins for higher ed partners by protecting enrollment submission quality, improving attribution accuracy, and restoring confidence among marketing leaders in their own data and performance.

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