Overview
Headquarters: Minneapolis, MN
Insight Investment: $15.6M from November 2004 – March 2006
Current Status: Portfolio company


Business Description
Capella Education Company (NASDAQ: CPLA) is a for-profit education company that operates through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Capella University. Capella is an online university accredited by the Higher Learning Commission that offers graduate degree programs in business, information technology, education, human services, and psychology, and bachelor's degree programs in business and information technology. Within those areas, Capella offers 76 graduate and undergraduate specializations and 16 certificate specializations. The online university currently serves 16,000 students from all 50 states and 63 countries. It is committed to providing high-caliber academic excellence and pursuing balanced business growth.

Challenge
As the average cost per lead in the online education industry continued to increase, Capella was looking for more efficient ways to attract learners to the university’s various degree programs while minimizing reliance on lead aggregators.

Solution
Insight’s On-Site team engaged to improve online lead generation. The On-Site team included resources with management consulting and operational backgrounds as well as specialists in online lead generation and conversion. The scope of work included the following activities:

• Assessment of Capella’s online lead generation channels (organic search paid search, cost-per-lead and affiliate leads, CPM leads)
• Relevant best practices in online lead generation and conversion
• Gap analysis for online lead analytics
• Ongoing advice on relevant trends in online lead generation

With Insight’s help and with key additions to the marketing team, Capella significantly improved all metrics around lead generation and lead conversion rates, and developed a number of highly effective proprietary sources for leads.
Capella Education Company (Nasdaq: CPLA) had its Initial Public Offering in November 2006.