Buyer brief / Education
A USEFUL FIRST LOOK.
BEFORE THE FIRST CALL.
For schools and education lead aggregators exploring a partnership with ClickSend Media, the company behind Degree Sources.
CSM has generated over one million education leads since 2016. Today, Degree Sources puts our value-first principles into practice: useful free tools, source-backed information, and informed choice.
Start with the student experience.
Degree Sources is an education brand owned by CSM. This brief focuses on that site and its tools; it does not describe every campaign or imply that all of CSM’s historical leads came from Degree Sources.
- A useful starting point. Prospective students can explore Degree Match, Time-to-Degree, and ROI.
- Information in context. Tool outputs help students consider options and tradeoffs. They are estimates and exploration aids, not guarantees of fit, admission, completion, or earnings.
- A next step by choice. Students can use the information on its own or explore an optional school-related next step. A commercial handoff should be understandable and disclosed.
Walk through the approach on the homepage, then review the real tools and published policies for yourself.
Evidence you can inspect.
The Degree Sources editorial policy describes its primary-source hierarchy and states that advertisers cannot change tool results. Referral relationships support the site and are disclosed. Its methodology provides tool-specific context.
For a proposed campaign, ask us to walk through the entry page, student-facing flow, disclosure, and record handoff together. The public editorial policy is background on the experience; the campaign details need their own review.
What we should agree before launch.
Audience and follow-up
- Programs, locations, eligibility criteria, and student intent.
- Source pages and the exact route into the school-exploration flow.
- Student-facing disclosure, named recipients, permitted contact channels, and the consent evidence required for the handoff.
- Who follows up, including any downstream recipients for aggregator arrangements.
Commercial and delivery requirements
- Available volume, timing, pricing, and any exclusivity terms.
- Required fields, duplicate handling, acceptance rules, and feedback process.
- Your preferred delivery method and whether CSM can support it: API, CRM, or secure file transfer.
- Authentication, access controls, retention expectations, and a test before launch.
These are discussion items, not confirmed inventory, integrations, commercial terms, or legal assurances. Use the partnership-fit tool to turn your requirements into a starting brief.
A record you can discuss with your team.
This fictional example shows the kinds of fields to review together. It is not a production schema or a promise that these fields will be available. It contains no real student data and no valid consent evidence.
Record: DEMO-ONLY-001 Student: Alex Example · alex@example.com Interest: Business · Florida Source site: degreesources.com Consent: EXAMPLE ONLY — no valid consent Evidence, recipients, channels: intentionally empty Delivery and field mapping: to agree together
Download the fictional JSON record. Use it to identify the fields and evidence your team would need before evaluating a real handoff.
Start with a question.
Tell us what you serve, what you need, or what you’d like to see. You can email our partnerships inbox or bring a requirements brief to the conversation.