Lenexa, Kansas, Jan. 06, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- EducationDynamics today released 2026 Marketing and Enrollment Management Benchmarks: A Mandate for Transformation, introducing the Brand Discoverability Pyramid, a proprietary roadmap designed to help colleges and universities improve online visibility and drive enrollment growth as AI changes how prospective students find and evaluate institutions.

 In the report, EducationDynamics found that 78% of education-related searches include an AI-generated overview as part of the search experience. The company’s new framework is built to help institutions avoid getting lost in this new environment, where prospective students increasingly gather information from multiple places, including AI tools, social platforms, online communities, review sites, and traditional search results. 

 "Marketing and enrollment management in higher education has arrived at a point of no return," said Brent Ramdin, CEO of EducationDynamics. “With the Brand Discoverability Pyramid, we are providing leaders with the blueprint to build a future-ready institution." 

 A roadmap for brand visibility in the “search everywhere” world

For years, many institutions have relied heavily on tactics tied to website traffic and keyword performance. The new report argues that these approaches are less reliable as search engines and platforms answer questions directly, and as prospective students rely on third-party sources to compare options. 

EducationDynamics notes that nearly 45% of searches end without a click to a website, and that traditional tracking often misses the earliest stages of decision-making. 

The Brand Discoverability Pyramid 

The Brand Discoverability Pyramid is a structured framework that helps institutions prioritize what matters most for being found and trusted as AI-driven discovery grows. It organizes the work into clear layers, from foundational signals to advanced visibility in AI responses.

Key layers include: 

• Reputation signals (foundation): Strengthening presence, sentiment, and ratings on the platforms prospective students trust, including review sites and other third-party sources that influence perception and visibility. 

• Credibility and coverage (middle): Earning high-quality media coverage and third-party validation that builds trust and increases the likelihood an institution is referenced across external sources. 

• AI visibility (top): Improving the likelihood that an institution is recognized as a reliable source within AI-generated answers, supported by a new measurement approach EducationDynamics calls AI Density, defined in the report as a way to gauge how often a brand is treated as a trusted source across AI-driven experiences.   

What the 2026 Benchmarks Report highlights 

The report includes EducationDynamics’ proprietary benchmarks and analysis, including: 

• Brand-first search growth: The report indicates that brand-first searches have increased 354% since 2015, while program-first searches declined 34% over the same period. 

• Zero-click behavior: The report observes continued declines in click-through rates on non-brand informational queries as more questions are answered directly within platform experiences. 

• The “stealth applicant” trend: The report finds the share of admissions applications with no prior document engagement has increased significantly since 2020, reaching 9.7% of total applications.  

"Institutions that cling to the status quo will face inevitable contraction," added Greg Clayton, President of Enrollment Management Services at EducationDynamics. "Success in 2026 requires moving beyond adopting incremental changes in a school’s marketing strategy and student engagement to understanding the accelerating unification of reputation and generating revenue through enrollment growth." 
  
Download the Report  
Higher education leaders and interested parties can download the full report and explore the Brand Discoverability Pyramid at insights.educationdynamics.com/benchmarks-report-2026  
  

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About EducationDynamics
EducationDynamics is the strategic partner for higher education institutions that are done settling for the status quo. We fuse brand, marketing, communications and enrollment into one integrated force, because aligning revenue and reputation is no longer optional — it’s survival. Powered by one of the most robust first-party data sets in higher ed, we don’t just advise on strategy; we activate and execute. If you’re ready to rethink the future of higher education, we’re ready to help you build it. For more information, visit: educationdynamics.com. 

Eric McGee
EducationDynamics
5619121858
communications@educationdynamics.com