AI Search and Student Enrollment: Steph Gallo on Closing Higher Ed's Visibility Gap

Send us Fan MailAI Search and Student Enrollment: Steph Gallo on Closing Higher Ed's Visibility Gap Featuring Steph Gallo, Corporate Director of Marketing at Pima Medical Institute, with guest host Brad Stephenson, SVP of Marketing at Level Agency, and Stacey Heubeck, AVP of SEO at Level Agency.Episode SummaryGoogle didn't change the rules. Students did. That's the premise behind this conversation with Steph Gallo, who brings three decades of marketing and brand development across healthcare, CPG, manufacturing, and higher education to a problem every enrollment marketer is now facing: prospective students are doing the bulk of their research before they ever touch your website, and most of that research is happening inside LLMs, on Reddit, and in third-party content that schools have never invested in.Brad Stephenson and Stacey Heubeck join Steph to unpack what that shift actually demands. They dig into the 59-point gap between branded and non-branded AI visibility, why schools show up fine when someone searches their name and vanish in program comparison questions, and how to make the case to a CFO who only wants to talk about last-click cost per enrollment. Steph gets specific about the internal work required, including the case she made to compliance and academics for publishing tuition, financial aid detail, and certification information that institutions have historically kept behind an admissions conversation.The back half turns operational. Stacey breaks down SEO versus GEO in plain terms and names the three metrics her team actually tracks. Brad walks through where paid and organic overlap turns into waste, and how a holdout test surfaces it without tanking performance. Steph closes on first-party data, the 90-day learning curve on value-based bidding, and why so many marketers abandon ship two weeks in. This one is built for career education and higher ed marketing leaders, but the playbook travels to any category where the buying decision starts long before the site visit.What You'll LearnWhy branded AI visibility looks healthy while non-branded visibility collapses, and what that gap costs you in students you never knew were searchingThe three metrics to track for AI visibility (visibility rate, citation rate, brand mention and share of voice), plus the direct-traffic signal that reinforces the story for your CFOSEO versus GEO in plain language, and why brand consistency, entity recognition, and answer-first content now matter more than exact-match phrasingHow to build the internal case with compliance, academics, and leadership for publishing tuition, financial aid, and certification content you used to hold backWhy neutral, one-size-fits-all program content makes you invisible, and what program-level and state-level specificity looks like in practiceHow to audit branded and non-branded keyword overlap, run a holdout test, and redeploy wasted spend without hurting paid or organic performanceWhat it takes to get clean first-party enrollment data into value-based bidding, and why the first 90 days feel like failure before they start workingResources Mentioned2026 Career Education Benchmarks Report from Level Agency: info.level.agency/career-education-benchmarks-2026Level Agency: https://www.level.agencyPima Medical Institute: https://pmi.eduConnect With StephLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/stephanie-galloConnect With the ShowBrad Stephenson's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bradpstephensonStacey Heubeck's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sheubeckHow to Support the ShowSubscribe so you never miss an episode.Share this one with an enrollment or higher ed marketing leader.Rate and review if it brings you value. It helps more listeners find us.