Summary
The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) supports the technology industry by providing a host of training, programs, professional certifications, research, and other resources. To encourage student success in the field, CompTIA offered students a 40% discount on a number of its most popular products. The organization initially required an .edu address to verify student status, but that approach proved to be an ineffective deterrent for fraud. Using SheerID’s Audience Network, CompTIA was able to secure its student offer, prevent discount abuse, and help students enhance their skills and career options.
Challenge
CompTIA is a non-profit trade association whose mission includes preparing the next generation of high-performing IT professionals through courseware, testing, continuing education, certification, and mentorship. CompTIA is highly regarded for providing leading-edge training, credentialing, and research, and the organization has become the go-to resource for individuals who want to develop a career in technology.
Students are an important audience for CompTIA, as they represent future generations of IT professionals and technologists. CompTIA nurtured students by offering them a hefty 40% discount on their training courses and certification exams. To implement this student program, CompTIA sales reps worked directly with schools to purchase vouchers for their students.
School staff needed to complete an application before purchased vouchers were sent to the schools electronically. While many schools integrated this process into their curriculum, others were unable to fully roll it out. More pressing, the program was limiting for CompTIA because only students enrolled in the partner schools could participate.
To address these issues, CompTIA began selling the vouchers directly to students, using students’ .edu email addresses to verify eligibility for the discount.
Initially the solution seemed ideal. It simplified the process and enabled CompTIA to expand its reach. But using .edu verification made CompTIA vulnerable to fraud. The organization soon learned that a syndicate was using fake .edu addresses to buy student discount vouchers, which were then re-sold to non-verified individuals at a lesser discount.
The offer abuse was rapidly growing as others discovered the loophole. CompTIA realized that this was leading to lost revenue, which made offering the program difficult.
Solution
CompTIA decided to use SheerID’s Audience Network to implement the student discount on its educational programs.
Integrating SheerID into CompTIA’s ecommerce platform was easy, and the purchase process was quick and entirely in-brand. Students went to CompTIA’s website and entered basic information, such as their name and school. SheerID then tapped into its audience network, comprised of nearly 200,000 authoritative data sources, to instantly verify eligibility for the discount. Verified students then completed their purchase.
We had identified a number of pockets of offer abuse, and when we implemented SheerID, they quickly disappeared.
Results
Since implementing SheerID, Randy Gross, CompTIA’s chief information officer, estimates that CompTIA reduced offer abuse in their student programs by 10-20%, preserving the ability to offer a student discount and allowing this channel to grow significantly year over year.
Based on this estimate, the ROI from using SheerID was 20:1, but the impact was immediate. “We had identified a number of pockets of offer abuse, and when we implemented SheerID, they quickly disappeared,” Randy said. “SheerID made it impossible to game the system, and it was fun to watch the bad actors wither.”
While the savings from fraud prevention were dramatic, CompTIA reaped many other benefits from replacing its .edu verification with SheerID.
Randy estimates that using SheerID to digitally verify students saves the organization a dozen or more hours of manual effort each month. This frees sales reps to focus on deals that need their personal attention and gives CompTIA the peace of mind it needs to grow its customer base. As the program grows, the time savings grow even more.
SheerID streamlined the user experience for both schools and students, which supports CompTIA’s mission to serve the IT community. “SheerID doesn’t just save us money; it helps protect our academic program while letting as many students as possible take advantage of it,” Randy said.
CompTIA currently offers certifications in 38 countries on five continents. Thanks to SheerID’s ability to securely verify students in 191 countries, CompTIA now has the potential to reach their entire global audience.
“Knowing SheerID can protect our student discount worldwide makes it much easier to expand into international markets while ensuring the integrity of our program,” Randy said.
SheerID doesn’t just save us money; it helps protect our academic program while letting as many students as possible take advantage of it.