The company – which made its name running popular competition-based campaigns – says its new ProgMatchr “candidate generation tool” was created in response to feedback from its sizeable student base.

“ProgMatchr brings connecting students and schools to the next level”

Pernilla Carlström, chief marketing officer at the company, explained to The PIE News how prospective students felt limited by other products or search engines.

“We know there is a problem with users not being informed enough about more programs,” she said.

Carlström added that in the company’s annual student survey, the most popular answer to the question on why only a limited number of programs were applied to was that students “want to make well-informed decisions”.

The second factor was time, she explained: students complained they “didn’t have time to do more research”.

ProgMatchr works by asking students a series of questions, with their answers enabling the system to offer appropriate guidance and suggestions.

Preferences including location, ranking, skills learned, course content and budget help create a targeted “course catalogue” that aligns with the student’s priorities.

According to Sqore, early tests have shown the average conversion rate via ProgMatchr at around 20%, while research has the median conversion rate for higher education pages at 2.6%.

“We’ve always cared about connecting students and schools to each other and ProgMatchr brings this to the next level,” said Sqore co- founder and CEO, Niklas Jungegård. “Being interactive and engaging – especially on mobile – is the way to do it today.”

Carlström added that in live tests, students fed back “that this could help them to understand what questions should they be asking themselves when assessing which program they should choose.”

The new product is live now with an initial cohort of 40 HE institutions signed up.