About Our Founding Sponsor
Higher Ed Icons is made possible by one extraordinary partner. OnDeck Marketing is the founding sponsor of our entire first year — and they didn't come on board simply to put their logo on a podcast. They came because this is their world, and they believe in it as deeply as we do.
Higher Ed Is Their Space
OnDeck does one thing: they help colleges and universities stay visible to students — specifically the students who are still in high school, still forming opinions, and still years away from submitting an application.
That's a harder problem than it sounds. Paid digital can't reliably reach under-18 students at scale. Legacy outreach tactics are expensive and hard to sustain. And when visibility inside feeder schools erodes, institutions don't feel it immediately. They feel it later, when inquiries soften and no one can trace why.
Every relationship, every campaign, and every hire is pointed at one outcome: helping institutions stay consistently present in the places where tomorrow's students are making up their minds today.
What They Do
OnDeck's services are built entirely around the higher education enrollment cycle.
High School Digital Bulletin Boards
OnDeck operates a network of digital bulletin boards inside high schools across North America, putting institutional messages where students actually spend their days — not just where algorithms send them after school. Then they extend that presence digitally: programmatic, paid social, streaming, gaming platforms, connected TV. The in-school screen is the anchor. Everything else keeps the institution visible in the moments between.
Programmatic Advertising
They deploy a demand-side platform purpose-built for the 15–35 age demographic, serving precision-targeted ads across Connected TV, Twitch, gaming platforms, Spotify, digital out-of-home, and more. Wherever students are, OnDeck gets you there.
Social Media Campaigns
From TikTok to YouTube, Instagram to Snapchat, OnDeck meets students in the spaces they inhabit every day, reinforcing what students are already seeing in school and keeping your institution present across every screen.
Why This Partnership?
Higher Ed Icons speaks directly to university leaders, enrollment professionals, and higher ed practitioners — the very audience OnDeck serves every day. There's no daylight between our listeners and their clients. We share an audience, we share values, and we share an ambition to elevate the higher education conversation at every level. That's what makes OnDeck more than a sponsor. The people who built this field and the company keeping institutions visible inside it share the same conviction: that showing up consistently, in the right places, over time, is how trust gets built.
Learn More About OnDeck Marketing
If you lead enrollment, recruitment, or marketing at a university, college, or community college and you’re looking to reach the right students with the right message, OnDeck is worth your time. Learn more about OnDeck Marketing.
