Brand Demand Index

Definition

The share of applicants whose first recorded touch was organic search, calculated as a percentage of all applicants in each fiscal year. A rising index means an increasing portion of applicants are finding the institution on their own — without being pushed by paid media or outbound recruitment.

Summary

Fiscal Year	Total Persons	Total Applicants	Organic Search Applicants	Brand Demand Index
FY2023	40,564	3,927	1,609	41.0%
FY2024	38,277	5,602	2,274	40.6%
FY2025	55,748	4,813	2,312	48.0%
FY2026*	41,683	2,816	1,191	42.3%

*FY2026 is a near-complete cycle as of reporting date.

The brand demand index held steady between FY2023 (41.0%) and FY2024 (40.6%), then jumped sharply to 48.0% in FY2025 as organic search applicants grew in absolute terms while overall applicant volume fell. In FY2026 — the first year with an application fee — the index settled at 42.3%, above the FY2023/2024 baseline of ~41% and consistent with the post-fee applicant pool being more brand-driven than the pre-fee era.

Key Insight

The brand demand index has established a new floor above 40% and has not retreated to pre-FY2025 levels despite two consecutive years of declining total applicants. In FY2025, nearly half of all applicants arrived via organic search. In FY2026, with fewer total applicants due to the fee, organic search still accounts for 42.3% — above the baseline years.

The pattern across four years is consistent: brand-driven demand (organic search first-touch) is a stable and growing share of the applicant pool. The fee reduced overall volume but did not erode the organic search segment’s share, which is evidence that self-directed demand is durable and not artificially sustained by paid or outbound activity.

Why This Is Important

Raw organic search applicant counts can grow simply because the total funnel grew. The brand demand index normalizes for funnel size, isolating whether the institution is becoming more or less of a self-directed destination over time.

A rising index is evidence that brand investment is compounding — each year, a larger share of the applicant pool sought the institution out without prompting. This is the kind of metric that justifies brand spending to boards because it shows diminishing reliance on paid and outbound channels.

A declining index, by contrast, is an early warning that the institution is becoming more dependent on paid spend to sustain application volume — a structural risk if budgets contract.

Methodology

Organic search applicants are persons with applied = 'Yes' whose first engagement touch in person_touches has a utm_source of google, bing, yahoo, duckduckgo, or ecosia and a utm_medium of search, organic, or organic_search. Total applicants are all persons with applied = 'Yes' in each fiscal year cohort.

FY2023–2025 are complete-year cohorts. FY2026 is near-complete and includes the first year with an application fee.

Query

WITH first_touch AS (
  SELECT
    person_id,
    utm_source,
    utm_medium,
    ROW_NUMBER() OVER (
      PARTITION BY person_id
      ORDER BY touched_at ASC
    ) AS rn
  FROM person_touches
  WHERE touch_category = 'engagement'
),

organic_search AS (
  SELECT DISTINCT person_id
  FROM first_touch
  WHERE rn = 1
    AND lower(utm_source) IN ('google', 'bing', 'yahoo', 'yahoo!', 'duckduckgo', 'ecosia', 'yandex', 'baidu')
    AND lower(utm_medium) IN ('search', 'organic', 'organic_search')
),

cohort AS (
  SELECT
    pd.person_id,
    pd.fiscal_year,
    pd.applied,
    CASE WHEN os.person_id IS NOT NULL THEN 1 ELSE 0 END AS organic_search_first_touch
  FROM persons_dashboard pd
  LEFT JOIN organic_search os ON pd.person_id = os.person_id
  WHERE pd.fiscal_year IN ('2023', '2024', '2025', '2026')
)

SELECT
  fiscal_year,
  COUNT(*) AS total_persons,
  SUM(CASE WHEN applied = 'Yes' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS total_applicants,
  SUM(CASE WHEN applied = 'Yes' AND organic_search_first_touch = 1 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS organic_search_applicants,
  ROUND(
    SUM(CASE WHEN applied = 'Yes' AND organic_search_first_touch = 1 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) * 100.0
    / NULLIF(SUM(CASE WHEN applied = 'Yes' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END), 0),
    1
  ) AS brand_demand_index
FROM cohort
GROUP BY fiscal_year
ORDER BY fiscal_year;