Online Marketing Challenge 
Online Marketing Challenge Any professor at any higher education institute can enter any class, graduate or undergraduate, regardless of discipline. It is open to any institute and class that wish to participate. Before you sign up you should consider two things to decide if the competition is right for you and your class:
First, Google should be reasonably well established where the participating business has customers. With more people running search queries on Google, the likelihood is greater that your advertising will receive a sufficient amount of impressions and clicks. If Google is not well known in your region, you may have trouble competing on a level playing field with other, more established regions.
The main support materials are in English, however this site will have additional languages for the 2010 Challenge. You can run advertising in your local language, but you should submit the reports in one of the 14 languages available.
No, we use the term 'professor' to simplify things. To supervise a student group, you must be an academic employed by a higher education institution and conducting lectures or seminars for students. For example, you might be a lecturer or a researcher.
The competition window is over any three consecutive weeks between January and May. You can choose to start on any day that suits your class. To help students succeed, professors must have sufficient class time to cover online marketing and Google AdWords, and time for students/professors to recruit their businesses.
Student clubs may enter teams under the direction of a professor, given the following conditions.
As the coordinator of your teams, you will mentor and work with your students to ensure they have a solid understanding of online marketing and the Challenge. You will be responsible for making sure they receive Challenge materials, select an appropriate business and submit their reports on time. Beyond that it's up to you. You might like to run a competition among your class teams and invite the participating businesses to relevant class presentations.
An academic judging panel consisting of independent judges, in collaboration with Google, will choose regional and global winners.
Google AdWords is a core part of the Challenge but it's more about teaching and learning effective online marketing. Google AdWords serves as a vehicle for gathering real world data and discussing online advertising's role in online marketing. Teams, however, must discuss other aspects of online marketing such as website layout and offline promotion, in both written reports. The competition is about real-world applications of online marketing; Google AdWords is merely the platform.
As Google's flagship advertising product, setting up and running an AdWords account is simple. You and your students will have ample AdWords material in the documentation sent to all registered professors. All things equal, the more you know about AdWords, the more fun for your students and you, and the better their chances to win.
The global winners and their professor will receive a trip to the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California to meet with the team that developed AdWords. Regional winners and their professor will receive a trip to their local Google office.
More importantly, students, professors and businesses are all winners. Students gain practical experience in online marketing, teamwork and business consulting. The participating businesses have more website traffic and a better understanding of online marketing while you get the chance to deliver a great teaching and learning opportunity.
There are three competition regions – The Americas, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and Asia Pacific. In addition to an overall global winner, there will be three additional winners - one from each region.
Selecting the right business is important. To help you and your students make a choice, please review the 'Selecting And Working With A Business Or Organization' section in the Academic Guide.
Professors or students can decide the business – whatever works best. In some cases, the school might have preferred candidates, or student teams might have friends or family with ideal businesses for the competition.
Please note that each student team must work with a different business. Teams may not use the same business.
Important: the business or organization should not currently use AdWords in any capacity and not have had an active account within the last 6 months.
No. Each team must use a different business otherwise the effectiveness of your campaign may suffer directly from the efforts of external Challenge campaigns to yours.
Finding a business to work with might initially be a daunting task so here are some ideas to help you.
If the business agrees to participate, at a minimum, they must receive and agree to the 'Letter to Businesses', given to students in their guide and included with your Academic Guide.
Ideally, the business will take an active interest in the campaign, such as explaining what they do, their online marketing objectives, and providing feedback on the proposed campaign strategy, interim campaign results and campaign changes. You may want to invite the businesses to any class presentations of the proposed 'Pre-Campaign Strategy' and final 'Post-Campaign Summary'.
The competition has two components. The first component is the Campaign Statistics algorithm developed by Google. This algorithm examines over 30 factors within an AdWords account including impressions, cost-per-click, click-through-rates, keyword choices, ad creatives and budgeting to determine effective AdWords online marketing campaigns. The second component to judging is the written reports based on a template developed by the academic community.
At the end of the competition, Google will compare all the Campaign Statistics across the population of students taking part in the competition. Results from the Campaign Statistics determine the top five teams in each region. The Global Academic Judging Panel then chooses regional and global winners, based solely on each team's written reports – a four-page Pre-Campaign Strategy and a eight-page Post-Campaign Summary.
More information on the Pre-Campaign Strategy and Post-Campaign Summary is in the Academic Guide. More information on the Campaign Statistics is in the Student Guide.
There are ample resources available to help you teach your students about creating an effective online marketing campaign with AdWords. The best resource is the Marketing and Advertising Using Google.
In addition, you will find key online resources to help your students with their learning in the 'Teaching Resources' section within the Academic Guide.
These resources are based on the 2009 competition and will be updated soon, before the beginning of the Challenge in January 2010
Due to several reasons, particularly keeping the contest fair for all student teams, Google is not able to provide a team's Campaign Statistics or other feedback until all teams have completed their AdWords campaign. The grading for Campaign Statistics is performed on a peer-to-peer ranking of all entrants in the Challenge so for the scoring to be fair, we need to wait until all teams have completed their campaigns.
You may wish to grade your students on the criteria for the two written reports, the Pre-Campaign Strategy and Post-Campaign Summary. Details of these reports are in Academic Guide.
Using the points system provided will allow you to determine team grades.
No - student teams will receive free online spend worth US$200 to run their three-week campaigns. Details how students setup their AdWords accounts will be sent to all registered professors prior to the start of the Challenge.
You MUST select dollars as the account currency when creating the account to receive the US$200. Accounts not set up on USD cannot be credtidted. However, teams can still run ads in their local regions and local languages. Keeping aA single currency for the allocation ensures that all students compete on a level playing field.
No. Google has practices and procedures in place to detect invalid clicks as part of the competition. Student teams, professors' classes and institutions risk disqualification for excessive invalid clicks. The Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center provides information on how Google detects and tracks invalid clicks.
Use of a competitors name can be subject to editorial and content restrictions, particularly if trademarked. Student teams should refer to the policies at the AdWords Learning Center to ensure their ads and keywords comply with these guidelines. Failure to comply with the guidelines penalizes a team's Campaign Statistics.
Given the global nature of the contest and accommodating different class schedules, regional and global winners are announced in July.
Registrations for next year's Challenge will open later this year, but if you are interested in taking part in 2010, you can now register your interest.