Online Marketing Challenge 
Online Marketing Challenge Based on feedback from students and professors who helped us to develop the Challenge, we discovered a few important tips which should help you get the most out of your AdWords campaigns. In addition, you'll find plenty more ideas on how to improve your campaigns in your guides and support materials. These tips and guides are based on the 2009 competition and will be updated soon before January 2010.
Negative keywords improve your click-through rate (CTR) and your ad targeting by filtering out unwanted impressions. A negative keyword ensures your ad does not show on search results for those words. For information on negative keywords and how they benefit your account in the Challenge, please refer to page 55 of the Marketing and Advertising Using Google textbook.
Similar to negative keywords, phrase-match and exact-match help improve your CTR and filter unwanted impressions. For information on phrase-match and exact-match, and how they benefit your account, please refer to pages 54-55 of the Marketing and Advertising Using Google textbook.
Call-to-action phrases such as 'view now' or 'order today' help set expectations about what the user should do when they reach the website. They also help to create a compelling ad text. For more on call-to-action phrases refer to the 'Writing Successful Ad Text' Section of the Marketing and Advertising Using Google textbook.
You should avoid duplicate keywords in different Ad Groups and campaigns. We encourage you to work towards a clearly defined structure and theme for each of your Ad Groups or campaigns. For further information on how to best structure your account, refer to your Guide To Running Your AdWords Account.
Sometimes, AdWords users fail to regularly check their progress, particularly in the early days of a campaign. For example, if you set your keyword bids too low or forget to start your campaign, you could lose valuable days and valuable feedback on your campaign. You only have 21 days for your campaign in the Challenge so it's best to log in regularly and check your status.
Make sure to use the Report Center as these reports help you monitor the performance of your ads and based on this you can tweak and change your campaigns. For additional information on the Report Centre, please refer to page 98 of the Marketing and Advertising Using Google textbook.