Google has announced the winners of the 2009 Google Online Marketing Challenge – a global university competition that gives undergraduate and post-graduate students hands-on exposure to online marketing.
The team from Deakin University, Australia was the winner of the global competition.
When asked how their team constructed the winning campaign, team spokesperson Andrew Kidd shared the following insight:
After discussions with the business owners, we decided we needed to conduct three separate campaigns. One would promote the play center to customers outside a 10 kilometre geographic radius, another would attract more mothers’ groups to the center, and the third one would attract more party and group event bookings. Visitors to their website more than doubled compared with the same period last year. We knew we had developed a strong campaign — but to win the global competition is outstanding.
Google judged competitors entries by the following metrics:
A proprietary Adwords algorithm examined over 30 different variables within an account to determine the top 50 teams in each of three regions (The Americas, EMEA and APAC).
Expert Googlers reviewed these 150 accounts to determine the top 5 in each of the three regions.
A Global Academic Panel selected winners from these 15 teams based solely on the quality of a team’s written reports.
The Google Adwords campaign statistics algorithm rated the teams with five key metrics:
Adwords Account Structure – Did the team set up their Adwords campaign in an efficient manner? Was it structured against product/service lines and themes? Did it contain Ad Groups with relevant Ad texts/variations and keywords?
Adwords Optimization Techniques – Did the team take advantage of tools and methods to get the most out of their campaign? Did the team follow the best practice encouraged in the Challenge guides and Adwords support materials?
Adwords Account Activity & Reporting – Did the team review and change their approach over time to get the most from campaigns? Was the account regularly monitored and did the team check and iterate to the Adwords reports available?
Adwords Performance & Budget – How effectively did the team use the available daily budget across keywords throughout the competition?
Adwords Relevance – How relevant were the team’s Adwords ads what click-through-rates (CTR) were achieved?
Congratulations to the winners.
Tags: Adwords Algorithm, Google Adwords, Google Online Marketing Challenge, Metrics, Winners
Search Marketing Communications 
Leave a Reply