Online Marketing Challenge

About the Challenge

Welcome to the Google Online Marketing Challenge! For detailed information on the Challenge, professors and students are advised to refer to the Competition Guidelines.

This is a great exercise for students in classes such as advertising, e-commerce, integrated marketing communication, management information systems, marketing or new media technologies. Every year we have more than 50,000 students competing from more than 100 countries.

The goal for students is to create an effective online marketing campaign in Google AdWords.

Competition Process:

Step 1:

Professors register for the Challenge between November 15, 2011 and May 1, 2012 (more information can be found on the Registration Page). Students form teams of 3-6 and select a team captain.

Step 2:

Student teams, along with their professor, identify a small-to-medium business or non-profit organization, that has a website but are not AdWords users now or in the last 6 months. Professors should ideally allow sufficient time for students to recruit their businesses and plan the class time to cover online marketing concepts including Google AdWords.

Step 3:

Student teams register on the Student Dashboard between January 31, 2012 and May 11, 2012. Once the professor has received a notification email and has verified the student team, the team can enter in the customer ID of an AdWords account that the team creates at http://adwords.google.com. More information can be found on the Registration Page.

Step 4:

Student teams meet with the businesses or non-profit organization and write the Pre-Campaign Reports. Once the student teams have uploaded their Pre-Campaign Reports, they will be able to credit their AdWords account with USD$250 using the coupon code in the student dashboard.

Step 5:

Student teams run their campaign over any 3 consecutive weeks between January 31, 2012 and June 8, 2012. After the campaign ends, students have 3 weeks no later than June 15, 2012 to submit their Post-Campaign Report to the Student Dashboard. If the team has chosen a non-profit organization, an impact statement must be included in order to be eligible for the Social Impact Award.

Step 6:

Google and a panel of independent academics from all over the world select the winning teams based on the success of their campaign and the quality of their competition reports. Teams working with an non-profit organization will also be considered for the Social Impact Award.

Global and regional winners will be announced to all participants in July, 2012. Social Impact Award winners will be announced in August, 2012

Optional Social Media Campaign

Student teams that wish to be eligible for the Social Media Award should work with their business or non-profit client to create and maintain a Google+ Page (along with the AdWords campaign) for six consecutive weeks between January 31, 2012 and June 8, 2012. Please refer to the Social Media Award for details.

For complete information, students and professors should review the Competition Guidelines.