Professor registration deadline: March 22, 2017
Student registration deadline: April 5, 2017 | Register here
Eligibility: the Challenge is open to student teams of three to six members from undergraduate or graduate programs, regardless of their major. All students must register under a verified faculty member, lecturer or instructor currently employed by an accredited higher education institute.
Prizes: trips, digital devices, certificates along with other prizes
Location: Online

Google Online Marketing Challenge 2017

The Google Online Marketing Challenge is a unique opportunity for students to experience and create online marketing campaigns using Google AdWords. Over 110,000 students and professors from almost 100 countries have participated in the past 9 years.

With a $250 AdWords advertising budget provided by Google, students develop and run an online advertising campaign for a business or non-profit organization over a three week period.

The teams that develop and communicate the most successful campaigns win awesome prizes, including trips to Google offices. Students also have the opportunity to participate in the optional AdWords Certification category by studying and passing the necessary exams to become an AdWords Certified individual in the Google Partners platform.

Competition Process

Step 1: Registering for the Challenge

The Team Captain registers under the verified professor, who in turn confirms each student team.

Step 2: Accessing Dashboard

The Team Captain can add required information to the dashboard, move onto identifying the team’s competition partner and preparing the AdWords Pre-Campaign Report.

Step 3: Selecting a Business

All teams, along with the support of their professors, need to identify a client business or a non-profit organization.

Step 4: Learning about AdWords and the Client

Each student team needs to meet with their business or non-profit partner to determine their goals and to devise their online advertising strategy. The strategy will need to be outlined in the AdWords Pre-Campaign Report.

Step 5: Uploading Pre-Campaign Report and Requesting Crediting

Team Captains must submit their Pre-Campaign Report and request access to their credited AdWords Competition Account in the Student Dashboard prior to the deadline, April 12, 2017.

Once the credit request has been verified, within 5 business days the team captain will be sent an email to their Dashboard Account email address with an invitation to access their team’s $250 credited AdWords Competition Account.

Step 6: Running Campaign

Once the student team receives access to their AdWords Competition Account, they can start running their campaign over a maximum period of 31 consecutive calendar days with ads serving and receiving clicks on no less than 7 calendar days and no more than 21 calendar days in total during that time frame.

Campaigns cannot serve beyond the close of the Competition Campaign Window on May 17, 2017.

Step 7: Writing and Submitting the AdWords Post-Campaign Report/Impact Statement

Team Captains must submit their Post-Campaign Report prior to the deadline of May 31, 2017. If a team chooses a non-profit organization and wishes to be eligible for the AdWords Social Impact Award, they must append an Impact Statement to their Post-Campaign Report.

Step 8: AdWords Certification Award (Optional)

Student teams that wish to be eligible for the AdWords Certification Award must ensure that the AdWords Certification Award box on the Team Details section of the Student Dashboard is checked and all team members are AdWords Certified in the Google Partners platform before May 31, 2017.

Step 9: Sharing Results and Campaigns with your Competition Client and GOMC Feedback

Once the campaign finishes, you should share the results and your recommendations from the Post-Campaign Report with your Competition Client. If they would like to continue running AdWords, you can use AdWords Editor to export your campaigns and send them as a file to your Competition Client to import to a newly created account owned by them.

Step 10: Judging and Awards

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.

Winners will be announced on the GOMC Google+ page and Competition website in July/August 2017.

Prizes

Global Winners

The Global Winners and their professor will receive a seven-night trip to San Francisco, including one day at the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California to meet with Googlers from the AdWords, University Programs and Marketing teams. The team will also receive digital devices, along with other prizes.

Additionally, they will get an exciting opportunity to participate in a Google+ Hangout with a Googler selected from a wide range of teams, including the AdWords Team, Google for Nonprofits, Google.org and more.

Regional Winners

Regional Winners and their professor receive a two-night trip to a regional Google office. The teams will also receive digital devices, as well as other prizes.

AdWords Certification Awards

AdWords Social Impact Awards

Each student in the three top performing teams that worked with a non-profit will receive a digital device, along with other prizes.

Winning teams will also secure the following donations for their partners:

• 1st place – $15,000 donation to the non-profit partner
• 2nd place – $10,000 donation to the non-profit partner
• 3rd place – $5,000 donation to the non-profit partner

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