How can Google Online Marketing Challenge 2009 be improved?

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Bleiman on July 22, 2008 at 2:35pm

I think this campaign seriously needs better support from Google. Here at Kellogg, we had a set start and end date during which we had to run our campaign. However, when we tried to turn on the account, nothing happened. For three days we tried reaching the contest organizers and also posted on this forum asking for help. We received no response.

Finally, I contacted a friend who has an SEM business who contacted his Google rep directly. She discovered our campaign had been "flagged for review by Google editors" but we were not notified and had no way of reaching them. She quietly removed the flag, which we thought might disqualify us, but we had no other recourse as far as we could tell. Having spent months preparing for the contest, we were really excited for the kickoff. Spending the first three days of the contest stuck with no assistance was tremendously frustrating and really took the wind out of the team and client's sails.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Bleiman on July 22, 2008 at 11:04pm

I let my frustration cloud my memory. While we didn't get our problem properly addressed until we took matters into our own hands after three days of trying, we did get a couple of responses from Google. They just weren't timely given the ticking-clock nature of the contest and they definitely were not helpful.

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Permalink Reply by Jim O'Farrell on July 24, 2008 at 7:39am

Here's our recommendations:

Identify early in the process key web marketing contacts within your target organization, meet with them and review program details well in advance. Allow twice as long as you think you need to take in order to fully grasp the client’s business so that you can effectively map the Google Adwords campaign to the client’s business and marketing objectives. Dive into the topics of Google Adwords, use the online tools to understand how the program works. Read all of the manuals that are provided. Use the online search help facility on Adwords to dig into topics that require more understanding. Get to know local search engine professionals and take them to lunch to get to know the business more thoroughly. Join GOMCHA, Search Engine Land, SEMPO and other search engine marketing websites as they are great sites for getting information on how search engine marketing works. They are also very useful when you need to understand a particular topic. The Skins team used Gooruze to get a detailed understanding of how Dynamic Keyword Insertion works which led to one of our key findings in this project.
Focus early as possible on the Content network and eliminate high impression/very low click sites as soon as possible. Pay close attention to the high yielding keywords used to search for the client’s website. Make sure to incorporate keywords found not only in the company’s HTML source from their website but also consider using keywords found on competitors websites. Be careful here not to infringe on trademarks. Take care not to duplicate keywords in different ad groups as this will negatively impact your program. Leverage learning experiences by encouraging all participants to post their results on GOMCHA. Work closely with the client to impart all knowledge and information gained in the program. Our client was very responsive to learning from our findings and gathered more enthusiasm as the program progressed. As a final exercise, our team will meet with the Client's market team next week for an hour debrief and program hand off. The idea is to discuss how best to transition the campaigns and the knowledge gained over the next few weeks so Skins can run with the program from here.

OK ... are there other good ideas and recommendations out there? I bet you there are!!!

Take Care and All the Best,

Jim O'Farrell
jamesofarrell@hotmail.com

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Permalink Reply by Jessica on December 5, 2008 at 4:26pm

When will the Gomcha start for 2009?

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Permalink Reply by Jamie Murphy on December 7, 2008 at 5:50pm

Hi Jessica,

Registrations close on 23 January. You can run your campaign over any three consecutive weeks between the 26th of January and the 22nd of May 2009.

If you don't have it yet, suggest you download a copy of the Student Guide, at
http://www.google.com/onlinechallenge/student_guide.pdf

Have fun,
Cheers, Jamie

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