Competition Process

Step 1: Registering for the Challenge. Professors register for the Challenge and get verified by Google. Students form teams of 3-6 members and appoint a Team Captain. The Team Captain registers under the verified professor, who in turn confirms each student team by clicking a verification link sent via email after the team registers. See Registration for more information.

Step 2: Accessing Dashboard. Once the professor has received a notification email and has verified the student team, the Team Captain can access team’s Student Dashboard with the Google account used during the initial registration. Next, the student team can add required information to the dashboard, move onto identifying competition partner and preparing 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. See Selecting a Business for more details.

Step 4: Learning about AdWords and the Client. We recommend reviewing the Digital Marketing Course and Educational Resources. 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. Please note that after requesting crediting, there will be no further opportunity to re-upload Pre-Campaign Report. Once we verify the request, within 5 business days we will apply credit to the account and provide the team with an AdWords CID, solely for use in this Competition. Please see your Student Dashboard for details and once available, make sure to take a note of your team’s CID.

Step 6: Running Campaign. Once the student team receives credit in their AdWords account, they can start running their campaign over the period of up to 21 calendar days (example below). Campaigns which serve impressions on less than 7 calendar days or on more than 21 calendar days and/or spend beyond the provided US$250 (spending a few cents below/above US$250 is acceptable), will be deemed ineligible for the competition and as a result disqualified.

Competition accounts are set to PST timezone. Please do not change timezone in your competition account.

Example: If a campaign started on Monday at 9am and finished on Friday at 8am, it means that it ran for 5 calendar days.

Step 7: Writing and Submitting AdWords Post-Campaign Report/Impact Statement. Student team must submit their report(s) prior to the end of the Campaign Window (look right: GOMC 2015 Timeline). If 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.

Only teams that submit AdWords Pre-Campaign as well as AdWords Post-Campaign Reports will be considered for judging in AdWords Business, AdWords Social Impact and Google+ Social Media Marketing categories.

Step 8: Google+ Social Media Marketing Award (Optional). Student team that wishes to be eligible for the Google+ Social Media Marketing Award should work with their business or non-profit partner on creating and maintaining a Google+ page (along with the AdWords campaign) for five consecutive weeks during the Campaign Window (look right: GOMC 2015 Timeline). See Running a Campaign for more information.

Step 9: 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 in July/August 2015.

Click here for details on how to apply for Google Online Marketing Challenge