If Google was a pair of runners, I would be a triathlete today

I’m a 25-year-old University student, originally from Austria, studying at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia. Last semester one of our teachers, Dr Peter Ling, asked our Integrated Marketing Communications class whether we would like to participate in the Google Online Marketing Challenge. The words “challenge” and “Google” triggered something inside my head, which is why I immediately agreed to participate. I teamed up with two other undergraduate Communications students from my university and we entered the contest.

The challenge was to promote a small business with Google AdWords. Given US$ 200 and three weeks preparation time, we literally immersed ourselves in Google AdWords. I think we read most of the learning materials available in the Learning Center, watched movies on YouTube with Google Chief Economist Hal Varian explaining bidding strategy, and researched everything we believed could be valuable to us. At the same time we also had to find a small business in Perth that would partner with us for the challenge. Ultimately we found a little dance studio called Busta Groove.

Using the US$ 200 in many different ways we were able to contribute significant increase in enquiries and bookings for “our client” even after the first week. Our success was based on various strategies. Features like the Dynamic Keyword Insertion Tool combined with the unique features of Position Preferences helped us to show ads in top positions for a competitive cost per click. We also researched and tested many long tail keywords and different matching options. Much of our optimisation was focused on the improvement of Quality Scores; we spent a lot of energy creating more and more relevant ads for an already interested audience. But we also went beyond AdWords and set up social media profiles for our client and blogged our learning experiences.

When the Challenge was over, we realised how much we were able to contribute to our client’s success during the competition’s three weeks. With enquiries and bookings rolling in every day, the dance studio owner was very thankful for our success. And so was Google as it turned out. The challenge and the semester at uni were already over and a closed chapter until I opened my e-mail inbox a few weeks later. The first sentence of an e-mail read: ”I am very glad to inform you, that after evaluating all the accounts and reports, you are the JAPAC regional winners of the Google Online Marketing Challenge 2010.” I was sitting in my room yelling out loud: ”We won, we won!” As part of the winner’s price we were invited to visit the Google office in Sydney. We toured the office, had lunch with a lot of Googlers, got a MacBook Pro, and a Regional Winner certificate.

A major reason why we all go to University is to make our way into employment easier. Uni often helps us to find and apply for the jobs we want and provides us with the required knowledge to enter these jobs. With the participation in the Google Online Marketing Challenge and me becoming a Google AdWords Professional I was able to find employment in Western Australia’s biggest advertising agency, The Brand Agency. I now establish strategies and concepts for a variety of clients and manage large budgets while still being a uni student. Inside the agency and amongst clients, I’m already referred to as “the search guru”. So I’d like to thank everyone involved in this Challenge, especially my team, our client, our Professor Dr Peter Ling, and Google for the wonderful AdWords learning resources, for an amazing time and awesome prizes!

Posted by Georg Widschwendter, APAC winner Google Online Marketing Challenge 2010 and student at Edith Cowan University