My experience with Google Online Marketing Challenge

I participated in Google Non profit marketing Immersion (NMI) challenge.

In this challenge, Google helps various NGOs provide pro bono digital marketing support from students and volunteers.

My team comprised of myself and my batchmate from S.P. Jain Institute of Management and research. We were being mentored by our Professor Sheila Roy.

As part of this competition, a team has to run and track 4 week Google search ad campaigns for an NGO.

How we began our preparation?

I came across this competition while doing some Google Search. This competition felt interesting to me for two reasons; A) It would help me to learn and implement Digital marketing in real life scenarios and B) It would provide me an opportunity to work for a cause I believe in by helping an NGO.

While I had basic understanding of Google Ads and Digital marketing, I began my preparation by going through extensive courses curated by Google on

Google Adwords
Google Measurement
Google Analytics (Basic + Advanced)

I read many articles on Medium and reached out to previous year participants through LinkedIn. All this help me prepared for my 7 week interaction with the NGO.

A little about our NGO..

Our team was mapped with an International NGO named Orion Edutech.

Orion Edutech empowers students by providing vocational training and recruitment opportunities to meet the demands of the industry. They have selected skill development courses which are relevant and running across 16 countries such as India, Zambia, Bangladesh, Namibia, South Africa, Canada, Algeria and Ghana.

They follow a franchise based model wherein they reach out to business oriented individuals in various countries and start a franchise along with them. These franchise provide trainings and placement supports to local students at minimal prices with the help of Orion Edutech.

What did we do for the NGO?

Goal Definition

In our initial interactions with the NGO Marketing lead, we gained idea about NGO, competition space, existing marketing initiatives and objectives with the NMI program.

We identified that the company was running campaigns, receiving impressions and clicks but people were not filling the lead form. (Zero leads in past one month)

They have 2 target audience:

People who want to get franchise
People who want to apply for courses

Our objective was

Generate leads for enquiry related to franchise business
Generate leads for course application form

Target Audience

We interacted with business teams and market facing teams to understand the target audience in depth. We focused on demographic, behavioral and psychographic factors associated with the target group.