Five San Diego State students in Assistant Professor Dr. Andrew Baker’s Marketing 476 class finished among the top one percent in the Google Online Marketing Challenge after results were announced Aug. 9.

There were teams from more than 100 countries that competed in the challenge. Their challenge was to create a Google AdWords campaign for a small to medium- sized business or a nonprofit organization not already using the AdWords program.

Kai Burtyk, Ian Donahue, Alec Johnson, Trevor Morrissey and Mike Revie worked with Grammy’s Granola, a small business in Leucadia, which makes granola, breads and bars.

With a budget of $250, the students created and maintained an AdWords campaign for Grammy’s Granola for three consecutive weeks. The students used the program to choose terms and keywords associated with the small business. For example, when a customer searched for one of the key terms, an ad would appear next to the search results.

“The most challenging part of this project was finding a balance between bidding on optimum keywords and not consuming our entire budget,” Burtyk said. “Keywords like granola are expensive to bid on due to competition, but were not always the most beneficial to the

campaign. It is important to get creative with keyword selection, explore alternatives and put yourself in the mind of the end consumer.”

Creativity and adaptation contributed to the students’ success. An effective online marketing campaign requires attention to details and frequent changes.

“We spent a lot of time monitoring and changing our campaign, which was really the key,” Morrissey said. “Internet marketing is all about testing certain things to see if they work; and if they don’t, you just make the necessary adjustments.”

The competition allowed students to experience realistic challenges marketing and advertising agencies face on a regular basis.

Morrissey said exposure to experiences outside the classroom is a great way to get a perspective on the fast-paced marketing field.

Burtyk agreed that having a strong working knowledge of programs such as Google AdWords is important to prepare for careers in marketing and advertising fields.

“The experience within Google AdWords was great,” Morrissey said. “It’s a $20 billion per-year industry, so there are plenty of opportunities down that path. We did exactly what you would be doing in a real-world scenario, so I’m glad we had Professor Baker, who introduced us to the competition.”