It’s that time of year again! March is upon us. College basketball is heating up. You know: the upsets. The buzzer-beaters. The roar of the crowd and the $2,500 online advertising giveaways.
What’s that now?
You read that correctly. This year, WordStream is bringing the excitement of playoff basketball to the world of AdWords. Starting March 5th, we’ll be putting on a winner-take-all tournament to decide, once and for all, who can most improve their AdWords account performance. That’s right, people. The 2018 PPC Playoffs are here.
How it does it work?
With over 2 million reports generated, and over $14 Billion in ad spend analyzed, our AdWords Performance Grader is set to do the heavy lifting. Here’s how it works:
To get started, simply head to the PPC Playoffs page on our website between March 5, 2018 and March 30, 2018. You’ll be prompted to run the AdWords Performance Grader on your account (don’t worry: it’s secure, fast, and free). We use a combination of our own proprietary data (from all that analyzed ad spend) and your own account history to generate a performance report for your account. It’ll look something like this:
Your Grader report is your roadmap to AdWords success. It provides actionable insights with which you can improve your account performance. This initial run will include an overall, aggregate score as well as individual, category-level scores for 11 separate categories. Armed with this information, we’ll ask you to answer two questions:
1. What did you learn from your AdWords Performance Grader report?
2. After reading your report, what will you do differently in the future?
Click “Complete My Entry” and voila! You have the rest of the contest to leverage your grader report’s prescriptive advice to improve your account’s performance. If you’ve been diligent about account activity, you can expect to see some major improvements!
During the contest, the Grader will automatically measure your account performance and send you a report every seven days. Your final score is determined by combining the scores of your first report and your final report. The earlier you enter the contest, the more reports you’ll receive. And the more reports you receive, the more opportunities you’ll have to improve your account performance.
So by all means—if you’re prone to procrastination, enter the contest on March 30th. You’ll have a week to improve your account. (Your score will consist of your Grader runs on March 30th and April 6th.) But if you really want to win, get in the game ASAP!
Of course, just because your participation in the contest ends after March 30th doesn’t mean you should stop optimizing your AdWords account; continue to follow the advice in your final grader report to ensure that, regardless of whether you win the grand prize, you’re crushing your competition.
To give every participant a chance to receive their second grader report, the winner will be announced three weeks after the end of the contest. What does the lucky winner stand to win, you ask? Here’s the information you’ve been itching for:
The Grand Prize
The account that shows the greatest overall improvement from their first Grader report to their second Grader report will receive a Google-themed prize pack valued at approximately $2,455. The package will be shipped to the winner free of charge. The winning account will receive:
- 1 Google Pixelbook ($999)
- 1 pair of Google Pixel buds ($159)
- 1 Google Home Max ($399)
- 1 Nest Thermostat ($249)
- 1 Google Pixel 2 ($649)
That’s a lot of hardware! And yes: in case you were wondering, the Google Home Max sounds way better than the Amazon Echo.
We hope to encourage as many participants as possible (the world needs less wasted spend!), but there are some limitations. Here are some details on who can partake in PPC Playoffs:
Who can enter?
Wordstream’s “PPC Playoffs” is a contest open to small to medium businesses in the United States and Canada (excluding Quebec) that have an active Google AdWords account (“AdWords account”) in good standing with a past 90-day spend of no more than $150,000 USD or $190,000 CAD. Individuals can enter more than one Google AdWords account (as defined by a unique account ID) for the contest, but there is only one entry per unique account. For more information, please visit the Official Rules page.
What are you waiting for? Lace up your sneaks, get in the game, and start improving your AdWords account today!