Google Data

You may remember back in September we announced the launch of the first AdWords Train & Gain challenge. Today we’re very announcing our 15 finalists from around the world and the overall grand prize winner.


Train & Gain was a four week program full of tips and advice to help you get the most from AdWords. Thousands of you took up the challenge and impressed us with the fantastic results you achieved in such a short time.

We've just finished judging all of your entries and are delighted to share our overall winner with you...

Dan Hulse and Elliot Trotter from Terra Organics in Washington, USA, have won a trip to Sydney, Australia to meet with AdWords experts in our Sydney office and attend the YouTube Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House in March 2011. Congratulations Dan and Elliot. We can’t wait to see you in Sydney!

In addition to taking the required steps each week during the competition, Terra Organics demonstrated through their case study submission (and video!) how the Train & Gain challenge impacted their AdWords account and overall business:

“We started using Google AdWords for our small Organic Produce Home Delivery Service about a year ago. While we saw some great gains, we knew we weren't using it to its full potential and weren't sure how best to budget our ads for the most efficiency. Google's Train & Gain helped us to refine our AdWords knowledge and get more out of our dollar. We learned how to maximize our Cost Per Click, use better (and negative) keywords and track our progress using Google Analytics.

Since starting the Train & Gain program, we've already seen dramatic improvements in the consistency of performance with our advertisements. We're able to work within our budget to get better results and turn more people on to our local farm CSA (community supported agriculture) and produce boxes.
In order to track just how much Google's Train & Gain impacted us, we videotaped our progress week by week and put together a YouTube video so you could gain a better understanding of who we are and how Train and Gain helped us.”

Check out the video Dan and Elliot created as part of their submission:



Congratulations also go to the other 14 finalists from around the world who each win an Android phone. You can see the breakdown of winners by region below:

Winners from Americas:
Adrian Rodriguez, Fright Night Scream Park, California, USA
Elliot Trotter, Terra Organics, Washington, USA (overall winner)
Ivan Hsieh, EMlab P&K, California, USA
Judy Weiss, Valstar Printers, Minnesota, USA
Shane Dorney, Dorney Security, Texas, USA

Winners from Europe, Middle East & Africa:
David Morgan, Easy Read, Oxford, UK
Debby Appleby, SCL Water, Devon, UK
Emily Allan, Peppermint Pix, KZN, South Africa
Pierre Hun, Utility Exchange Online, Derby, UK
Ross Berntsen, Fire Personnel, Kent, UK

Winners from Japan and Asia-Pacific:
Biplab Kumar, NK Realtors, Kolkata, India
Jason Xa, Benjamin’s Crafts, Inglewood, Australia
Rattana Areerob, Phuket Villa Rentals, Phuket, Thailand
Raymond Mellick, Temporary Tattoos Guru, Collingwood, Australia
Tapas Ranjan Behera, The Navadoya Club, Orissa, India

If you didn’t take part in Train & Gain this time around and would like to find out more about improving your AdWords account check out the AdWords Small Business Center today.

Congratulations again to all of our winners and thanks to everyone who took part in Train & Gain.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords team