Campaign start...

[Oliv]

Hi,

I think my team encountered the exact same problement as Taro (see
message beyond).

We didn't wanted the campaign to start this week, but 2% were spent
between apr 19th and 23rd.

We planned to start on april 30th, so we paused the campaign (the 200$
were credited on apr 21st)

I don't think that 2% is a major problem in our budget, but I'm
worried about the time... Is our campaign already launched, or can we
unpause on april 30th and consider this date to be the official
start ?

Thank you !

[Online Challenge]

Hello Oliv,

Thank you for your email. I understand that your campaign accidentally
started and you are worried if this would affect the time for which you
can run the campaign.

As soon as Google credits US$200 to an account, any unpaused campaigns may
begin showing ads automatically and could cost teams some of their budget.


Instructions on how to pause campaigns are clearly outlined in the
'AdWords Setup Guide' at
http://www.google.com/onlinechallenge/adwords_setup_guide.pdf and in our
messages to professors. For example, under 'Important Notes' in the
AdWords Setup Guide, we state: 'When you are editing your campaigns or
creating new campaigns, please check that all campaigns remain paused and
are not marked as active until your professor tells you when the Challenge
starts for your class and when you should activate your ads. You can learn
about how you can pause and resume ads at
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6281.'

With this in mind, professors and teams should be aware of the following:

* Will Google reimburse the budget accidentally spent?
No, we can't replenish lost budget. Teams will need to use any remaining
budget for their allocated 3-week campaigns.

* Should these teams run shorter campaigns to account for the number of
days their account has already been active?
No. Teams should aim to run their campaigns over the same 3 weeks as your
class had originally planned.

* Will teams who started early be penalized?
Because these teams didn't follow instructions correctly, there may be an
impact on the final judging decision. For example, if a team that
accidentally started early scored exactly the same as another team that
had followed instructions, we may need to give preference to the team who
ran their campaigns on time.

* Does Google need to know which teams started early?
No, you won't need to advise us at this stage. However, teams should
justify the reasons for starting early in their Post-Campaign summary
report.

If a team has recently created an account and isn't yet ready to begin,
they should immediately check to see if their campaigns are paused.

Thanks,

Subharaj
The Google Team

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
From: Oliv <team.marketing...@gmail.com>
Subject: Campaign start...
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:47:48 -0700 (PDT)

[Oliv]

Thank you for answering !


On 27 avr, 03:17, "Online Challenge" <onlinechalle...@google.com>
wrote:

> Hello Oliv,
>
> Thank you for your email.  I understand that your campaign accidentally
> started and you are worried if this would affect the time for which you
> can run the campaign.
>
> As soon as Google credits US$200 to an account, any unpaused campaigns may
> begin showing ads automatically and could cost teams some of their budget.
>
> Instructions on how to pause campaigns are clearly outlined in the

> 'AdWords Setup Guide' athttp://www.google.com/onlinechallenge/adwords_setup_guide.pdfand in our

> messages to professors. For example, under 'Important Notes' in the
> AdWords Setup Guide, we state: 'When you are editing your campaigns or
> creating new campaigns, please check that all campaigns remain paused and
> are not marked as active until your professor tells you when the Challenge
> starts for your class and when you should activate your ads. You can learn

> about how you can pause and resume ads athttp://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6281.'

> From: Oliv <team.marketingchallenge.u...@gmail.com>