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Five students from the UWA Business School were recognised as some of the finest young marketers in the world when their team finished in the top 15 in a recent global online marketing challenge.

The student team was one of 40 teams from UWA, and among 2,400 University teams across 56 countries competing in the 2009 Google Online Marketing Challenge.  This involved assisting small-to-medium size businesses increase their online presence through Google AdWords advertising.

This is the second time since the Challenge was launched in 2008 that UWA business students have demonstrated the world-class online marketing skills.

When a UWA Business School team was named Global Winner in the 2008 Challenge, Google said the result highlighted that ‘UWA is creating some of the finest online marketing students in the world.  With competition from prestigious institutions such as Stanford and London Business School, that is really saying something.'

Under the direction of UWA Business School Lecturer Dr Fang Liu, the 2009 UWA team of Benjamin Seah Hon Weng, Ricky Hee Chin Teck, Jamie Ng Yunshan, Jorine Seow Wanning and Ada Fu Cen Ying developed a Google AdWords campaign for Simply Hi-Fi , a medium high-end Hi-Fi and Home Theatre retailer.

The team developed their online marketing campaign around keywords users were likely to type when searching for their client's products and were provided US$200 to implement and modify their campaign over three consecutive weeks between January and May.

Dr Liu said the team designed different AdGroups for Simply Hi-Fi and then closely monitored each group's performances.

"They had a very successful strategy demonstrating superior online marketing skills," she said.

The panel, made up of Google representatives and independent academics from around the world, selected the winning teams by applying an exclusive Campaign Statistics algorithm created by Google to determine the effectiveness of their AdWords campaign as well as assessing the quality of their reports.

With the demand for graduates with online marketing experience increasing every year, Dr Liu is looking forward to signing up her next team of talented UWA Business students for the 2010 Challenge.