Algorithmic Advertising: Background on the United Way of Greater Toledo's FIN Program

This material is for the case competition to be held at the Ross School's second search marketing workshop, Friday, November 12, 2010. Participant's will develop one or more ad groups to promote the United Way of Greater Toledo's Family Information Network (FIN) program.

Background materials and resources

If you haven't already, read at least the key background material on AdWords, located here.

The following material will be of the most direct use in constructing ad groups targeted at the FIN program:

FIN and 211 marketing plan (general but information on targeting). Focus specifically on who is targeted in the FIN program. Put yourselves in the minds of these searchers.
Potential FIN landing pages with program description. These are where you will send people who click on the ads you create. Be as precise as possible in matching your ads to landing pages, but also be aware that one outcome of the case study may be to suggest where landing pages need to be modified to meet the needs of visitors.
FIN fact sheet (list of concrete services targeted at potential users). The best performing AdWords ad groups target customers' expressed intent with concrete services.
How users of the FIN program describe it (specific and customer targeted). This report from United Way is a good initial insight into how users of FIN might express their desire (intent) for specific services. Be careful to keep any keywords you derive from this document to no more than 2 to 3 words long.
Call reports and web hits on the FIN program. The call reports contain operators' classifications of the calls. The web hits refer to links customers click once they enter UWGT's online database of resources. Both provide indications of the services that are currently popular.

Additional material that will help you understand additional elements of the FIN program, UWGT's current web traffic patterns, and UWGT's current use of AdWords:

FIN talking points (more general messages about the program). This is how UWGT describes the program to external constituencies, definitely a secondary resource.
Organic search terms that search-based visitors to the FIN pages initially typed in. These visitors use many generic terms such as "United Way". Such generic terms will not be useful to your ad groups. You are looking to attract people who are looking for the specific services and are not already aware that they exist at the United Way. However, the report does contain some specific terms that may be useful.
Overview of UWGT's AdWords campaigns at the start of Summer, 2010 with later updateat the end of August. These campaigns are all well targeted and serve as good examples of intent based targeting.

Other background material relating to UWGT