Google Online Sales and Operations Coordinator Worksheet

Name: Erik Thau-Knudsen

Date: 2006-09-30

Native Language: Danish

Google Online Sales and Operations Coordinator Worksheet

AdSense

Google confidential

This worksheet is intended to help Google evaluate your skill set and ability to perform the client service and AdSense website analysis tasks.

Please do not consult others when completing the worksheet; however, please feel free to conduct research online. Please follow recruiting instructions regarding the return of completed worksheets.

1. Calculating clickthrough rate (CTR):

If an ad has been shown 9652 times and has received 78 clicks, what is the ad's clickthrough rate (%)? Please show the equation you used to derive this answer and round your answer to two decimal places.

78/9652 = 0.00808123, corresponding to (rounded to 2 decimal places) 0.81 %

2. Definition/Research:

Please define Content-Targeted Advertising and how it is different from other internet advertising (e.g. search-triggered advertising)?

The internet defined broadly is two or more computer networks that are interconnected. The two most used media for advertising through the internet are electronic mails (e-mails) and the world wide web (WWW). In e-mails, the message itself is the ad, and most users know it as unsolicited commercial e-mails, which are mostly unwanted and against which anti-spam software has been developed to filter them off.

Below, I shall concentrate on WWW advertising whose main characteristics is that it will be displayed within a WWW user agent (a web browser). Main types of advertising are:

· Banner ads;

· pop-up and pop-under windows; as well as

· intelligent ads (my term)

Banner advertising is the oldest one and used since the dawn of the WWW in the beginning of the 1990-s. It consists of images placed on a fixed location of the web page. The images are made in broadly recognized image format that do not require special browser plug-ins, i.e., Windows bitmaps (.bmp), Graphics Interchange Format (.gif), and Joint Expert Photographers Group file format (.jpeg, .jpg). The ads have fixed dimensions, delivered usually from the advertiser, and they may be updated.

Pop-ups are browser windows that appear on top of the web page, usually when loading the page or triggered by JavaScript events. Their only difference from pop-unders is that the latter appear behind the window and will be viewed when the user closes other browser dindows.

Intelligent ads are ads that appear in contexts where they seem relevant and not elsewhere. In the Google context, two types are used, the older search triggered advertising (AdWords) and the newer contextual advertising (content-targeted advertising, AdSense). The search-triggered advertising appears on a results page when the user has done his/her query. Along with carrying out the search for relevant pages in the database, the search engine also searches a data base of customers that where it matches the search word string with keywords of the customers. In Google result pages, the matches are displayed in a column in the right part of the browser window as text-only ads.

Contextual advertising, also called content-targeted advertising, appears in a dedicated field within one or several pages of a client site, e.g., http://www.example.com/. As is the case with search-triggered advertising, contextual advertising is placed according t matches with a database of advertisers. The technical difference is that instead of matching a query string (as hoes search-triggered), contextual advertising matches the advertiser with the whole context of the www.example.com web page. It is expected to have a higher impact on the user because of

· Quality: you make more relevant advertising when you match your customer’s 20 keywords with 1000 words of a page instead of a three words query string.

· Quantity: the user will encounter the advertising more often than is the case with search triggered advertising because contextual advertising will usually appear on more pages, so the user will much more exposed once he/she browses the site.

· Reliability: Contextual advertising makes use of the loyalty of the user to websites of which he/she trusts the content.

However, a phenomenon like banner ad blindness may easily be transferred to contextual ads. Search-trigered adversising has the advantage that the user expects to find relevant advertising on a search results page and is more likely to read them whereas on the www.example.com the user is there to browse for other information and will consider third-party advertising as noise.

3. Website navigation:

You are asked to assess a company that wants to run contextual ads. Please visit http://www.nytimes.com and answer the following questions. Please note there is no charge for registering with this site.

a. Is the site currently serving any ads?

Yes, there are banner ads from Chase, E*Trade Financial, Samsung Mobile USA, Focus Features (Catch a Fire), ETF Center Fidelity, Scottrade, Dell, Microsoft, Capital One, NYU Stern, The New York Times Store, Sony, Equifax

b. Does the site have pop-ups or other dynamic content? If yes, please provide an example of pop-ups and/or dynamic content.

Samsung Mobile USA and ETF Center Fidelity show other images when the page is reloaded. Some change from day to day.

c. Does the site require you to submit personal information in order to view content?

At first glance, no. Articles highlighted on the home page do not require registration. However, once you want to dig out information from the archives, you will need to subscribe on a payment base.

d. What percentage of the site would you estimate is only viewable after registration?

Registration per se will allow access to about 10% more information. If you want more information, you will need to pay for it (TimeSelect). The share of information available only using TimeSelect must be around 65%.

e. Does the site have a privacy policy? If so, please provide the URL.

Yes, at http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/privacy.html

4. Hypothetical customer interaction:

Please provide your answers below in both English and your native language, if other than English.

Google’s policy is to not allow ads for tobacco products. An AdWords advertiser’s ad is reviewed and rejected for selling tobacco products. The advertiser writes the following email response:

Dear Google AdWords,

I am outraged by your decision! You allow pornography to be advertised on Google and not tobacco? Your policy is hypocritical, and you are practicing discrimination. My products are legal, and I have been selling tobacco products online for years. I demand you reconsider your decision and run my ad immediately!

From,
Jamie Young

a. Please discuss at least three reasons you believe Google would make the decision not to allow the advertisement of tobacco or tobacco products while allowing ads for pornography. These might not be what you tell the advertiser, but rather internal reasons for this policy.

1. Revenues generated in the on-line pornography industry are higher than on-line tobacco sales. Preferring tobacco to pornography would make Google lose many valuable AdWord clients.

2. Google is registered in the state of California, which opposes tobacco consumption. The European Union is already banning many kinds of tobacco advertising, and other countries are likely to follow the European example. On the other hand, pornography is not likely to be subject to more bans than the ones prevailing in some countries (e.g., Iran, China).

3. Smoking is lethal and addictive, whereas pornography is not. There could be an internal policy to oppose smoking in Google, and Google is expressing this in its external policy as well.

4. There is a public trend against smoking. Opposing it is opposing the world of to-morrow. Allowing tobacco advertising would, thus, damage the company image of Google as being innovative and a carrier of modernity.

Danish version

1. Den indtjening, der opnås fra on-line pornografi, er langt højere den, som stammer fra tobakssalget. At foretrække tobak frem for pornografi ville få Google til at miste mange værdifulde AdWord-kunder.

2. Google er indregistreret i den amerikanske forbundsstat Californien, som er modstander af tobaksforbrug. Den Europæiske Union har allerede forbudt adskillige former for tobaksannoncering, og andre lande må forventes at følge trop. Pornografi vil på den anden side ikke være genstand for flere forbud end dem, som fortsat består i visse lande (f. eks. Iran og Kina).

3. Rygning er dødbringende og vanedannende, mens porno ikke er det. Der kan være tale om en intern ikke-ryger-politik i Google, og Google udtrykker også dette i sin eksterne politik.

4. Der er en offentlig tendens imod rygning. At gå imod den tendens er at gå imod morgendagens verdensbillede. Det vil derfor nedbryde Googles image som innovativt og en bærer af modernitet, hvis det tillod tobaksreklamer.

b. Below, draft an email response you would send to the advertiser.

Dear Jamie Young,

Thank you for the interest you have in AdWords. We are sorry to inform you that we cannot provide the service you are asking for. The chief reason is that Google is registered in the US state of California that vehemently restricts tobacco advertising. These restrictions also cover the main Google advertising products, AdWords and AdSense. There are similar tendencies in other countries of the world (notably EU) wherefore Google in its company policy has chosen to anticipate the events and refrain from tobacco advertising altogether.

Moreover, Google shares a responsibility for the many users of the internet to safeguard them from the malicious effects of tobacco consumption.

We wish you progress with your company and hope that you can understand our position. Feel welcome to contact Google in the future to advertise other products of yours.

Yours truly,

Google AdWords

Kære Jamie Young.

Tak for den interesser, De har udvist AdWords. Vi beklager dog at måtte meddele Dem, at vi ikke er i stand til at yde Dem den service, De ønsker. Hovedårsagen er, at Google er indregistreret i Californien, hvor der er mange restriktioner på annoncering for tobak. Disse restriktioner rammer også Googles produkter AdWords og AdSense. Der er tilsvarende tendenser i andre lande i verden (især EU), hvorfor Google i sin virksomhedspolitik har valgt at komme begivenhederne i forkøbet og helt afskaffe tobaksreklamer.

Desuden tager Google også et medansvar for internettets mange brugere, som kan døje med skadevirkningerne af et tobaksforbrug.

Vi ønsker dem fremgang med Deres virksomhed og håber, at De kan forstå vor indstilling. De skal være velkommen til at henvende Dem til Google i fremtiden for annoncering af andre produkter.

Venlig hilsen

Google AdWords

5. Writing skills:

Please write a short paragraph (no more than 200 words) explaining why you would like to be a part of the Google Online Sales and Operations team. Please provide this response in both English and in your native language.

English:

What attracted my attention to Google was to get a chance to become a part of one of the most innovative Internet companies. The international character of the Google Online Sales and Operations team increased my aspirations to apply, since it is a natural prolongation of my international way of life with years spent on studies and work abroad in surroundings where I was the only Dane. When working for you, I hope to be able to contribute my additional command of languages which cover 8-15 European languages. For the last six years, I have also been dealing with web site development as web master and contents provider of several sites. This has augmented my admiration for Google and what you guys contribute to the world of to-morrow.

Danish:

Det, som gjorde mig så opmærksom på Google var at få lejlighed til at blive en del af en af de mest nyskabende internet-virksomheder. Den internationale karakter, som Google Online Sales and Operations-holdet besidder, øgede min motivation til at søge, eftersom det er en naturlig fortsættelse af min internationale livsstil med flere år tilbragt på studie- og arbejdsophold i udlandet under forhold, hvor jeg var ene dansker. Får jeg arbejde hos jer, håber jeg at kunne bidrage med mine yderligere sprogkundskaber, som dækker 8-15 europæiske sprog. I de seneste seks år har jeg beskæftiget mig med udvikling af websteder, båder som webmaster og som leverandør af indhold på adskillige websteder. Dette har øget min beundring for Google og det, som I bidrager med til fremtidens verden.

Additional Optional Sections (Choose only one)

6. Option 1: AdSense Section

In your opinion, what type of site would be ideal for AdSense and why?
Please provide this response in both English and in your native language.

7. Option 2: Technical Section

If you can, please answer the following technical questions.

1. Javascript

a. Create a short script in JavaScript that writes two lines of text. The first line of text should be in Green and the second line of text in Blue.

document.write ('<p style="color: green;">This line is green</p>');

document.write ('<p style="color: blue;">This line is blue</p>');

</script>

b. Write one line of JavaScript that prompts the user to input his name and assigns this value to a variable called user_name. For the prompt text, use "Enter your name below."

var user_name = "";

while ((user_name == "") || (user_name == "")) {

user_name = prompt ("Enter your name below", "");

}

</script>

2. HTML

a. Write one line of HTML that sets the body background color to "Blue" (Using name or hex value).

b. Please indicate below which set of HTML tags creates each of the following effects:

1. Bulleted list

2. Sets off each row in a table

3. Inserts a horizontal rule

<hr />

3. MySQL:

a. Indicate the MySQL command that lists all tables existing within a database.

show tables;