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1. Google AdWords Case Study
Certified Excellence
The Indian Institute of Financial Planning (IIFP), a specialist in providing financial educa-
tion, used Google AdWords to market the concept of Financial Planning in India and cre-
ate brand awareness.
Empowering Young Minds
“'Google Content Network
has opened a bigger win- In early 2008, Gautam Rajgarhia and Akshay Srimal decided to establish an institute that
dow to project ourselves, would not just empower the students with skills needed to meet the challenges of competi-
as it was a good branding tive global markets but would also become their guide helping them achieve their goals
opportunity for a new start and aspirations. They established IIFP, which has now become one of the most eminent
up like ours.”
centers for professional financial planning education in India. It has pioneered the concept
of Financial Planning as a career option in India. IIFP is backed by the Kush Education
Society, established in 2001.
The institute offers three value-based and industry-specific courses which are specific to
Gautam Rajgarhia
different audiences:
Co-founder and Head of
Marketing
1. Post Graduate Diploma in Advanced Financial Planning and Wealth Management -
IIFP
PGDAFPWM
2. Certified Financial Planner - CFPCM
3. Bachelor in Business Administration
Planning for Success
In early 2008 when IIFP was established, it not only wanted to spread awareness about the
institute but also wanted to market the very concept of financial planning in India. It
wanted to target the young audience that was mostly online surfing the internet or on so-
cial networking sites. IIFP’s aim was to make this audience come to their website. Al-
though IIFP was active in print and electronic media as well, it was difficult to ensure that
the audience in these media will come directly to the IIFP website from there. This made
Google AdWords IIFP turn to Google AdWords.
Google AdWords™ is a per- With the aim of getting more targeted traffic and increasing its online presence, IIFP
formance-based advertising started Google AdWords campaigns in May 2008. Because the IIFP team was new to Ad-
program that enables busi- Words, it took them some time to master the product. A key resource that helped them
nesses large and small to ad- master the nuances of the AdWords system was the AdWords Help Center. With the help
vertise on Google and its of account optimization tips and suggestions on the AdWords Help Center, they were able
network of partner websites. to optimize their account.
Hundreds of thousands of
businesses worldwide use The IIFP team started their AdWords campaigns by focusing primarily on two courses-
AdWords for text, image, and CFP and Post Graduate Diploma. The Post Graduate Diploma campaign was focused more
video ads priced on a cost-per towards students who were in the final year of graduation, whereas the internationally cer-
-click (CPC) and cost-per- tified CFP course had a much broader audience base as it targeted high school pass outs,
impression (CPM) basis. college students and even working professionals. As both the campaigns had a different
Built on an auction-based audience, having separate campaigns for the courses worked well for them.
system, AdWords is a highly
quantifiable and cost-
effective way to reach poten- … And the Results are Out!
tial customers. For more in-
formation, visit http:// With the help of Google AdWords, IIFP quite easily established itself in the online market.
adwords.google.co.in A good AdWords account structure worked well in getting targeted audience to their web-
site. Also, as they were new and wanted to spread awareness about their institute, they
made good use of Google's content network. It worked as a good platform for branding
purposes. According to Gautam, co-founder and head of the marketing department,
'Google Content Network has opened a bigger window to project ourselves, as it was a
good branding opportunity for a new start up like ours.'
© 2009 Google Inc. All rights reserved. Google and the Google logo are trademarks of Google Inc. All other company and produc t names may be trademarks of the
respective companies with which they are associated.

2. A few months later the focus shifted to the number of registrations coming from the traffic that was on the website. As Gautam
Rajgariah explains: "Initially we wanted to use Google AdWords to increase the online presence, and drive more targeted traffic
to our website. It was later that the actual number of registrations coming from students, became our objective.”
Also, Gautam wanted to analyze the month-on-month performance of the ad campaigns. This was easily achieved by the ad-
vanced reporting tools inbuilt in the AdWords Interface. The ‘Conversion Tool’ Gautam feels, is the most helpful as it helps him
gauge the cost-per-conversion and helps allocate bids and budget accordingly.
At present, IIFP has 33% of its marketing budget allocated to online advertising, all of which is dedicated to Google AdWords,
50% to print and the remaining 17% to other electronic medium. Even though print media worked well for them last year, this
year Gautam attributes a good 40% of his business coming from Google AdWords alone. Going forth, along with text ads, IIFP
plans to make use of image ads as well to get greater visibility in the content network.
As the institute grows with more students and more fulfilled dreams of these students, Google AdWords continues to play its
role of providing the best advertising experience.
Preparation Tips
Gautam advises others in the education industry to start advertising online because traditional media it is not a measurable plat-
form. Also the costs associated with traditional media are high as one needs to pay a standard amount irrespective of whether
they get targeted traffic or not. On the other hand with pay per click form of advertising one knows how much traffic is coming
to the website and pays only for that traffic.
Another reason for Gautam to recommend online media to the education industry is that most of their audience is young and can
be found online browsing through content & search pages, or on social networking sites; so tapping them can open a whole new
window of brand awareness for the education institutes.

3. C S S UD E
A E T IS