Each year we send out a survey to see how we can improve the GOMAC and each year you provide us with useful feedback that we can use. Just in case you haven’t noticed all the recent modifications on our website for this year’s edition, the 2020 GOMAC Organizing Committee would like to highlight some of the most important changes.

The most important changes to the 2020 GOMAC:

Team coaching for professors: Here’s something that professors have most certainly noticed during the registration process. We are now allowing professors to work in teams when coaching students. In fact, professors can even collaborate with colleagues from universities in other countries. And just in case you were wondering, professors who collaborate as a team don’t actually have to be from different universities. They can be from the same university. Shared credit will be given to both hosting universities and professors.

International projects and distributed student teams: Well, what’s fair for professors should also be fair for students, right? The previous change is also valid for students who want to work with colleagues from another university. Now students don’t all have to be from the same institution. Student teams can be comprised of students from different universities. They still need to be coached by at least one professor though. We felt that this could give an opportunity for students to collaborate on international projects together, which we believe, represents an additional learning opportunity. Shared credit will be given to both universities.

Multiple CIDs: Previously teams were only allowed to report on a single Google Ads Customer IDentification (CID). We are creating an exception for student teams who work with non-profit organizations that benefit from a Google Ad Grant. These teams will be allowed to report on 2 Google Ads accounts (i.e. 2 CIDs) because non-profits use 1 CID for the grant and 1 CID for their regular account.

Formatting requirements: We are removing the minimum 12-point Arial font size limit and other formatting requirements for the reports because they were too difficult to control. We strongly believe that teams should still be wary of maintaining the legibility of their reports and have included a section in the GOMAC Grading Rubric where judges can add or deduct points based on the “quality of the presentation”.

2 full semesters: We’ve extended the registration dates to allow students to participate to the GOMAC during two full semesters. Registration started on September 30, 2019 and final results will be announced on September 29, 2020. We can now say that the GOMAC is truly a yearly competition!

Team size: Even though we still feel that this is the ideal number of students per team we have decided to remove the minimum team size which was between three and seven students. Individual students can now participate to the GOMAC as long as they are registered under a professor.

Prizes: We kept the best for last… We are very happy to announce our first cash prize (although it is limited to students from a single university). Adviso, a Montreal based Digital Marketing agency, has announced that it will award the best student team from ESG UQAM with a $2500 (CAD) cash prize. The “best student team” will be determined by the team to rank highest in the 2020 GOMAC. More details are available under the GOMAC Terms and Conditions. We are currently working on getting prizes for everyone else. If you are, or if you know of, a company that would like to sponsor student teams please tell them to get in touch with us.

Good luck to all teams! We hope you enjoy your learning experience this year!