Display advertising helps one small business minimize India’s education gap

Dinesh Mehta and Rajat Verma had always been aware of inequities in India’s educational system. As the gap widened, Mehta and Verma wondered how they could use technology to provide higher quality education to more people. In 2006, they founded TopChalks.com to provide technology enabled educational and training solutions for a wider population.

TopChalks works with some of India’s best instructors to develop and produce educational content for digital platforms. ‘With TopChalks content, students have the option to study online, with CDs, through handheld devices or on digital broadcast platforms such as digital cable TV,’ says Director of Products and Engineering Vishal Chadhuary.

TopChalks ambassador Javgal Srinath (Indian Cricketer)

Since TopChalks seeks to democratize education largely via digital content, Chadhaury turned to the Google Display Network to market the educational experience. ‘Our products are very unique in nature,’ says Chadhuary. ‘Once we show potential customers what we are offering, they better understand our products. All our ads have a demo button which leads to an actual product demo.’

To ensure he’s seeing positive results from his display ads, Chadhuary pays close attention to the performance of the ads across the Display Network. ‘We keep a close eye on which sites to exclude or add as managed placements,’ says Chadhuary. ‘When we see a site with a stronger clickthrough rate, for example, we might add this site as a managed placement.’

Chadhuary also monitors the effectiveness of his display ads by testing multiple formats for each ad. He then tracks the clickthrough rate of each ad and either pauses the poorer performing ads or edits them to mimic the well performing ads.

TopChalks ambassador Javgal Srinath (Indian Cricketer)

Chadhuary’s diligence with the Google Display Network proves that small businesses can use display advertising to generate new business. ‘Now we get well over half of our leads from ads on the Google Display Network,’ says Chadhuary. ‘There are numerous education websites with great content and millions of users. Showing relevant ads there generates good quality leads for us.’

Mehta, Verma, and Chadhuary’s vision to impact India’s education is spreading with rapid success. With the help of display ads, they are able to clearly communicate and actually show customers what they can achieve with TopChalk’s help. ‘With India growing at a rate that it is, we believe that such growth cannot be sustained and will not be meaningful unless we think out of the box and educate the masses,’ says Chadhuary. ‘Every person in the company is driven by this vision.’

Posted by Julian Sonego, Marketing Manager, Google Display Network