• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, August 12, 2016

Courtney O’Donnell, senior shopping and feed manager at Elite SEM, works on Jet.com's Google Shopping account. The ecommerce company -- founded in January 2014, and acquired by Wal-Mart earlier this week -- began working with the agency in 2015 to explore search advertising. 

Here's how it went down. O’Donnell's Google rep reached out to her via email with the good news. Google presented the award to O'Donnell for growing Jet.com's business to more than $20 million in fourth-quarter 2015 and ensuring that the ecommerce company hit its online advertising return on investment goals.

How does a search marketer grow and maintain strong performance numbers in terms of return on ad spend and cost per order when supporting thousands of products? "All Jet.com's products running in Google Shopping had a positive return," she said.

Jet.com hosts a variety of products, from paper towel to electronics. "You need to understand how clothing performs differently than paper towels," she said. "Someone might buy paper towels once weekly, versus electronics once yearly, and both take different strategies, though they're on the same site."

Jet.com sends a feed to Google. O'Donnell structures the Google Shopping campaigns based on the feeds such as categories including electronics, toys, and home clothing.

Earlier this week, Wal-Mart Stores confirmed the acquisition of Jet.com for $3 billion in cash, calling the company in a press release "among the fastest growing and most innovative e-commerce companies in the U.S." The ecommerce company -- founded in 2014 and headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey -- stood on its own. 

Wal-Mart also disclosed that Jet.com reached a $1 billion in run-rate gross merchandise value (GMV) and offering 12 million SKUs in its first year. The company also grew its customer base of urban and Millennial customers with more than 400,000 new shoppers added monthly and an average of 25,000 daily processed orders.

How does a company reach those numbers without a strong search marketer or marketers behind them?

O’Donnell is one of 12 winners of the 2016 Google Search Excellence Award given by the search giant to highlight a marketer's excellent work and thought leadership in search marketing. Winners attended the Googlepalooza awards ceremony and dinner cruise hosted in Chicago in late July. The event celebrates Google's clients and kicked off with a band from Lollapalooza. 

Aside from O'Donnell, the winners in the United States and Canada include:

Christina Malcolm, Associate Director, Paid Search, iProspect
Dain Tolbert, Senior Media Manager, iCrossing
George Andrade, Account Lead, PMG
Jesal Desai, Search Director, Mediacom
Jillian Murphy, Account Supervisor, Resolution Media
Justin Salazar, Media Planner, Razorfish
Lauren Ortwein, Sr. Manager, Search/Social, Maxus
Leah Tran, Search Manager, MediaVest
Max Hagler, Media Supervisor, 360i
Nina Soboczynski, Account Supervisor, Catalyst Canada
Caroline Canlas, Account Supervisor, Catalyst Canada