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What does Google Partner mean? Why it matters? Google Partner status is granted to Adwords consultants or companies that met accounts’ high spending and performance requirements for managed clients campaigns.
In other words, Google certifies that a company/consultant is delivering results on PPC services through Adwords for a not negligible total budget. ‘Results’ basically mean sales and conversions for customers, and peace of mind that you are putting your budget in the hands of a constantly trained individual which demonstrated a talent in helping businesses selling online.
As a consultant, I earned it as an individual Google Adwords certification owner (obtained through an exam which needs to be re-taken every 12 months) that successfully managed a large advertising budget for multiple clients in the latest 90 days, exceeding Google’s ads performance thresholds.
Requirements
To get the Google Partner Status, there are a few significative requirements, a sort of barrier to entry. In my opinion, the Google Partner Status it’s a hint that can help you distinguishing professionals from amateurs.
- Certified Individual(s) – To achieve partner status each agency or professional needs AT LEAST one fully certified individual bound to the partner account. At least one individual per company have to pass the search fundamentals exam and at least one extra advanced exam (e.g. display, mobile, shopping).
- $10,000 Managed in your MCC – Company/Professional MCC (Google’s My Client Center) must reach a minimum spend of $10,000 USD over the past 90 calendar days for certification. Also, your MCC needs to be created from more than 90 days and needs to be in full activity during the last 60 days.
- A Complete, Updated Company Profile – Each Google Partner candidate must have a complete and accurate company profile, which can be found by prospective clients. Here is mine: Valerio Celletti’s Google Partner Profile. That’s the easy one ?
- Great Performance– That’s the hard one. To obtain the Google Partner status, you have to demonstrate that your Client Center performance is meeting or exceeding AdWords performance requirement. Of course, it should be kept constantly higher to avoid losing the badge. No troubles if you are doing things properly ?
3 Specific Reasons Why You Should Hire a Specialist+ 1 Extra Suggestion
If you need to choose who should manage your online advertising budget, I would check for proof of certifications, past and current clients, case studies, and testimonials.
- Trust – Dealing with a Google Partner professional means that are you are considering someone who demonstrated to understand and manage Adwords latest tools and features through annual certification, and who knows best practices in managing PPC accounts, with a (measured by Google) great performance.
- Access to Beta features – Google Partner badge owners can access to not-yet-official Beta Features. If Google rolls out a new feature, application, channel, or tool related to Adwords, Google Partners can have early access months before the general availability. This way, you can have new marketing features months before your competition, in most cases.
- Performance matters (for both) – A Partner who doesn’t meet Google’s standards (read: does not have a reasonably good ROAS) can quickly have its badge suspended. It’s not just ethics.
If your account is managed by a large boutique Web Agency, chances are that your account is underperforming, or you are overcharged.
Many of my clients, especially small businesses, had really bad experiences with big agencies before we started working together. The story is – agency folks start working regularly on each new account/customer, make some very basic setup/optimization, and then they suddenly back working on the bigger clients, while small clients’ accounts keep going on autopilot.
Working with a certified freelancer means that you pay the right price for having someone on your side, which is directly responsible for managing (and getting the best) from you adverting budget day after day.
