Dmitriy К. Google Ad Expert

Google Partners: why you need this reward and who can get it

The new version of the Google Partners program is the result of marketing research that the company has been conducting over the past two years. Google polled hundreds of partners around the world to understand what they would like to change in the program and terms of participation.

When developing a new version, the company took into account the wishes of advertising agencies and specialists related to the transparency of conditions, exclusivity, and recognition in the market. The updated program was ready at the beginning of 2020, but it took a long time to finalize. And now, in 2022, it comes into force. In this article, we will look at the benefits of being a member of Google Partners and who will be able to get updated rewards.

Why Google Partners for agencies and professionals

There are three levels in the Google Partners program: Member, Partner, and Lead Partner. Each of them has its own set of features and benefits for cooperation with Google.

Education and statistics

Product certification and training for experienced professionals. Not only those who already have a partner reward, but also all specialists and agencies that have joined the program, are considered participants in the program. They have access to free courses and exams hosted on the Skillshop platform. Here you can get training on individual Google Ads tools and other Google products and get the very certificates that are needed for partner status. For partners and lead partners, training materials and webinars from the Google Partners Academy are available.

Quarterly mailing

Program Members, Partners and Lead Partners can learn about helpful tools and resources, stay up to date with program and industry news, and learn from leading digital advertising experts.

Tips for developing inclusiveness

Google cares about a healthy atmosphere in teams, therefore, provides recommendations to program members, partners and lead partners on how to create a comfortable working environment for employees regardless of gender, nationality, age, physical characteristics and other characteristics.

Support and resources

Account performance reports. Program members, partners, and lead partners will receive weekly email reports from Google on campaign performance and recommendations on how to optimize them.

Technical support. This benefit is also available to all program members, regardless of status. But companies that earn the Lead Partner reward are eligible for priority technical support and the ability to speak directly with Google experts to ask questions and get advice.

Events for leaders. Leading Partners are invited to round tables to discuss topical product and sales issues with Google executives.

Recognition and reward

Tasks and bonuses for completing. The gamified Rewards platform works for all participants of the Partners program. It earns users points for reaching quarterly goals that are related to customer spending and the effective use of Google Ads. They can be exchanged for gifts from the Partner Store.

Special offers. Gift vouchers allow you to partially offset advertising costs. However, there are nuances. Once enabled, special offers will automatically apply to all eligible accounts that have had their first ad impression within the last 14 days. Accounts cannot be selected. Also, in the Google Partners Program section, you can not create special offers to send to potential customers. For partners and special partners, the amount of remuneration will differ.

Information about available coupons can be viewed in the advertising account under the Google Partners Program tab in the Special Offers section.

Google Partner Reward. The Google partner reward is issued for a reason: even according to the old requirements, the company had to have at least one certified specialist. Now the requirements have become much tougher, we will talk about them below. Therefore, the presence of the reward to some extent speaks of the expertise of the agency or specialist and works to build customer confidence.

Awards for Leading Partners. Each year, Google honors Lead Partners who have reached new heights in digital marketing and who have helped customers become more successful with Google Ads. As you can see, there are quite a lot of goodies, there is something to fight for.

Requirements for program participants

To become a participant in the program, it is important to meet a number of requirements. They are divided into 3 categories: Efficiency, Expenses and Certification. Their implementation is checked daily.

Efficiency

Requirements for the effectiveness criterion Google has undergone major upheaval. They were previously dependent on the partner's client base and ad revenue, both of which had to increase gradually. Data on the manager's customer accounts from the previous 18 months was taken into consideration. The optimization index is currently the primary requirement. It needs to be at least 70% under the Google Ads manager account.

According to the company, this will help ensure that a potential partner has the experience necessary to optimally set up client campaigns. The optimization score tells how well the account is configured according to the system. The value is calculated in real time depending on the statistics, settings and status of the account and campaigns.

Along with the Optimization Score, recommendations are provided to help you optimize your campaigns . They can be applied and rejected - this is a voluntary matter.

Next to each recommendation is the amount by which the score will increase if you apply it. This will allow you to figure out what recommendations you need to accept in order to fulfill the requirement and achieve the optimization rate of up to 70%, which is necessary for obtaining partner status. If necessary, with the help of recommendations, you can raise the figure even higher.

Recommendations are personalized: the page displays only what is relevant for specific accounts and campaigns.

There are six types of recommendations:

1. Ads and extensions: add ad variations, phone numbers, callouts, pricing, responsive search ads, and other ad elements and types;

2. Automated Campaigns: Create a Local Campaign or Smart Display Campaign, and switch to Smart Shopping Campaigns;

3. Bids and budgets: Adjust budgets, target CPAs or target ROAS, set up conversion tracking, increase budgets, set a goal for your bidding strategy, and more;

4. Keywords and targeting: add audiences, broad match or phrase match for keywords, pause underperforming keywords, etc.;

5. Troubleshooting: add a feed to a campaign, fix certification issues, fix audience targeting settings, etc.;

6. Ad Variations: Add suggested variations that are generated from existing ads.

All recommendations that can be found in accounts and campaigns are collected in the Google Ads help. But the list is not exhaustive as new ones appear regularly.

Expenses

Initially, in 2020, the description of the new requirements for partners was about doubling the amount of expenses in all managed accounts in the last 90 days. As a result, the amount of advertising costs in all managed accounts must be at least $10,000.

Certification

In contrast to the total costs, the requirements for the certification criterion have changed significantly. If earlier it was enough to have one certified employee in the state to obtain partner status, now everything depends on the total number of strategic planners.

In a Google Ads manager account registered in the Google Partners program, at least 50% of strategists must have Google Ads certifications (maximum number of users is 100). A company must have at least one certification for each product that spends money on campaigns (e.g. Display Network, Search Network, Video Ads, App Ads, Shopping Ads).

The phrase strategic planners is nothing to be scared of: it hides all the employees who set up Google Ads campaigns on behalf of clients.

The requirement for 50% of certified employees raises questions, because in addition to contextual advertising specialists, client representatives, lawyers, accountants, etc. can have administrative or standard access to the manager and subordinate accounts, so that this does not increase the number of certificates that are needed to become a partner, you should tell Google how many PPC specialists you have and what kind of work they do. This can be done on the company information page under the Google Partners Program tab.

Get a website traffic audit as a bonus