What is the Google Partner Badge?
While the Google Partners program is free, actually qualifying for a Google Partner status and badge requires a company to put in some serious work with AdWords. In order to achieve this status, a company must demonstrate that it has the required skill and expertise to meet specific requirements. Some of these requirements include reaching a certain ad spending threshold, increasing the revenue of its clients, growing their client base, and so on.
Once a company receives its Google partner status, it gains access to a wide variety of benefits. Among these benefits is the well-known Google Partner badge.
Google Partner Badge Requirements
There are currently two badges that a company can obtain: regular and premier.
There are 4 main requirements to earning one of these badges:
• Profile – By far the easiest step of the process. The first requirement is to simply create a Google Partners company profile. Once the profile is online, it will be published on Google Partner Search.
• Certification – To qualify for the regular badge, at least one of the company’s employees must be certified in AdWords. The premier badge requires at least 2 company employees with the same certification.
• Spending – Companies looking to receive the partner badge must spend a minimum of $10,000 over a 90-day period. Moreover, the spending must be done over at least 60 of the total of 90 days. Obtaining the premier badge requires higher spending, varying based on location and market.
• Performance – AdWords performance is a must in this situation. A constant growth of revenue for the company’s clients and a growth in the number of clients the company has is required in order to receive either of the partner badges.
Benefits of Having a Google Partner Badge
The Google Partner status and badge can also be lost. It’s not enough to simply acquire the status; a company must also continue to work towards bettering itself and its clients. Once a company stops adhering to Google’s standards, its badge and partner status can be removed.
However, there are certain benefits that come with the status, making it worthwhile for marketing companies to acquire and hold their status.
• Having Certified Employees – Google closely monitors companies which have achieved the partner status in order to ensure that their employees’ certifications are up-to-date with the latest standards.
• Latest AdWords Features – In order to keep their certifications, each employee must prove exceptional skills in a wide variety of AdWords-related tasks, such as use of negative keywords, ad extensions, scheduling, and so on
• Competitive Edge – Google offers access to beta-features to all companies who have achieved the partner status. Since the beta version of a software is launched many months before the final release to the public it gives partner companies a competitive edge against other companies from the same niche.
• Designated Support – A high-spending company has the advantage of having its own Google Agency Team. Any AdWords issues are handled faster. Shorter downtime means fewer revenue losses and bigger profits.
• Latest PPC Practices – Regular certification exams in various AdWords fields, such as Fundamentals, Shopping or Mobile Advertising means that the employees of a Google partner company are always on the same wave as the most current PPC practices.
• Continuous Innovation – Google requires all partner companies to employ only the best practices. Innovation and experimentation are just a couple of the practices that a company must provide in order to keep its competitiveness on par with Google’s standards. This results in partner companies investing more time and effort into their clients.