Google Partners, what’s the deal?

Nowadays there are many agencies in the Netherlands that offer online marketing as a service, but how do you know which agency is good? Google developed the Google Partner program in 2013 to give an answer to this question. The program was created to help companies looking for an online marketing agency in their search for a suitable agency. In this article, we are going to tell you everything about Google Partners.

What are the Google Partners?

You don’t just become a Google Partner. Organisations with a Google Partner badge have completed a Google Ads certification program. The Google Partner badge shows that an organisation has obtained the appropriate Google certifications and that they meet certain conditions.

When do you get a Google badge?

You don’t just get a certification for the Google Partner program, as a company you have to meet a number of strict conditions to prove your knowledge and skills in the field of Google Ads.

First, half of all eligible company employees must obtain the Google Ads certifications appropriate to the ad formats used. For example, if you don’t do Display ads, you don’t need to get the certificate for this.

There are available certificates for:

• Search
• Display
• Video
• Shopping
• App

Furthermore, there is a threshold value for optimal rendering that must be achieved. This threshold value is expressed in an optimisation score. The score that must be achieved is 70%. The amount of optimisation can be increased by following the recommendations of Google to improve the campaigns.

Finally, there is a third requirement from Google for obtaining a Google Partner badge regarding expenditure. To measure whether a company is active enough, Google requires that the company has spent at least $10,000 on Google Ads campaigns in the past 90 days.

How to recognise Google Partners?

If you approach an online marketing agency, it is useful to check whether that company is a Google Partner. This allows you to immediately see whether a company has the right knowledge and skills. When a company is a Google Partner, you will see a badge of that on the website. With Convident, the badge is in the footer.

Google Premier Partner

In addition to the Google Partner badge, there is also the option to become a Google Premier Partner. This is quite a prestigious title and is given to the top 3% participating Google Partner companies in a country. Google Premier Partners are chosen by Google who have determined the following criteria:

• Annual spend on ads: It measures how much spend the managed accounts make in Google Ads during the year.
• Customer Growth: Growing existing customers and acquiring new ones. This is measured by increases in spending and advertising.
• Customer retention: The percentage of customers that the company manages to retain compared to the previous year.
• Product diversification: A healthy ad type distribution is checked for the company based on the percentage of spend across Display, Apps, Video and Shopping.

Every year, all Google Partners are tested against the above criteria and the top 3% of that year is determined. Companies that received the title of Google Premier Partner the year before are therefore not automatically certain of being chosen the following year. In this way, Google keeps the companies on their toes to continue to guarantee the quality of the Premier Partners.

Why a company that is a Google Partner?

There are many online marketing agencies in the Netherlands that can do Google Ads for you. Although many agencies can probably do this too, with a certified agency you know for sure that you are in the right place. The employees of a company that is a Google Partner demonstrably have the knowledge and expertise about Google Ads and know what they are talking about.

Curious how we, as a Google Partner, can help you? Contact us, we would be happy to talk to you.