Menu
Back to blog

What changes are coming to the Google partners program in June 2020?

If your company demonstrates Google ad expertise, experience and sustained success then you’ll be given the partner status which includes a whole host of different benefits including the badge which is displayed on your website and in marketing materials. Consider it a certification of authenticity, though there are two types of the badge; standard and premier.

Google just announced some proposed changes that are scheduled to take place in June of 2020, so in this blog, we’re going to break down exactly what you can expect this summer from the scheme.

​What are the requirements to become a Google partner now?

At the time of writing and releasing this blog post, this is the criteria for becoming a Google partner and having the badge;

  • The company must deliver substantial growth and have experience managing a decent ad budget ($10,000.00 in the last 90 days, across all managed accounts). The partners require at least 12 months of spending activity in the management account in order to qualify for the $10,000.00 expenditure.
  • The company requires a minimum of 1 certified user in Google ads, who have all levels of access to the accounts.

​What are the requirements to become a Google partner as of June 2020?

Google has amended its criteria in an effort to evolve with time, here now is what is required to have the Google partnership status for your company;

  • At least 50% of the company must be registered for the Google ads certification.
  • The company must also meet new performance requirements and also meet a spending requirement of $20,000.00 in the last 90 days, across all managed accounts.

​What’s the point in these changes?

In our personal opinion, we believe that Google has tightened its guidelines due to the increase in popularity of PPC advertisement over the last 5 years. It’s known through our personal search experiences that SERP’s are littered with paid search results. We also know that there will be multiple different paid media agencies globally profiting from such increased demand for the services and Google just wants to establish a noticeable difference between the agencies who can get results and actually have experience as opposed to those who don’t actually know what they are doing but see masses of growth potential in PPC.

​What benefits does Google Partnership give your company?

The difference between a user of Google and a partner isn’t great, it literally provides you with agency competitions; client event support and finally the badge’s which can be displayed on your website and/or on your marketing materials to give your company the authenticity. The only issues that we can see with this are that some agencies will be able to re-create or acquire the badge without actually meeting the criteria which could mislead good customers into using not very well experienced agencies.

However, if your business meets the Google partnership premium package then the benefits seem a little more worthwhile; executive business training, dedicated account management, business strategist consultancy access & an invitation to the annual partners’ summit.

​Final thoughts

In summary, we think that the Google partners program isn’t really worthwhile as the only benefit is the badge asset, which could be acquired in other ways, so unless you are striving to achieve the premium package it’s more of a hassle than it’s actually worth. Paid media is an industry where people who have no qualifications can be just as good if not better than those with this partnership status so it’s more of a statement than anything meaningful.

Read more https://support.google.com/goo...