How to earn the Google Partner badge

30/11/2019

After your company joins the free Google Partners program, it can qualify for Google Partner status. Achieving Partner status means that your company has demonstrated Google Ads skill and expertise, met Google ad spend requirements, delivered company agency and client revenue growth, and sustained and grown its client base. Partner status gives your company access to a number of benefits, including the Google Partner badge that can be show on your website and marketing materials.

This article describes the requirements for earning Partner status. You can also find out how to check your company's Partner status and get answers to common questions about Partner status.

Benefits

Here are some benefits of achieving Partner status:

Google Partner badge: There are two levels of Partner badges that your company can earn — the Google Partner badge and the Premier Google Partner badge. You can show the badge your company has earned on your website, other online properties, and offline marketing materials.
Company specializations: Earn company specializations to showcase your company's product area expertise.
Connect with Google: Receive invitations to select Google events, and get access to different levels of trainings and support.

Learn more about the benefits of Google Partner status.

The two badges are shown below:

Google Partner Badge	Premier Google Partner Badge

Requirements to be considered for a Partner badge

Both the Partner badge and the Premier Partner badge show that Google recognizes your company as a Google Partner. However, to recognize leading companies that are higher spending and meet additional certification and performance requirements, Google offers the Premier Partner badge.

The table below shows what you need to do to be considered for each badge. To maintain a high standard for our program, Google will review companies to both receive and retain the badge.

Criteria	Partner Badge	Premier Partner Badge
Certification	1 user certified in Google Ads who has admin or standard access to your company’s Google Ads manager account or sub-managers.	2 users certified in Google Ads who have admin or standard access to your company’s Google Ads manager account or sub-managers.
Spend	Meet a 90-day ad spend requirement of $10,000 USD across your managed accounts to show that your company has a healthy amount of activity.	Meet a higher spend requirement across your managed accounts to show that your company has a healthy amount of activity.
Company performance	Meet the performance requirement by delivering solid overall ad revenue and growth, and maintaining and growing your customer base.	Meet the performance requirement by delivering solid overall ad revenue and growth, and maintaining and growing your customer base.

Certification

To be sure your users’ certifications are credited to your company’s badge and specialization status, please follow the steps below.

Certified users must share their information from Academy for Ads.
Users certified under personal emails must add a company email in Academy for Ads for proper attribution.
Certified users need admin or standard access to your company’s Google Ads manager account or sub-managers.

Note: If you’re using a personal email in your Academy for Ads account, you’ll need to add the company email that you’re using for your company’s manager account or sub-managers to your Academy for Ads user profile page. You can do this in the “company email” field. If you’re using your company email for your Academy for Ads account, be sure it’s the same email you’re using for your company’s manager account or sub-managers.

Here are the certification requirements:

Partner badge: At least 1 affiliated individual needs to be Google Ads certified
Premier Partner badge: At least 2 affiliated individuals need to be Google Ads certified

To become Google Ads certified, an individual needs to pass the Google Ads Fundamentals assessment and one of the additional advertising assessments that are available through Academy for Ads. The additional assessments are Search Advertising, Display Advertising, Mobile Advertising, Video Advertising, and Shopping Advertising.

Learn more about how to get certified

Spend

Partners evaluates your company’s Google Ads manager account to determine whether your company meets the spend requirement.

To fulfill the spend requirement, the following items must be met:

At least $10,000 USD (or local currency equivalent) in total Google ad spend during the last 90 calendar days

To earn the Premier Partner badge, companies must demonstrate higher spend levels. These spend thresholds vary by country and market area.

Company performance

Partners assesses your company’s Google Ads manager account to determine whether your company meets the performance requirement.

Here is the different criteria that Partners looks at to determine whether your company meets the requirement:

Client revenue growth
Client retention
Overall revenue growth
Growth in number of advertisers

To assess your company's overall performance, Partners evaluates the client accounts linked to your manager account during an 18-month period. Partners requires at least 12 months of spend activity in your manager account.

Keep in mind that if a client account is linked and unlinked to your company's manager account during this 18-month period, we'll only count the spend that occurred when the account was linked.

To help improve your company's performance score, make sure that you fully understand your clients' marketing objectives and maximize the success of their Google Ads campaigns by meeting these objectives.