Google Adwords Certification

Learning is a lifelong process and critical to the success of any digital marketer. Towards that end, Google helps out enormously with their Adwords (sponsored digital advertising) and other Google Partners Certification programs.

Google currently offers six Adwords programs including Adwords Fundamentals, Display, YouTube, Search & Shopping as well as their latest test on Mobile Advertising. After many weeks of study, LeadingEdgeDigital.com just took and passed the Adwords Fundamentals and the Mobile Advertising exams. The former test is obligatory and any one of the other five exams can be attempted in order to obtain Adwords Certification. This is our third experience with taking and passing Google exams through the years. The certification requires annual renewal.

How To Study

Deciding upon a study strategy is no easy task. Each test has dozens of chapters, all of which have links to other pages. These linked pages contain further links. Following all of these links is a task worthy of Sisyphus. Our strategy was to follow the link down only one level, unless the further link appeared to be critically important, in which case we ingested the information on that embedded link also. Reading relevant third-party websites also proved helpful.

80% is the minimum passing grade for all Google exams. In addition to passing the exams, certification requires best practices such as including ad extensions (expanded ads packed with additional information) to search ads. Google also offers certification in analytics (website visit data) which we passed earlier this year.

It’s easy to focus on the pressure of taking and passing the tests. But the real agenda is about learning the highly-layered, multi-faceted products in order to deliver maximum value to clients. We feel that the Google certification programs are an outstanding way of promoting excellence in digital marketing.