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I have put a lot of thought into the way Google markets itself as a company. One of the biggest “thought crisis” I have had for a while revolves around the Google “Good Boy club”, er… I mean the Google Adwords Qualified Company Program.

WHAT IS THE GOOGLE ADWORDS QUALIFIED COMPANY PROGRAM?

According to Google it is:

Qualified Individuals and Qualified Companies within the Google Advertising Professionals program have passed the Google Advertising Professionals Exam and have met other requirements in order to achieve this level of recognition. By attaining Individual or Company qualfication, you’ll receive:

• Google’s recognition as a tested and Qualified AdWords Individual or Company.
• The official AdWords Qualified Individual or Company Logo, which can be displayed on your website and in many other materials to showcase your skills and help attract clients.
• Distinction as a skilled professional.
• A Professional Status page which profiles your business name and displays Google’s validation that you’re an authentic Qualified Individual or Company within Google Advertising Professionals program.
• Promotional credits at a higher value, which can be applied to new client accounts to help bring in more business.
• A warm, fuzzy feeling for this grand accomplishment.

That last one is actually real. Pay attention to it.

That “warm, fuzzy feeling for this grand accomplishment.” is probably the most important piece to Google’s marketing tactic. That warm, fuzzy feeling is the only thing that you really get when it comes to your marketing budget.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE A GOOGLE ADWORDS QUALIFIED COMPANY?

Per Google:

To become a Qualified Company in the Google Advertising Professionals program, a company must:

• Have a billing and mailing address in a country where company qualification is available.
• Employ at least two Qualified Individuals in the program. Individuals must be qualified under the main company-registered My Client Center account and not their own account. See the requirements for becoming a Qualified Individual.
• Build and maintain the minimum 90-day required total client spend (spend requirements vary by country) for the company’s My Client Center account.

“Build and maintain the minimum 90-day required total client spend” is the point that really identifies the problem. You can check here for the official requirement amount per country, but in the United States and most countries it is $100,000 every 90 days.

So I ask again:

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE A GOOGLE ADWORDS QUALIFIED COMPANY?

Not much apparently. You need to have 2-3 semi-educated folk sit down and read a Google book. For those of you who want to pass the test I suggest something like Google Adwords for Dummies (Laughingly not hitting bookshelves until Sept 2007, but there are plenty of other books out)

It also takes a quarterly budget of $100,000 dollars. That means every company out there that has this “Adwords Qualified Company” brand is actively forking over a minimum of $400k annually to Google.

DOES THAT SOUND LIKE A CONFLICT OF INTEREST?

If you endorse our product and if you sell it like crazy -we’ll give you a golden stamp and brand you as experts. Just make sure to keep sending us at least $100k every 90 days and we’ll be happy. Everyone will be given that “warm, fuzzy feeling.”

BUT CERTIFIED MEANS SOMETHING, RIGHT?

Only sort of. According to Google it really doesn’t mean much, except for a fancy branding logo and that your company is sending it a lot of cash. In fact if you click through on any “Google Adwords Certified” brand image, you can see specifically what it entails (screenshot below):

Notice the bottom disclaimer that I highlighted in pink: “…and are not employed, endorsed, approved by or agents of Google. Qualification is not an endorsement of those Advertising Professionals by Google, but only an indication that those Advertising Professionals have met the criteria listed here.”

So for any marketing professional working with a “Google Certified Adwords Company”, realize that the certification only entails a short test and a large amount of money being passed across the table to Google. By it’s own disclaimer, Google’s brand endorsement is completely non-existent when you read the fine print.

I love marketing hype from Google that says “We endorse these certified companies, well, er, not really…”

Google is only interested in your money, not the effectiveness or true qualifications of the advertising professionals wearing the very questionable certified brand of Google.

Is that just misleading marketing or is that flat out fraud?

5 Responses to “Google Adwords Qualified Company- Fraud or not?”

1. Google, fraud or not? at Technical Disaster Says:
   May 20th, 2007 at 7:04 pm

   [...] released the first one today Google Adwords Qualified Company- Fraud or not? and hope to get some input on it. The Biznik community seems to have a different vantage than many [...]

2. Toby Says:
   May 21st, 2007 at 1:00 pm

   That is misleading in my opinion. In one istance they say they’ll endorse and another says they won’t. It is misleading to the company buys into this dance as well as the consumer who purchases services from a so called “certified” company. What is Google really trying to say? Just give us money and everyone feels warm and fuzzy?

3. Sonya Says:
   May 24th, 2007 at 5:05 am

   Hey guys, I actually have the pleasure of handling an Adwords campaign that is over the $100,000 annual spend mark. I thought seriously about taking the test to become a ‘Google qualified professional’ just to place on my web site and garner some Google marketing juice in the Adwords department. However, once I got into it I realized it’s not all that stringent and basically you’re paying for the right to display the certified professional logo on your site. Personally, I wasn’t all that impressed.

4. Barry Hurd Says:
   May 24th, 2007 at 7:19 am

   Toby

   I think you are right, you know from the real estate business how misleading marketing like this seems to be the norm. When the biggest brands do it, should all the other companies (in this case SEO) follow (and endorse) such a bad example.?

5. Barry Hurd Says:
   May 24th, 2007 at 7:22 am

   Sonya- I applaud you for staying clear of the marketing trap. I have had several $100k campaigns through the past few years… but until now I’ve never really been aggravated by a brand campaign so focused on money, rather than results or protections for the client.

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