You might be forgiven for thinking that a company that proudly displays the Google Adwords Qualified Company Logo must have lots of highly qualified individuals. Surely that’s what the award means doesn’t it.
Well in fact it doesn’t. It doesn’t promise anything of the kind.
The truth of the matter is that Google offer two qualifications for professional status.
The first is as an Adwords Qualified Individual, which I just happen to be and here is the logo I am allowed to display (It will take you to my Professional Page on Google).
This logo tells you that the individual named has passed Google examination and all its other criteria to become a qualified individual.
The concern and issue I have with the Adwords Qualified Company is that the criteria for this is (taken direct from Google’s help files):
- 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.
- Build and maintain the minimum 90-day required total client spend (spend requirements vary by country) for the company’s My Client Center account
So any company, no matter how large, only needs to have TWO Qualified Individuals to claim to be a Qualified Company.
My worry here is that anyone hiring someone from these companies may assume that they are getting a Qualified Individual to run their campaigns. So my advice is to check before you hire any company that you are getting what you think you are paying for.
Ask who is going to manage your account and ask for their Adwords Professional ID so that you can check for yourself that they have indeed passed the criteria.
Adwords is really good for promoting a product that you want to sell online. It is very important that you geoatarget your intended audience so as to avoid wasting your advertising funds.