What are Google Ad Grants Certified Professionals?
This is a question we get frequently, so we wanted to take the time to address some common questions. As a Google Ad Grants Certified Professional, we wanted to share some information about the background of that program, why it exists, and what it means.
The Google Ad Grants Certified Professionals was designed a few years ago to create a community of trusted agencies that have expertise in managing the Google Ad Grant, offer a good degree of service, and have a great understanding of what the Ad Grant is and how it should be uniquely applied.
To be eligible, agencies must go through a vetting process by Google to establish their credentials and expertise with the Google A
d Grant. Typically, they are required to manage a certain number of accounts so that they have proven real-world experience in the program. They must also attend monthly calls with the Google team to stay current on the program, how it’s evolving, and ways that they can be helpful in terms of fostering the overall ecosystem.
We love being in the Certified Professionals Program. It gives us a great opportunity to meet and interact with the Google Ad Grants Team, which is based mostly in California, but they have people all around the world. It’s truly a wonderful group of people, so we are thrilled to be a part of it.
How To Find A Google Ad Grants Certified Professional
If you are a nonprofit looking for an agency to help you secure or effectively manage the Google Ad Grant, Certified Professionals are the best place to look. These agencies have exclusive access to ongoing education and interactions with the Ad Grants team. You can find all of the Certified Professionals listed on the Certified Professionals Directory. Here, you can search by location and language to find someone that is in your country or works in your part of the world, speaks your language, and can help you out. Each agency has a blurb beneath its profile that gives you a quick synopsis of what it’s about and the ways that it thinks it’s distinctive.
A cool thing about the Certified Professionals Directory is that every time you load the page, it will list the agencies in a different order. This is a very nice way that Google randomizes which agency you see first so that each is given a fair shot at winning your business.
Choosing An Ad Grants Certified Professional
When choosing a Certified Professional, it can be helpful to ask how long the agency has been in the program. If you’re having a sales call with an agency, ask how long they have been in the Certified Professionals Program and what their experience has been. This can often undercover interesting insights. Also, if you’re vetting them as a potential partner, it can be interesting to ask how close their relationship is with Google. Are there projects that they’ve collaborated with Google on? Have they been part of Google webinars and so forth? Often, the agencies that are really invested in the program and dedicated to the success of Google Ad Grants have lots of ways they can point to that demonstrate how they partner with Google.
In terms of the different services offered, it’s a pretty wide ballpark in terms of what types of services are included for different agencies and how the pricing works. With this in mind, it’s worth comparing different agencies. There is a broad range of pricing that we have seen, so it’s definitely worth getting a sense of what’s out there.
Another thing to take into consideration is set-up fees. Requiring a set-up fee is not typical, so if you are paying a set-up fee or being asked to pay a set-up fee by an organization, it may be wise to shop around. Typically, organizations will help you get the Google Ad Grant for free, so they’ll walk you through that application process and get you approved, which is also very time-consuming. We have one full-time and one part-time person whose only job is to get people approved for the Ad Grant. On average, it takes them three weeks to walk an organization fully through the process, because there are a lot of different steps that involves communication with different people at an organization. So, if the agency is willing to help you with this, it is a wonderful thing and sort of like a reverse set-up fee, which is great.
Contract terms are also important to consider when choosing an agency. You’ll see a very wide variance in contract terms agencies ask for. Some organizations require you to commit to at least six months or a year. Others are willing to manage the Grant on a month-to-month basis. This should be another factor to keep in mind as you determine which agency will be the best fit for your organization. As an example, we offer a month-to-month model or you can prepay for a year and receive a pretty significant discount (two months free). In defense of those agencies that won’t let you do a month-to-month contract, the Google Ad Grant builds momentum over time as more and more ads are created, ads are increasingly better-optimized, and your website gets increasingly better-optimized. So, having a situation where you jump in and out of professional management or only commit to a partial year can be counterproductive. If an account is not being managed part of the year, it’s very likely that it might get suspended. That creates a lot of work when you try and turn it back on.
Overall, we love the Google Ad Grants Certified Professional community. It’s a great resource if you’re looking for an agency to help you secure or manage the Ad Grant. Let us know if you have questions about the program or about different ways that it could potentially be helpful, and we’ll be excited to answer your questions.
