Search Engine Land reported that Google told them that Google Partners can now keep their existing status and partner badges through February 2022. This is after postponing and then lessening the requirements of this program last year.
Carolyn Lyden wrote on Search Engine Land "Any Google Partners who meet the new February 2022 Partner requirements early will be able to get the new badge later in June. After the initial Program changes were delayed, Partners asked Google if they could receive the new badges if they met the 2022 requirements before the due date."
If you review the partner program doc it says "current Premier Partners will keep their status until February 2022." Google added that "Starting in February 2022, companies need to meet the Partner requirements and be in the top 3% of participating companies in each country to become a Premier Partner. The top 3% is evaluated based on a number of factors, including but not limited to: annual ads spend across managed accounts, client growth, client retention, and product diversification. Evaluation is done on an annual basis and status may not be available in all countries."
Google said on the requirements page the company is "launching the new Google Partners program in February 2022. In June 2021, partners who meet the new requirements will get access to the new Google Partner badge."
The changes do not look much different from our February 2021 coverage of this change, which is a good thing:
Performance: The performance requirement helps ensure that you can effectively set up and optimally run Google Ads campaigns to achieve the greatest results for your clients. Your Google Partners registered Ads manager account needs to have a minimum optimization score of 70% – you’re in control, with the ability to apply or dismiss recommendations based on your assessment and your clients' goals.
Spend: Your Google Partners registered Ads manager account needs to maintain a 90-day ad spend of $10,000 USD across managed accounts.
Certification: Your Google Partners registered Ads manager account needs to have a minimum of 50% of your account strategists certified in Google Ads (capped at 100 users), with at least one certification in each product area with campaign spend (for example Search, Display, Video, Shopping, or Apps). Account strategists are employees of your company who manage Google Ads campaigns on behalf of your clients. You can inform us of how many users in your company are account strategists and should be certified based on their day-to-day work by going to the Company details page from your Partners program tab and selecting from the drop-down menu.
Greg Finn is happy with this news:
lol, they called me before the announcement 😬
— Greg Finn (@gregfinn) June 9, 2021
Overall - great! No issues, like the fact that you can indicate who is a strategist vs billing user/etc. Still a bit confused on the color coded stuff, but all good
His counterpart (maybe) is not happy with the button to check your status :)
too many people trying to check their status? Any click pulls up this error for me. #ppcchat pic.twitter.com/Guc64YrTE2
— Greg (@PPCGreg) June 9, 2021
Forum discussion at Twitter.
