The Google Partners program is marketed as an alliance of agencies and professionals who manage client advertising accounts. Google provides free training and certification opportunities and awards for achievement. Let’s consider the benefits for those who registered in the program and received the Partner and Lead Partner statuses.

Terms of use for promo codes in Google Ads

Gift coupons (promotional codes) are one of the significant benefits for Google Ads partners. In fact, this is compensation for a part of advertising costs for a certain period.

To use a promotional code to pay for an advertising campaign for a client associated with your manager account, you need to do the following:

  • Register a new client account or activate a previously disabled one.
  • Make an initial payment.
  • Connect the “Special Offers” function in the “Google Partners Program” tab.

Advertising campaigns must be moderated.

You cannot select client accounts to use promotional coupons. However, Google Ads will automatically apply them:

  • for new clients within 14 days from the moment the first ad was shown;
  • for customers who have connected a new product or feature of Google Ads;
  • For customers who have activated a previously disabled account.
  • All information on available and applied promotional codes is displayed in the “Special Offers” section of the “Google Partners Program” tab.

If you violate any terms and conditions, Google may notify you of the violation by email (but does not guarantee this, especially if this is not the first time). The most severe violations are:

  • attracting advertising traffic to one site from several accounts, in each of which promotional codes have been activated;
  • sale of promotional codes to third parties;
  • Activation of multiple coupons in one account.

Additional benefits of being a Lead Partner

Companies with Google Premier Partner status have additional bonuses:

  1. Google Lead Partner Badge:
  2. Dedicated Google employees to maintain an advertising account. You can communicate directly with the Google team of experts, ask questions, get advice.
  3. Consultation from the Google team on new advertising strategies.
  4. The opportunity to participate in testing new advertising tools.
  5. Training for company leaders and participation in the annual summit of Partners.

Google also cites the benefits of participating in the affiliate program, the ability to explore content on the Think with Google information portal, and Google Trends to track the dynamics of search queries. But, in fact, these are public resources.

What you need to become a Google Partner

In 2021, the Google Ads Partner Terms will be updated. The innovations were planned for June 2020 but have been pushed back to this year. For up-to-date information about the Google Partners program, see the FAQ section of the Google Ads Help. To keep up with the news, we advise you to subscribe to the Google Partners communities on social media.

How to join Google Partner Agency

To apply for affiliate status, you need administrator access to your Google Ads manager account.

  1. Sign in to your account.
  2. Go to the Google Partner Agency’s website.
  3. In the “Become a Google Partner” tab, click on the “Join” button:
  4. Accept the Terms of Service.
  5. Fill in the information about the company: name, website, address.
  6. You will be automatically redirected to the Google Ads “Google Partners Program” section.

In your account in Google Ads, in the left menu item “Program Google Partners” will appear. This tab contains all information about the affiliate program: icon status, available and used promotional codes, a list of certified employees, and more.

For example, the section “Badge Status” displays up-to-date information about your partner status. There are four types of messages:

  • You are not a Google Partner yet.
  • Google partner agency.
  • Lead Google Partner.
  • You may lose your Partner badge.

The last message means that you need to pay attention to the specializations marked with an exclamation mark, fix the violations and request a re-check.

The qualification requirements for Google partners are changing, and it may happen that the company does not meet them. Then the status of the Partner or Lead Partner is cancelled. In this case, the agency will not use the appropriate badges and claim the partnership status. But the most exciting thing is that such a company will not be excluded from the Google Partners program! Your right to participate in communities and special offers (promotional codes) from Google Ads will remain.

There is an opportunity to appeal for companies that believe that they have been deprived of their partner status unreasonably.