Before partnering with a Google Ads agency, it’s important to weigh out whether it offers any differentiating advantages over its competitors. One of the strongest advantages that a digital marketing agency can claim is Google Premier Partner status.
That mark is more than just a tacit certification or a badge on a website—and it’s something that can’t be bought. It’s both a recognition of that agency’s proficiency and an indicator of better Google support, better training, and earlier access to new marketing technology. In this blog, I’ll break down what being a Google Premier Partner Agency means for our team’s day-to-day work and explain what benefits it allows us pass on to our clients.
Achieving Premier Partner Status
Google’s Partner Program recognizes agencies that demonstrate advanced proficiency with Google Ads and deliver strong performance across their portfolios. Within this program, Premier Partner status is reserved for the top 3% of participating agencies in each country—those that consistently meet Google’s highest standards across multiple criteria:
- Overall managed spend, evaluated annually
- Growth among existing clients, assessed by increases in ad investment across retained accounts
- New client acquisition, based on year-over-year ad spend growth from first-time Google Ads users
- Client retention, measuring how many accounts remain active over time
- Product mix, looking at how frequently agencies adopt non-Search formats like YouTube, Performance Max, and Demand Gen
ADM has maintained Premier Partner status for three consecutive years thanks to our consistent growth, deep platform expertise, and strong retention across our client base.
Enhanced Communication and Training
The biggest differentiator for Google Premier Partner agencies is the amount of access they get to Google itself. In general, most Google Ads accounts are assigned strategists who provide some support for that individual account. In contrast, Premier Partner agencies get a dedicated Google Representative committed to supporting their entire portfolio.
As ADM has grown in Google-managed spend, so has our level of support and communication with Google—which means we’re meeting with our Agency Representative pretty regularly. Every week, we touch base with Google about:
- Clients with policy issues or unresolved support tickets (more on that later)
- Clients or prospects with upcoming needs—like new Account Representatives or additional stats for quarterly reports
- New tools that we can take advantage of and the next steps to get access (again, more on that later)
- Webinars or in-person events that our team can be invited to and take advantage of.
- Personalized training sessions for new products and techniques
Google runs free public webinars that anyone can join, but it reserves deeper trainings and insights for qualifying Premier Partner agencies. These agencies can interface directly with product leads from various departments like YouTube, Measurement, and the International Growth Agency Program to learn what Google itself is seeing its newest technology do at scale. This means Premier Partner agencies can deepen their knowledge of these tools and how they can effectively use them.
This is also a two-way street, because Google also needs to see how advertisers are responding to its tools—and to identify any blind spots it may have to challenges they are facing. Recently, I was invited to join a feedback session with Google’s Policy team—which is a rare opportunity—and give feedback about challenges that some brands are facing with in-platform approvals. This allows us to feel heard as an agency looking to advocate for our clients while improving Google’s policy processes. That opportunity was afforded to us based on our Premier Partner status.
Faster Troubleshooting and Resolutions
That consistent dialogue makes it much easier to resolve account problems. Agencies without strong representation at Google have to go through the traditional route of submitting a ticket and then following up with the account strategists 24 hours after escalation. While Premier Partner agencies also submit tickets, in many cases we can escalate the issue with our agency Representatives for faster resolutions and more definitive answers about why ads were disapproved and how to avoid those issues. In some circumstances, Representatives can seek additional support from the policy team to ensure immediate escalation and resolution.
That’s particularly valuable when dealing with clients in sensitive or regulated industries. One of ADM’s largest departments is healthcare, a space controlled by numerous marketing policies that our eCommerce and other clients aren’t subject to. Because Google changes its own health-marketing policies quite frequently, healthcare brands are at a higher risk for ad disapprovals and other frustrations. To avoid or rectify them, it’s crucial to have a contact on the inside who can clarify Google’s policy nuances while also advocating for our client accounts internally.
Early Access to New Google Ads Tools
Another useful advantage of Google Premier Partner status is that it often grants agencies early access to Google’s newest marketing technology before it becomes public. Google tiers agency access to its upcoming product trials. Whether it’s a new keyword match type, in-platform measurement tool, or even an entire campaign type, Premier Partner agencies have a higher chance of being whitelisted to participate in new beta and alpha tests.
This enhanced access has benefitted ADM’s clients in countless ways over the years. For instance, one of the most essential campaign types that Google Ads now offers is Performance Max—which ADM was able to master early on thanks to our agency status. We were one of the earliest agency adopters of Performance Max when the tactic was first taking the place of Standard and Smart Shopping a few years ago. This led to significant success across our priority shopping clients, and our work on this front was even cited by Google in one of its earnings calls.
That has continued as Google has bolstered Performance Max’s capabilities: When it first added Search Themes to the campaign type, ADM was involved in the beta—which was particularly important for us as an agency that works with many clients in sensitive industries (like healthcare) which prevent the usage of first-party audience data. This was thoroughly tested across multiple accounts with generally positive results.
As Google works out the kinks with its newest innovations, we’re able to have a direct hand in validating these tools with direct support from Google Ads product team leads. This helps us fully internalize the nuances of these techniques when they go public, giving our clients an early advantage over their competitors that carries on through subsequent updates.
The Perks of Premier Partnership
Google does all of this for its Premier Partner agencies because it knows that agencies are integral to the growth of Google Ads—they’re the ones managing the highest-profile, biggest-spending accounts. By helping the most competent agencies do their jobs better, Google encourages those large accounts to further scale their spend.
There are other perks for agencies, too. Google will co-host networking events alongside top agencies to exchange ideas with Google leadership and connect them with decision-makers in the industry. ADM’s leadership is also invited to Google Marketing Live each year to take in the latest product announcements and participate in additional networking.
But the main beneficiaries are still Premier Partner agency clients. ADM is proud to maintain this status year after year. It helps us open doors for our clients, solve their problems faster, advocate for them, and keep them ahead of their competition. If you’re on the hunt for a new Google Ads agency, we’d be happy to take a look at your account and see how we can help.
