How to Get a Google Ads Certification in 8 Easy Steps [2023]
Do you want to run all kinds of Google Ads campaigns like a pro? Looking to get that resume boost to increase your credibility with clients? If yes, the Google Ads Certification is your golden ticket (it's also the best and official way to do it).
In today's fast-paced online landscape, where visibility and engagement are the keys to success, mastering the art of Google Ads is no longer just an advantage – it's a necessity.
Whether you're an aspiring marketer looking to make your mark or a seasoned professional aiming to stay ahead of the curve, the Google Ads Certification holds the key to unlocking a world of opportunities.
In this post, we'll navigate the what, why, and how of Google Ads Certifications to set you on your path to success.
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The Google Ads certification is an official professional accreditation offered by Google to individuals who demonstrate proficiency in using Google Ads.
The Google certification program is designed to validate an individual's expertise in using Google Ads effectively. There are several certification exams available, each focusing on a specific aspect of Google Ads.
Google Ads Certifications can be an important credential for people who are looking to land a job or promotion with heavy Google Ads responsibilities.
They’re also a great resource for business owners to learn Google Ads fast from an official source but don’t have any previous experience with them.
You can access all Google Ads certifications on their Skillshop Google Ads Certification page.
What is Google Skillshop?
Google Skillshop is the official online learning platform provided by Google.
Google Skillshop offers a wide range of free courses and certifications to help individuals and professionals learn about Google's various advertising and marketing products.
It's designed to provide education and training on how to effectively use Google's advertising tools and platforms to achieve marketing goals.
Skillshop covers a variety of topics related to digital marketing, including Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Marketing Platform, YouTube, and more.
The platform is intended for beginners as well as experienced marketers looking to enhance their skills and stay up-to-date with the latest tools and best practices in the industry.
Skillshop Google Ads Certification page
Key features of Google Skillshop include:
Courses: Skillshop offers a variety of courses, each focusing on a specific Google product or marketing concept. These courses are interactive and consist of video lessons, text content, quizzes, and hands-on exercises.
Certifications: Skillshop provides certification exams for various Google products, including Google Ads and Google Analytics.
Learning Paths: Skillshop offers learning paths that guide you through a series of courses to build expertise in a particular area. For example, there might be a learning path for becoming proficient in Google Ads.
Interactive Learning: The platform uses interactive elements like quizzes and simulations to reinforce your understanding of the material.
Updated Content: Google regularly updates the content on Skillshop to reflect changes in its products, new features, and industry best practices.
Free Access: Most of the courses on Skillshop are available for free, making it an accessible resource for anyone interested in learning about digital marketing with Google's tools.
Overall, Google Skillshop is a great way to learn directly from Google and gain official certifications that can enhance your credibility in the field.
How many Google Ads Certifications are there?
There are currently 6 different Google Ads certifications available in 22 different languages, these are:
Google Ads Search Certification
Google Ads Display Certification
Google Ads Measurement Certification
Google Ads Video Certification
Shopping Ads Certification
Google Ads Apps Certification
Each certification is composed of recommended study, a knowledge check, and an assessment to earn the certification.
To pass each assessment, you’ll need to score at least 80%—with the only exception being the Google Ads Apps assessment, which requires a score of at least 70%.
The badges for the six different Google Ad certifications
How to Get a Google Ads Certification in 8 Easy Steps
Here's a step-by-step outline of the process to obtain a Google Ads certification:
Step 1: Choose the Certification
Google offers multiple certifications, so choose the one that aligns with your interests and goals.
Step 2: Study the Material
Google provides study materials and resources for each certification exam. These materials are usually available for free through the Google Skillshop platform. The materials include videos, text-based content, and practice exams. Take your time to understand the concepts and strategies outlined in these materials.
Step 3: Practice
It's important to practice what you've learned. Google Skillshop often offers practice exercises and quizzes that can help you solidify your understanding of the concepts.
Step 4: Take the Exam
Once you feel confident in your knowledge, you can proceed to take the certification exam. The exams are usually administered online and have a time limit. They consist of multiple-choice and true/false questions related to the topics covered in the study materials.
Step 5: Passing the Exam
The passing score for most Google Ads certifications is usually around 80%. If you pass the exam, you'll receive a digital certificate that you can display on your LinkedIn profile, resume, or any other professional platform.
Step 6: Stay Updated
Google often updates its platforms and features. To maintain your certification, you may need to retake the exams periodically to demonstrate your continued understanding of the latest updates.
Step 7: Use Certification Wisely
Having a Google Ads certification can enhance your professional credibility, especially if you're looking for a job in digital marketing or related fields. Make sure to mention your certification on your resume and LinkedIn profile to stand out to potential employers or clients.
Step 8: Explore Advanced Certifications
In addition to the basic certifications, Google also offers more advanced certifications, such as the Google Ads Measurement Certification and Google Ads Search Advanced Certification. These certifications can further showcase your expertise in specific areas of digital advertising.
How long is the Google Ads Certificate exam duration?
You’re given 75 minutes to complete each assessment in the Google Ads Certification.
You can expect to see anywhere between 46 and 50 questions per assessment.
Your computer will not be restricted during the assessment (like with the Facebook Blueprint certifications), so you can search for answers while taking the assessment.
The catch is once you select an answer, you can’t go back to change it.
If you pass the assessment, you receive the certification immediately.
If you don’t pass, you only need to wait 24 hours to retake it.
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Another warning: before taking the test, make sure your internet connection is stable, because going offline for even a second will automatically disqualify the session.
How much does it cost to get Google Ads certified?
In the past, Google Ads certifications used to come with a price tag. Only recently has Google made the certifications completely free.
So if you’re planning to expand your knowledge about Google Ads and increase your credibility, it’s a good idea to get certified while they don’t cost you a dime.
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If you’re new to Google Ads, the certifications are definitely worth it because they’ll teach you the basics and set a strong foundation for future experimentation with ads later on.
However, because the curriculum is created by Google, there’s some bias with regard to the “right” strategy.
Google wants to convince its users to target a broader audience, regardless of whether broad targeting is right for them.
As you would expect, Google wants to encourage its clients to spend more on Google ads, so while the Google courses work great for teaching you what each type of ad does, and how the platform works, these courses may not be the best for learning the latest and most optimal advertising strategies.
Despite this, I definitely think the certifications are worth it just for the extra credibility alone.
For individuals, it can help you stand out among other candidates when job hunting, earn your managers more confidence in you to handle Google Ad responsibilities, and help establish authority with clients if you do any freelance work.
For agencies, it can also help with earning trust from clients and also ensure some base-level competence among your account managers.
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The Google Ads certifications are separate from the Google Partner badge. To receive the Google Partner badge, you’ll need to meet certain ad performance requirements on the Google Ads platform and spend at least $10,000 on ads within a 90-day period.
How hard is the Google Ads certificate exam?
Overall, the Google Ads certifications are well-known to not be too difficult to pass, especially because you can Google answers to the questions while taking the test.
However, because of the time limit, you’ll still want to understand a wide range of definitions, concepts, and basic strategy/use cases.
The assessment doesn’t have outright tricky questions, but they do want to award certifications to those who can use their critical thinking skills so there are questions that require you to have a firm grasp on the concepts and which you won’t be able to easily look up the answer to.
Most of the questions are multiple-choice which makes it easier, but read the questions carefully as you’ll have similar answers to choose from.
Also, you don’t need to pass all of the assessments to get the certification.
Each assessment comes with its own certification.
Most people focus on the Google Ads Display, Search, and Measurement Certifications since these are areas most marketers use:
If you’re frequently running ads for ecommerce brands, then you’ll definitely want to take the Shopping Ads certification.
If running YouTube ads, take the Video certification.
If running ads in apps, then take the Apps certification.
Compared with the requirements for the Facebook Blueprint Certification, the requirements for the Google Ads assessment are far less restrictive.
For example, to take a Facebook assessment, you’ll need to be in an empty room, on a desk clear of any unnecessary items. You’ll also need to install a program that will prevent you from running other programs while taking the certification and keep your webcam turned on throughout the assessment.
The Facebook Blueprint certifications aren’t free, but are worth looking into if you plan to be running Facebook ads at some point.
How to prepare and study for your Google Certification assessment
First, start off by taking the recommended lessons in each certification.
They are short and give a background as to what the test will cover and quickly get you familiar with the most important parts.
One of the pieces of study material for the Google Ads Search certification
Then, the best way to learn the concepts required to pass the assessments is by gaining firsthand experience running Google Ads. If you don’t have a live account to practice with, you can always set up a new account yourself. You’ll be able to go through the steps of creating complete campaigns without turning them on and spending money.
Whether it’s on an existing account, or your newly created practice account, you should practice setting up what a real campaign would look like and go through all the actions as if you’d actually launch it.
That way, you can connect what you need to learn with the context of running an actual campaign.
Here’s what I'd do:
Go to the Tools tab and connect a Google Analytics account.
See what you can learn about Google Analytics activity to strategize your Google Ads campaigns.
Then see how you can analyze user behavior from your campaigns in Google Analytics.
On the Opportunities tab, you’re shown what new keywords you can bid on and what type of budgets may work for your business.
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Remember, this is Google’s advice. Google wants to maximize your spending and may not be optimal so just take these as suggestions, not guarantees.
To get more specific with your targeting, look into the various level breakdowns. With these options, you can narrow down your targeting at an account, campaign, ad group, or keyword level.
Think about what you’d do in a real campaign and go through all the steps here.
As you go through everything, write down words and acronyms you don’t understand, then look up what they mean so you can understand everything.
Once you think you’re ready, test your knowledge with the practice assessments before taking the real thing.
Or, because the assessments are free and you can always retake them the next day, you can also just go for the real thing without being 100% confident - and hey, you might pass on your first try!
You can use this strategy to get yourself familiarized with taking the assessment, but remember, the end goal isn’t just to get certified but also to become better at running Google Ads campaigns.
If you feel like you need more learning sources, there’s a plethora of Google Ads videos for beginners on YouTube all for free.
Where and how to display the Google Certification badges
At the minimum, add your certification badges to your LinkedIn profile in the certifications section. But don’t go overboard throwing it everywhere you can like your LinkedIn header, social bios, or email signature - after all, it’s just a free certification that shouldn’t be your core source of credibility.
How your Google Ads certification will appear on your LinkedIn profile
Many employers do look for candidates who are certified so just make sure it’s on LinkedIn in the appropriate section and maybe on the bottom of your resume (your experience should always be first).
For agencies, you can briefly mention that all your account managers are certified, or something to that effect. Again, just don’t highlight it too much or lead with it as it can appear amateurish compared to previous results achieved for clients.
What to do after getting Google Ads certified
My advice is to continue getting familiarized with the platform and delve deeper into Google Ads strategies that real companies in your space typically execute.
You can also learn about other software related to Google Ads such as Revealbot - that’s us!
At this point, you may have heard of scripts for Google Ads or automated rules.
That’s what Revealbot does, but we make it easier to set up and manage Google ads automations without knowing any code.
You can learn more about how we do Google ads automation and set up a test account with our 14-day free trial.
Learn Google Ads Automation
Get a 14-day free trial of Revealbot, the most advanced Google Ads automation platform.
Aside from the official Google Ads certification, Google has also curated a ton of different online courses, both free and paid, on a variety of digital marketing topics.
Google's digital marketing course library
Keep in mind that some of these courses cover intermediate and advanced topics, and will not come with a certification. These courses are best used if you want to deepen your knowledge in certain areas but aren’t interested in earning a badge that can be shown on your social media to potential employers or clients.
Key takeaways
There are currently six different Google Ads certifications
All Google Ads certifications are free to take and receive the certification
Each certification takes around 3-4 hours to complete and can all be done online
Getting certified can help give you an extra edge for landing jobs or impressing clients - all for free
FAQ
What is the Google Ads Certification?
Google Ads Certification is a free program that validates your skills and knowledge in using Google Ads. It's a valuable credential for anyone who wants to demonstrate their expertise in online advertising.
How many Google Ads Certifications are there?
here are six different Google Ads certifications available:
Search Certification
Display Certification
Measurement Certification
Video Certification
Shopping Ads Certification
Apps Certification
How long is the Google Ads Certificate exam duration?
Each exam is 75 minutes long and contains approximately 46 to 50 questions. You can't change answers once you've selected them.
How much does it cost to get Google Ads certified?
Google Ads certifications are completely free.
How long is the Google ads certification valid for?
All of their certifications are valid for one year after completion.
