Six Google certifications, and what they mean for you.

On 13 and 14 October I sat six of Google's own examinations, covering Search ads, Performance Max and its sister campaigns, Shopping ads, measurement, Google Analytics and Search Ads 360, and passed every one. They are taken on Skillshop, Google's own training platform, and cost nothing to sit, but each one is timed and every one must be passed again each year, which is why they are worth having.

I run Google Ads for clients alongside the websites I build, and Google changes the rules often. Smart Shopping campaigns, on which a good many online shops relied, have gone, replaced by Performance Max, and the way sales are counted has shifted with almost every new privacy law. A certificate that must be renewed each year is Google's way of saying that the person holding it knows how things work now, rather than how they worked when they started.

Rather than simply list them, I would like to explain what each one changes for a business that is paying for the ads, because that is the part that matters.

Google Ads Search: paying for the right searches.

Search ads are the text ads at the top of Google, the ones that appear when someone types in exactly what you sell. The examination covers keywords and how closely they should match a search, writing ads that answer the question someone has just asked, bidding, and the reports that show which searches you actually paid for.

For you, that means campaigns built around what your customers really type, and a proper list of searches to exclude, so that you stop paying for clicks from people who were never going to buy. It sounds simple, yet it is where most of the waste in an account tends to hide.

AI-Powered Performance Ads: automation, with someone watching it.

Performance Max and Google's other AI-driven campaigns let Google decide where your ads appear, across Search, YouTube, Gmail, Maps and the wider web, and which version of the ad each person sees. Used well, they find customers you would never have reached by choosing keywords one at a time. Left to themselves, they will spend just as readily on the wrong things.

The examination covers how to feed that automation properly: the right goals, the right audience signals, good images and wording for it to work with, and how to read what it is doing. In practice, it means you have the reach of Google's AI without handing it your money and hoping for the best.

AI-Powered Shopping ads: products in front of the right shoppers.

Shopping ads are the product listings, with a picture and a price, that appear at the top of Google when you search for something to buy. They do not use keywords at all. Google decides which searches to show them for from the product information a shop sends it through Merchant Center, so the titles, descriptions, categories and prices do the work that keywords do everywhere else.

If you sell online, that shows itself in some very practical ways. Your products are described properly, because clear titles and sensible categories are what put the right product in front of the right search. Nothing is left out by accident, either, because campaigns organised by type of product pick up new lines automatically, rather than leaving them unadvertised until somebody happens to notice.

You also stop paying for searches you never wanted. Given the chance, Shopping ads will appear for things you would never choose, so a good list of negative keywords matters more than any bid. On one shop I took on this autumn, about two-thirds of the click spend in the month before had gone on searches for do-it-yourself projects, for the names of large retailers, and for products the shop does not even sell.

Google Ads Measurement: numbers you can trust.

This certification is about counting the right thing, which sounds dull until you realise how much depends on it. Google's automated bidding learns from whatever an account tells it a success looks like. If that is “someone looked at the contact page” or “someone started a checkout”, Google becomes very good at finding people who look and start, and not especially good at finding people who buy.

The examination covers setting conversions up so that they record real sales and what each one was worth, making sure an order is not counted twice when someone refreshes the thank-you page, choosing which conversions the bidding should pursue, and doing all of it in a way that respects people's privacy choices. When I took on two online shops this autumn, neither was recording a single sale, which meant that nobody could say whether the ads were paying for themselves.

Google Analytics: what happens after the click.

Google Ads tells you who clicked. Google Analytics tells you what they did next: where visitors came from, which pages they read, where they gave up, and which route through the site ends in an enquiry or a sale. The examination covers setting Analytics up properly, choosing the actions worth measuring, and reading the reports without getting lost in them.

This is the one that connects most directly to the websites I build. If the ads are bringing the right people in but they leave at the same page every time, that is not an advertising problem but a website one, and because I can put both right, the site and the ads improve together.

Search Ads 360: room to grow.

Search Ads 360 is Google's platform for larger advertisers who run search ads on Google, Microsoft Advertising and other search engines at the same time, with one set of figures and one bidding strategy across all of them. Most of the businesses I work with do not need it yet, and I would never suggest it to one that did not. Should yours grow to the point where it does, you will not need to look for someone new.

What it means if I run your ads.

None of this changes how I work with you, but it does mean that Google itself has examined what I know. Your money goes towards people who are likely to buy, because the account measures sales rather than clicks, and the reports become numbers you can rely on, so that you can see what each pound of ad spend brings back. Everything stays in your own Google Ads account, with the spend paid straight to Google and no markup, and my fee for managing it is a flat one, agreed in writing and the same whatever you spend on the ads themselves. If the ads are not paying their way, you will hear it from me before the next invoice.

Every one of the six can be checked on Google's own site, and the badges are shown on my Google Ads page. If you run Google Ads and are not certain the account is counting the right things, you are welcome to book a 30-minute call, and we will look at it together.