I'm thinking of doing the Google Advertising Professional program , and came across this review of it.

One think that stumps me is the $1,000 spend bit. I need to spend this amount every 90 days ? Which is about €7/day which is easily managed. But I was wondering, if say I take the exam first, and then start with the spend, will this also work ?

Has many people taken the test ? And how much study would be needed ?

I see the list of individuals for ireland is here : http://www.whoisagap.com/individuals/ireland.html and companies is here : http://www.whoisagap.com/companies/ireland.html but I don't know how up to date they are .

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My little sister was doing some part time work for us and I made her do the exam about 2 months back.

To this day, she has never managed an adwords account or even seen what an AdWords account looks like. She passed. All she did was run therough the quizzes quickly and did the exam.

The exam is a joke and can be passed by anyone. I mean ANYONE. It's "open book" so assuming you can type faster than a quadruple amputee you can find the answers in the help section anyway.

Only benefit is perceived authority by using the logo and even at that, it's pretty pricey.

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I presume having a Dave standing over her shoulder helped a lot too

I've been meaning to do this for ages, Think I'll deffo do it now, given your review dave!

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Not at all! She did it all by herself. Although, she is one of the smartest people I know.

I remember doing it the first time, was like being back in college.

If you do any sort of affiliate marketing using paid search, keeping up the minimum spend will not be a problem.

The Exam is probably for people to get credibility. We have a marketing MSc, Simona, who passed the exam, and that does add credibility when you offer the service - but lets be honest, it just scrapes the surface.

Until you have actually being doing this stuff for a few years, and got the experience of "failing", then and only then will you start becoming an expert - until we focused and had at least 10 customers running together, were we able to really start doing it right.

By doing it right - I mean saving clients money on adwords, getting a higher CTR and most importantly - getting conversions - because without conversions you get nothing, nada - its all just vanity otherwise.

So what differentiates one guy from an other - lets face it the guys at Redfly are great and so are many others. And I am not going to post a link to our service here, because that would be too blatant!

Peter

So you dump it into your sig instead ?

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Exactly. As I mentioned, anyone can get the certification just like anyone can get a degree in college, doesn't mean they know how or have the experience to use it. Speaking with Simona at the last meetup, it's clear she's not just another "get certified for the sake of it" type of person. She knows her stuff.

Spot on, and that's why I'd put my money in the hands of an experienced PPC affiliate marketer before anyone who can read a manual I've literally seen these people lose hundreds of thousands in one month only to make it up the next.

Great point. That's the whole idea. Due diligence is a must when looking for ANY service provider. Those who live and breathe it really "get it".

Ehhh, thanks?! Seriously though, you'd be surprised how many times I f**k up every single day (maybe you wouldn't?). It's always changing. Which reminds me...

/me heads off to write that post on how AdWords has just changed how it treats match types without telling anyone.

I'd have to disagree.

You can't get a BA based on an open book exam - at least not when I was in college

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Yea. You're right. Should have used a different analogy but you get my point. Just because you're certified, doesn't mean you're any good at it.

For example, I've a load of MCPs and am some sort of qualified Domino Server and Notes admin but it I can tell you here and now, I wouldn't trust myself managing a Domino server, let alone a windows server. I can't even manage to pay my server bills on time