If you’re going to turn over your paid search campaigns to a company, you want to know that they have been accredited by the largest pay per click (PPC) providers in the field. We are proud to say that Direct Online Marketing™ and our staff have received the following company or individual certifications:
Google AdWords Certified Partner
The most distinguished certification a company can hold comes from the largest paid search provider and search engine in the world: Google. We are proud to have been recognized within their AdWords program for our knowledge and account management as an inaugural Google AdWords Certified Partner in April 2010. This PPC certification program requires stringent testing of SEM firm employees in areas relating to account management, content network advertising, optimization techniques, and Web site analytics.
The Google AdWords Certified Partner certification replaced the Google Advertising Professional (GAP) program originally launched in 2004. Direct Online Marketing™ was also certified under that program as a Qualified Google Advertising Company – the only search engine marketing firm in West Virginia to ever hold that honor. Among other requirements, each firm had to maintain advertising spend with Google AdWords of $100,000 per quarter or more and have multiple employees pass the Google Advertising Professional Exam. We easily exceeded these ad spend requirements, managing several million dollars in AdWords each year.
Microsoft Advertising Accredited Professional
Microsoft released its adCenter certification process in 2007, when its main search engine was live.com. Live.com displayed its pay per click cads as did various other Microsoft-owned properties and partners. Live.com was replaced with bing in the middle of 2009. Bing received a much larger advertising push than live.com ever did – including a very expensive, yet very brief campaign with Jerry Seinfeld.
Similar to the Google AdWords certification rebrand, the current Microsoft Advertising Accredited Professional program replaced Microsoft adExcellence Companies / Members in June 2011.
Microsoft and Yahoo! announced a merger of their search properties in July 2009, which grew their collective search share to roughly half the size of Google’s in the United States. The completion of this merger for all US-based search properties (except local) finalized in November 2010. Today Microsoft adCenter powers paid search ads for bing, Yahoo!, and all the Web properties that were previously included in each engine’s search networks.
Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador
The now-defunct Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador program was a program set up by a partner of Yahoo! (Kowabunga) to train and certify paid search marketers on their system. It was comparable to the older Google Advertising Program for individuals (although firms such as ours could get company pages created to show multiple individuals receiving this recognition). The program was officially discontinued in September 2008, even though confirmation pages of one’s Ambassador status are still live at least for now even after the partnership agreement with Microsoft.
Yahoo! stopped accepting new Ambassadors in early 2008 meaning any search engine marketers carrying this designation have been experienced with Yahoo! Search Marketing prior to this time. Direct Online Marketing™ has marketers that have been working with this basic platform since GoTo.com, the first pay per click program. GoTo.com renamed itself Overture in 2001 and was subsequently bought out by Yahoo! in 2003, who continued to build on its existing system, although it underwent various changes, including its most famous Panama update.
PPC Account Management & Landing Page Optimization
Direct Online Marketing™ team members enjoy certifications from non-search engine organizations as well, including Marketing Experiments for tactics like effective account management and landing page conversion rate optimization. We’re also a corporate member of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), one of the oldest and most respected professional search engine marketing organizations in the world.
