For Google’s Enterprise advertising platforms, access is largely channeled through Sales Partners. Choosing the right partner is a big deal. It sets the groundwork for your organization’s digital media advertising performance and has a direct impact on your value chain. Getting a strong start with the right adtech partner will have a lasting impact on the future success of your business.
Not all Google Marketing Platform (GMP) Sales Partners are the same, though. And neither is the way adtech partners, advertisers, and agencies work together. Here are five topics to discuss when evaluating different GMP partners:
1. Relationship with Google
What is your working relationship with Google like?
Are they a Google Sales Partner only or do they also sell other adtech? Do they have conflicting interests that can make their Google relationship more difficult?
GMP is Google’s enterprise-level suite of digital marketing and adtech tools. While all advertisers get best-in-class tech from Google through a Sales Partner, it can be quite helpful for their GMP partner to have a closer relationship with Google.
Navigating the inner workings of a massive tech company, access to new alpha and beta products, lines of communication to product teams, co-marketing opportunities with Google. These are a few of the ways that a close relationship with Google can be beneficial. Ask about things like employees who are former Googlers, or recent speaking opportunities and events that they’ve participated in with Google.
2. Onboarding Process
Can you walk me through your onboarding process for new partners and advertisers?
Building out a new advertising program or changing partners, vendors, or platforms can be a tall task. Several teams are often involved and the onboarding process can become cumbersome, bogged down by administrative delays and lack of direction.
If a GMP Sales Partner has an unclear onboarding process, or no onboarding process at all, that may lead to confusion and disorganization during a time period where a smooth transition is critical for a strong start and organizational buy-in.
A good sales partner should put thought into understanding your business through stakeholder interviews and discovery sessions. These initial conversations will help focus additional training sessions and platform walkthroughs to be tailored to your specific needs during onboarding.
Don’t forget to ask about things like knowledge portals, dashboarding/reporting, and other ways Partners can help you stay up-to-date on GMP trends and enhancements.
3. Rates, Tiering, & Other Pricing Info
Can you provide transparent rate cards & tiering levels for each platform?
Digital marketing platforms, networks, agencies, and vendors have long been (rightfully) criticized for lack of transparency in pricing and rates. A lot of numbers can be thrown around, especially if multiple GMP products are being evaluated across different vendors. Get the important numbers in a rate card. Rates will likely vary based on spend levels and other details, and can feature tiered pricing. Coming to the conversation prepared with ballpark ad spend or impression estimates is also very helpful.
4. Data & Technical Expertise
What is your firm’s level of expertise in data and consent management?
Advertising platforms run on data, but collecting data is only half the battle. Having helpful and usable data means that it needs to be clean, accurate, consistent, and properly consented. This gives the platforms more robust data to optimize off of, and gives marketing leaders more usable data to be able to make informed decisions.
A data journey isn’t simple, and it needs to be an ongoing process. Especially so for regulated or high-compliance industries and verticals. It’s important to choose a partner that has a proven track record in not only media platforms, but also the data infrastructure that fuels them.
5. Level of Service / Scope of Work
What levels of service and support do you provide? Do you have different service packages?
The core function of a GMP partner is to provide access/licenses to Google’s enterprise-level advertising platforms, tools & tech. Beyond that, most aspects of an advertiser’s working relationship with their GMP partner are negotiable to each specific scope of work.
Scope can fall anywhere on the spectrum from full service agency, complete with strategy, planning, media buying, and creative services, to as basic as platform access and nothing else.
Established agencies or brands with experienced buyers and capable teams can take ownership of their data with platform access support. Teams that are new to GMP can get up to speed quickly with higher levels of support.
It’s important to be thoughtful about the level of support your organization will need for the advertising program to be successful. Ongoing training and support can help in-house teams establish best practices, ways of working, and close skill gaps.
Pricing and rates will vary according to scope and level of support. Having an adaptable partnership is key to nurturing the long term success of your program. Have a discussion with the potential partner to evaluate the level of support that makes most sense given their in-house capabilities.
