If you’ve used Google Analytics, you might have heard the term “Google Analytics Certified Partner” before. With the advent of the Google Marketing Platform, Google Analytics Certified Partners have been rebranded as “Google Marketing Platform Partners.” You can find more information on the Partners section of the Google Analytics website.
For the purpose of this article, and for brevity, all subsequent mentions of Google Analytics Certified Partners will be replaced with “GMP Partners” or simply, “Partners.” However, keep in mind that I’m focusing only on explaining what a GMP Partner is as it pertains to Google Analytics.
So, what exactly is a GMP Partner and how can one help your business? Let’s discuss.
What is a Google Marketing Platform Certified Partner?
Since it’s a certification from Google, I’ll go ahead and let them describe a GACP: Partners are vetted by Google and meet rigorous standards so you can trust you’re working with a company who knows our solutions and can provide the expertise you are looking for.
Essentially, GMP Partners are companies that are certified by Google as knowing the Google Marketing Platform, including Google Analytics, inside and out. They offer consulting services around many different areas, including Google Analytics support services, like web analytics implementations, reporting and analysis, and testing and optimizing. Additionally, GMP Partners get access to the latest Google Analytics betas for testing purposes to help improve the Google Analytics product.
InfoTrust is a GMP Certified Partner and GMP Sales Partner—and has been since Google Analytics Premium (now Google Analytics 360) was released. GMP Sales Partners are one-step beyond GMP Partners and can also resell GMP products, like the enterprise version of Google Analytics and Optimize: Google Analytics 360, and Optimize 360, respectively.
If you’ve not heard of Google Analytics 360, check out our recent article.
We value our relationship with Google and enjoy helping them shape the future of Google Analytics and Google Analytics 360.
How Can a GMP Partner Help Me with Google Analytics?
There are many benefits to working with a GMP Partner for your Google Analytics. The most obvious one is that you have a team of Google Analytics experts at your disposal. They can help you define, measure, and analyze your digital properties. But, GMP Partners can do much more.
Here are some of the additional areas a GMP Partners might be able to help*:
- Google Analytics integrations with other systems like a CRM, marketing automation tool, call center, or point-of-sale system
- Extremely customized, scalable Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager implementations
- Ongoing Google Analytics/Google Tag Manager management
- Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager trainings tailored for your organization and teams
*Note: Different GMP Partners specialize in different areas, so this is not an all-inclusive list nor does it mean every GMP Partner offers these services.
Do I need a GACP?
I can’t unfortunately answer that question for you without knowing more about your organization, your budget, and your goals. Let’s review each of these areas to see if a GMP Partner might be a good fit for you.
Organization
When I say “your organization,” I’m talking specifically about the size, structure, and team members that make up your marketing/analytics department. Companies of all sizes have different-sized marketing/analytics departments. Smaller companies tend to have one or two people who manage the analytics for the company, while larger enterprise companies tend to have much larger teams with many more people.
For your organization, it might be different, however. We’ve worked with large organizations that have only a few people involved in marketing and analytics—and whose background is not technical in nature. So when it comes time to implement a new web analytics tool like Google Analytics, or move to a tag management system like Google Tag Manager, the knowledge around the architecture (what to track, how to track it, etc.) isn’t there. And that’s totally fine!
Companies shouldn’t be implementing a new analytics tool, tag management system, or integrating them with an additional system like a CRM every six months, so it’s not always necessary to have someone in-house with that technical expertise. Enter a GMP Partner. A GMP Partner will work with your company to define the business requirements, create an analytics architecture that adheres to best practices and is scalable, and works closely with your development team or agency to ensure the architecture is implemented correctly.
Budget
Your company has to have a budget that lends itself to hiring outside help. Some companies tend to shy away from outside partners, which is completely fine, but this requires your in-house talent to have the knowledge and skills required for these types of projects.
If you currently don’t have that talent, you have three options:
- Hire outside help (a GMP Partner)
- Hire a new employee with this knowledge, which can be expensive when you take salary and bonuses, benefits, and perks into account
- Find a current employee to learn and eventually own the project (this option takes time and is not alway successful)
Goals
Your goals are really the most important part of deciding if working with a GMP Partner is right for your company. For organizations looking to invest in analytics as a competitive advantage to improve the bottom line, hiring a GMP Partner that has been vetted by Google and works with some of the largest organizations in the world is a sound decision. A GMP Partner can take their knowledge, experience, and success from working with other companies of similar sizes, backgrounds, and industries to drive business results.
Even for companies that (think they) aren’t ready to make the decision to become truly data-driven, a GMP Partner can provide resources and guidance on how to get the necessary buy-in from management. We all believe accurate, actionable data is an attainable goal that all companies should require.
