Signing up for Google Partners

You'll want to make sure that you're using a My Client Center (MCC) account to manage your clients' AdWords accounts. MCC is a powerful tool for handling multiple AdWords accounts. You can think of MCC as an "umbrella" account with several AdWords accounts ("managed accounts") linked to it.

To create a MCC, visit www.google.com/adwords/MyClientCenter, click "Sign up now," and follow the step-by-step instructions. Learn more about MCC

You should sign up for Partners with an email account that has standard or administrative access to your agency's top-level MCC account. Those with administrative access can manage all aspects of the MCC account and give people access to it, while those with standard access can make changes to AdWords campaigns managed by the MCC and give people email-only access to it.

The administrator of your agency's MCC account can give you access by following these steps:

To complete your company profile, you'll need to provide us with your agency's Google+ Page — not your personal Google+ Page — that's directly linked to your agency's website. Find out how to create a Google+ Page if your agency doesn't already have one.

If your agency already has a Google+ Page, it needs to be directly linked to your agency's website by inserting a small snippet of HTML code on the website homepage. If you don't know any HTML or don't have access to edit your agency's website, don't worry — you can send the code snippet to the person who makes changes to your website. Learn how to directly link your Google+ Page and your website

If you're already AdWords certified, you can sign up using the same email that you used for your AdWords certification account. Remember that the email you use for your AdWords certification account should be linked to your agency's top-level MCC.

If the email you use for your MCC account is different from AdWords certification account email, you can sign up with the email that's linked to your MCC and retake the AdWords certification exams. Or, you can sign up with the email that you use for your AdWords certification account and link that account to your agency's top-level MCC.

If you're setting up your individual and company profiles for the first time, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Partners website at www.google.com/partners.
2. Click I'm an Agency.
3. Click Join Google Partners. If you aren't already signed in to your Google account, you'll need to do that now.
4. Review the Terms of Service. Once you have reviewed and are ready to agree, accept them.
5. Enter the requested information, such as your primary email account, primary country, and job function. You can also add your interests, markets, and industries, and select which email notifications you'd like to get.
6. Click Save and continue.
7. Next you'll create your agency's company profile, which gives you access to all of the benefits of the Partners program. If you aren't affiliated with an agency, click "Skip for now" and move on to the section below about completing your individual profile. Note that you'll still get benefits like free certification exams.
8. If you're creating a company profile, search for your agency to see if it's already registered with Google Partners.
   • See a "Company not found" message: Click Add my company and follow the steps below. Note that you won't be able to create a company profile if your email account isn't linked to an MCC account.
   • Agency appears in the search results: Click Continue to overview to send a request to affiliate your individual profile with your agency's profile. We'll send an email to the administrator of your agency's profile asking them confirm your affiliation with the agency.
9. If you're creating a company profile, enter the following information:
   • Company name: The name of your agency. This should be the name that you use to do business with your customers.
   • Company website: Your company's website URL.
   • Top-level MCC: The top-level MCC that contains all of your company's child MCC accounts and managed accounts.
   • Primary language: Select the primary language in which your agency does business. You can add other languages that your agency supports later.
   • Primary country: Select the country in which your agency is headquartered. You can add other countries that your agency supports later.
10. Next, you'll need to verify that you're the owner of your agency's website. You can do this by email or by providing a Google+ Page linked directly to your agency's website.
    • Email verification: Click the via Email radio button if your email address domain matches the domain of your agency's website. For example, your agency's website might be www.yourcompany.com and your email address might be name@yourcompany.com.
    • Google+ Page ID: If you aren't using an email address that matches your agency's website domain, enter your agency's Google+ Page ID, which is the ID number in your Google+ Page URL. Remember that your Google+ Page needs to be directly linked to your agency's website. If it isn't, read the section above on directly linking your Google+ Page and company website.
11. Click Continue to overview.

If you've already set up your individual profile, follow these steps to set up a company profile:

1. Sign in to Partners at www.google.com/partners.
2. Click "My profile".
3. In the "Company affiliation" section of the page, search for your agency to see if it's already registered with Google Partners.
• See a "Company not found" message: Click Add my company and follow the steps below. Note that you won't be able to create a company profile if your email account isn't linked to an MCC account.
• Agency appears in the search results: Click Continue to overview to send a request to affiliate your individual profile with your agency's profile. We'll send an email to the administrator of your agency's profile asking them confirm your affiliation with the agency.
4. Enter the following information:
   • Company name: The name of your agency. This should be the name that you use to do business with your customers.
   • Company website: Your company's website URL.
   • Top-level MCC: The top-level MCC that contains all of your company's child MCC accounts and managed accounts.
   • Primary language: Select the primary language in which your agency does business. You can add other languages that your agency supports later.
   • Primary country: Select the country in which your agency is headquartered. You can add other countries that your agency supports later.
5. Next, you'll need to verify that you're the owner of your agency's website. You can do this by email or by providing a Google+ Page linked directly to your agency's website.
   • Email verification: Click the via Email radio button if your email address domain matches the domain of your agency's website. For example, your agency's website might be www.yourcompany.com and your email address might be name@yourcompany.com.
   • Google+ Page ID: If you aren't using an email address that matches your agency's website domain, enter your agency's Google+ Page ID, which is the ID number in your Google+ Page URL. Remember that your Google+ Page needs to be directly linked to your agency's website. If it isn't, read the section above on directly linking your Google+ Page and company website.
6. Click Continue to overview.

To complete your individual profile, go the "My profile" section of your Partners account and fill out the following information:

• Contact information: Enter your mailing address and phone number, and select your primary country from the drop-down menu.
• Company affiliation: If your company is already registered with Partners, you'll want to affiliate with it. To do so, search for your company in the "Company affiliation" section on your profile page. If your request is denied, check to make sure you tried to affiliate with the correct company using an email address your colleagues will recognize.
• Top-level MCC: Link to your MCC — we recommend the MCC that contains all of the accounts that you manage — by selecting your MCC from the drop-down menu of accounts that are available for you to link to. This allows us to accurately identify which of your accounts can benefit from various AdWords promotional offers. Note that this MCC can be the same one that's linked to your company profile.
  
  Affiliating with your company on Partners allows you to access exclusive content your company has uploaded to Partners. If your company is a Google Partner, you'll be able to access AdWords promotional offers (in select markets). If you're certified in AdWords, your affiliation can also help your company achieve or maintain its Partner status.

To complete your company profile, go to the "My company" section of your account and make sure the following information is complete:

• Account information
  • Company MCC: You need to associate your agency's top-level MCC with your company profile. Doing so will allow us to determine that your customers are happy, you're actively optimizing the performance of their campaigns, and your MCC account is reaching the Spend requirement.
  • Google+ Page ID: If your agency's Google+ Page wasn't added when your company profile was created, you'll need to add it now to make sure that it's complete. Keep in mind that your agency's Google+ Page needs to be directly linked to your agency's website. If it isn't, read the section above on directly linking your Google+ Page and company website.
• Locations
  • Company address: Enter your agency's address or addresses, and make sure to select one of them as your primary address.
  • Company phone number: Your agency's phone number needs to be correct.
• Languages
  • Language: Select a language from the drop-down menu.
  • Countries: Select the corresponding country from the drop-down menu.
  • Company name: Enter the name of your company in the language that you've selected.
  • Description: Enter a description of your agency in the language that you've selected. That way, for example, French-speaking clients searching Google Partner Search will be able to read a description of your company in French.
• Services
  • Company type: Select the type of agency, such as search engine marketing, from the drop-down menu.
  • Budget currency: Select the currency that you'd like to use for the minimum and maximum budget amounts from the drop-down menu.
  • Minimum and maximum monthly budget served: Enter the minimum and maximum monthly budget that an advertiser should have to work with your agency. If your agency doesn't have maximum monthly budget that it serves, click the "I don't have one" checkbox below the maximum monthly budget field.
    
    Note that we'll use these amounts to help determine how your agency appears in Google Partner Search. For example, an AdWords advertiser can search Google Partner Search for agencies that work with clients with a monthly advertising budget between $1000 to $5000. We'd then use that information to match the advertiser with agencies that entered the same amounts in their company profile.
  • Industries serviced: Select the industries that your agency provides services for from the drop-down menu.
  • Service offerings: Select the services that your agency offers from the drop-down menu.
• Profile visibility
  • Publish company profile: If your agency has qualified for Partners status and earned the Partner badge, you can choose to publish your agency's company profile and include it in Google Partner Search. If you don't want to your company profile to be searchable in Google Partner Search, make sure the "Include my company profile in Google Partner Search" checkbox is deselected.
  • Hide company profile: Select the "Hide my company profile" radio button if you don't want to publish your agency's company profile.

Less is more. Companies can't share the same name, website, or MCC account on Partners. Agencies with multiple profiles for the same business (spam) risk being suspended from Partners. Even if your agency offers diverse online and traditional marketing services across different channels and in different markets and languages, create a single profile for the entire company. Then, add all the services you offer per market and per language.

Admin users can customize basic company information per language and per country, including company name, description, services offered, and more. For example, if your company offers SEM, SEO, and video production services in Spain, but only offers SEM and SEO in Portugal, you can define services offered by market using a single company profile. Admin users can go to the "My company" section to customize company information for different countries and languages.