What you need to know:

• Google last month radically streamlined the number of agencies that can claim to be Premier Partners, receiving support, insight and early access to its beta products.
• Last week it published the Premier Partner directory, with 79 Australian brands listed. 
• This week it added IPG's Reprise and Dentsu's iProspect, along with independents Adcore Australia, First Digital and Indago Digital. Google said "additional discussions ... were required" with those agencies that were not originally granted Premier status.
• Search agencies suggest Google has prioritised agencies that make it most money, potentially detrimental to brands if 'Premier' status is seen as a "hygiene factor" and assurance of quality when pitching.
• Call for additional quality metrics to be included to justify the badge.

Google has listed 84 Premier partners in Australia, with two global holdcos making the cut after initially appearing to have lost out to relative minnows. Some of the agencies instead rated by Google as Australia’s best have raised eyebrows. One search agency boss told Mi3: “I’ve never heard of half these people.”

Google last month rationalised the number of agencies approved as ‘Partners’ and ‘Premier Partners’ globally.

It states that agencies that achieve Premier status represent the “top 3 per cent” in each country.

But that process has left parts of industry nonplussed by Google’s selection criteria, with search specialists suggesting that Google’s approach is money-driven and will lead to perverse outcomes. They argue relative unknown agencies that may be very good at pushing ad dollars through Google’s platform are being badged by the search giant as the most suitable partners for brands.

Missing holdcos

In Australia, Dentsu’s iProspect and IPG’s Reprise were initially not listed. They and three independent agencies were later added, which would have come as a relief, given Premier status is seen as a “client mandated hygiene factor for future procurement and tenders,” according to consultancy Louder.

“While the list is close to final in AU, there may be some small adjustments with a handful of agencies pending the completion of some additional discussions that were required,” a Google spokesperson told Mi3 when the search giant originally published its Preferred list.

Chasing status

Revenue growth is a key pillar to achieving Premier Partner status. But agencies said they must also ensure 20 per cent of staff are certified in key Google products.

According to one Sydney-based agency that has secured 2022 Premier status, the biggest staff certification requirement is for Adwords, but at least one employee must also be certified in Google Shopping, Google App and Youtube as the platform aims to grow revenues outside of search.

They added that Google’s ‘optimisation score’ component effectively incentivises agencies to align with Google’s objectives, such as implementing ‘smart bidding’, its machine-learning (ML) approach to buying ads.

“Adoption rates were monitored by Google and penalised in the Premier badge [assessment] if we weren’t putting enough people into smart bidding, which was a challenge with small accounts that didn’t have enough spend to shift to the ML approach,” said the exec, though he admitted that smart bidding had eventually proved superior.

Perverse outcomes?

But another agency boss questioned whether Google’s approach, while consistently applied, risks perverse outcomes that will ultimately undermine the value of Premier Partner status.

Google outlines its main selection criteria per below.

‘The factors that determine the top 3% include, but are not limited to:

• Client growth: Ability for partners to grow their existing clients and acquire new clients, measured by year-over-year ads spend growth and ads spend among first-time Google Ads clients
• Client retention: Demonstrated ability to sustain client business, measured by the percentage of clients retained year-over-year
• Product diversification: Demonstrated investment in results-focused product mix beyond Search, measured by the percentage of spend in Display, Apps, Video and Shopping each calendar year
• Annual ad spend: Investment in Google Ads or Google Marketing Platform, measured by spend across managed accounts each calendar year.’

“Three of Google’s stated four criteria are about money,” said the agency lead.

“Client growth; that is about money. Diversification beyond search, which is maxed out, is where Google sees more money, because it has excess inventory elsewhere, but from a client ROI perspective, it doesn’t perform as well [as search]. Annual ad spend is clearly just about money. Client retention is the only quality metric, because agencies have to do a decent job to keep clients,” the exec added.

“But the risk is that agencies that churn and burn brands will still make the list because they hit those other metrics – three out of the four criteria are about spend with Google. There are surely more suitable metrics, if quality assurance is what you are aiming to achieve.

“On the other hand, if it is about money, why wouldn’t [Google] take this approach, it is a very successful business after all. But does it mean the best agencies are being recommended to brands? Some of them look more like a scam.”

The 84 agencies rated by Google as Australia's top 3 per cent are:

1^st Place Design Pty Ltd

Acidgreen

Adcore Australia

Aiims Group

Alley

Alpha Digital

Atomic 212

Australian Internet Advertising Pty Ltd

Avenue C

Bang Digital Australia

Be Media

Bliss Search

Bonfire

Click Click Media

Clixpert Pty Ltd

Co.Gency Group

Convincely Pty Ltd

Custommedia

Digital Darts

Digital Minds

Digital Ninjas Pty Ltd

Digital Spotlight

Dynamic Creative Pty Ltd

Elephant Room

First Digital

Full Measure Digital

Fullsteam Consulting

Gorilla 360

Half Dome Digital

Havas Media Australia

Ikon Communications

Impressive Digital Agency

Innovate Online

Indago Digital

Intelligent Reach Australia

Intender Digital

Intentional

iProspect

Jaywing Australia

Keyword Adv Australia Pty Ltd

KingKong

Kwasi

Labelium Australia

Localsearch Operations Pty Ltd

Media33

MediaCom Australia

Megaphone Marketing

Mindbox

Mindshare Australia

Mr Search

Muzaara

Nelson O’Neill

OMD Australia

Online Marketing Gurus

Optimising

Overdose.Australia

Performics Mercerbell

PeriscoPe eCommerce

PHD Australia

PPC Samurai

Realclicks

Redback Solutions

Reload Media

Reprise

Resolution Digital

Rocket Agency

Ryvalmedia

SearchMax

SEO Premier

Soul+Wolf

Sparro

SponsoredLinX

StarcomMediaVest Australia

Sunday Digital

Synq Digital

The Media Store

The One Centre

The Online Director

TrafficGuard

Vine Street Digital

Wavemaker Australia

Webprofits

WebSavvy

Woodhouse Digital

See the directory here.

This story was updated 31 March to include Adcore, First Digital, Indago Digital, iProspect and Reprise which were not originally granted Preferred status in February, but after discussions with Google were added to its directory on 31 March.