Google Partners is a marketing program for Google Ads customers

It gives them access to training, support, and other resources to help them reach their business goals. In the spirit of being the most helpful company on the planet, Google interviewed people from all over the world to get feedback on the requirements—which were about to change. We learned that people thought the requirements were confusing, arbitrary, and only in place to help Google generate more ad revenue. So, we created this page as part of the larger Google Partners site to help overcome these challenges and perceptions.

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Helpful from the start

We made certain design and language choices to ensure that each piece of information was helpful and provided absolute clarity at every point. This is why we decided up on a sticky nav bar that would highlight the nav element that corresponded with the specific module they were viewing. While a small detail, it let people know exactly where they’re located in the page at any given moment.

 
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Reinforce program benefits

While the main purpose of the site was to help users meet the new program requirements, research told us that people wanted to better understand how new criteria for earning Partner status benefited them. So before we asked them to work on meeting the requirements, we showed them how they were designed with their success in mind.

 
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Step-by-step instructions

The idea behind Google Partners is quite simple: help advertisers. However, its inner-workings are a bit more complex. We made sure that customers knew what to do and when to do it with detailed, actionable instructions. We ultimately decided on a carousel format to present a large amount of information in a way that wouldn’t overwhelm the user. The other option we considered was an auto-opening/closing accordion, but the design of it proved problematic for usability and accessibility reasons.

 
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Social proof

Once the customers knew exactly what they had to do to become a Partner, we reinforced the benefits of the program by showing them how real advertisers, like themselves, used the program to not just grow, but to thrive.

 
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Help you can take with you

Some clients were comprised of large teams using Google Ads, and an internal manager might be the only person aware of their team’s Google Partner status. To make it easier for them to communicate certain milestones with their teams, we created pre-written emails for various use cases. Managers could simply copy/paste them as-is or customize to their liking.

 
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Extra support

Since the lens through which we approached the website was that of helpfulness, it was important that users knew exactly where to go should they get stuck. That’s why we directed them to the robust Help Center to troubleshoot themselves or to email the Google Partners team should they need even more support.

 
 

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Informational email

Before the site launched, we sent members of the Google Partners program an information-rich email to remind them of the updates to the program and guide them to the website.

The messaging in this email was based upon an MSA (mandatory service announcement) that Google is legally required to send. Overall, the MSA messaging was well-received, which was why we used it to guide our communications.