Līve Ambitions

I been meaning to take the Google Professional Advertising Exam for a while now.  I finally decided to take it yesterday after having gone over some of the tutorials in the Adwords Learning Center.  Fortunately, I passed – barely.  I’m a little embarrassed to share my score, but it was less than 80% and higher than 75%. 

The exam was a bit trickier than I had anticipated.  I’m not sure which questions I missed, but there were quite a few questions I had 2nd thoughts on.  You really have to pay attention to the wording of each question.  Also, there were some multiple selection questions which were a bit iffy. 

Personally, I don’t think there should have been so many questions related to billing and account information.  Isn’t the whole point of the exam to test your knowledge in setting up and managing an ad campaign?  I don’t see how billing or general account questions would help you optimize your client’s campaign and ROI.

I guess the bottom line is I passed, and I can now show off the logo.

There were a couple of things that I wasn’t aware of before the exam:

1. They require you to take the exam every year to renew it.  With so many frequent changes going on at Google, it would make sense to keep up-to-date.
2. You don’t get to show off an Adwords Certified logo until you’ve managed an Adwords campaign for at least 90 days and have spent over $1,000 within that period.

My Advice to You on Taking the Google Professional Advertising Exam:

1. Before you take the exam, go over every topic in the Adwords Learning Center.
2. Take the quizzes for each topic.  Many of the questions in the exam are similar, if not the same as the questions in the quizzes. 
3. Make sure the information is fresh in your mind.  It’s easy to forget if you haven’t looked over the tutorials in a while.
4. Pay close attention to the wording of each question.  Don’t breeze through - you may make costly mistakes.
5. Take the exam in a quiet, comfortable setting.  When I took the exam, I was in a room full of co-workers and their conversations distracted me.