Google Ads certification: which exams, which order
A practical route through Google Ads certification: which Skillshop exams exist, which to take first, and how the exams fit a career or agency plan.
By Roozbeh Nazari · CEO
Google Ads certification is free, online and open to anyone with a Skillshop account, which is exactly why people often take the exams in a random order and forget what they learned a month later. A better approach treats the certifications as a sequence: start with the foundation that every campaign type depends on, add measurement early, then specialise in the formats you actually run or plan to run. This guide explains which certifications are currently offered, what the exams involve, and a sensible order for three common situations: a marketer learning the platform, an in-house team member, and an agency preparing for Google Partner requirements.
Which Google Ads certifications exist
Google runs its certifications through Skillshop, its free training platform. The Google Ads Help Center lists certifications for Search, Display, Video, Shopping ads and Apps, while the Skillshop Google Ads page also features a Measurement certification and presents the Shopping track as AI-Powered Shopping Ads. The exact line-up changes from time to time, so check both pages before you plan. At a high level:
- Search covers campaign structure, keywords, bidding and ads on Google Search. It is the most general of the certifications and the best starting point.
- Measurement covers conversion tracking, attribution and the link between Google Ads and analytics, which underpins every other campaign type.
- Display covers visual campaigns across the Google Display Network, audiences and automated bidding.
- Video covers YouTube and video formats, targeting and how video campaigns support different goals.
- Shopping covers product data and Shopping campaigns for retailers, including Google's AI-powered campaign formats.
- Apps covers campaigns that promote app installs and in-app actions.
What the Google Ads certification exam looks like
Each certification has a learning path with modules and an assessment at the end. According to Google's help page on certifications, you have 75 minutes to complete an assessment and need a score of 80% or higher to pass. If you do not pass, you can retake the assessment after one day. A certification stays valid for one year, after which you need to pass the assessment again to stay certified. The questions are scenario-based: they ask what you would do in a given account situation rather than asking you to recite definitions, so hands-on experience helps more than memorising the course.
A sensible order for most people
If you are learning the platform or working in-house, this sequence tends to build knowledge in the right order:
- Start with Search. Almost every account includes Search campaigns, and the concepts it teaches, from match types to bidding strategies and ad relevance, carry over to the other formats.
- Take Measurement next. Understanding how conversions are recorded and attributed changes how you read every report and every automated bidding result.
- Then choose the certification that matches your campaigns: Shopping for ecommerce, Video if YouTube is part of your plan, Display for awareness and remarketing, Apps if you market a mobile app.
- Add the remaining certifications only when you start working with those formats, so the knowledge is applied rather than forgotten.
Spread the exams out. Taking one, applying it to a live account for a few weeks and then moving on works better than completing all of them in a single weekend.
How to prepare without cramming
The learning paths on Skillshop are the official preparation material, and they are worth working through even if you already manage campaigns, because the questions follow Google's own terminology and recommendations. Pair each module with a live or demo account: open the settings the module describes, look at the reports it mentions and note where your current setup differs from the recommended approach. Keep a short list of the topics you found unclear and return to them before the assessment. If you fail an attempt, use the day before the retake to revisit those topics rather than simply guessing again.
Certifications for agencies and Google Partners
For agencies, certifications also feed into the Google Partners programme. Google's Partners requirements include a minimum share of account strategists certified in Google Ads, with at least one certification in each product area where the company has meaningful campaign spend, alongside performance and spend criteria. That means an agency's certification plan should follow its client mix: a team managing ecommerce accounts needs Shopping certifications, a team running YouTube campaigns needs Video, and so on. Track renewal dates centrally, because certifications expire after a year and lapsed certifications stop counting.
What a certification does and does not prove
A certification shows that someone has studied Google's recommended approach and can answer questions about it. It does not prove that they can run a profitable account, and it says nothing about how they handle account ownership, reporting or budgets. When you hire a specialist or an agency, treat certification as a baseline and ask for examples of their reasoning. Our guide to Google Ads agency account ownership and red flags covers the questions that matter beyond the badge.
If you want support with your campaigns rather than your exam plan, see our paid media services, or browse our resources for more guides and free tools.