Are Your Media Partners “Facebook Certified?”

by George Konetes | Nov 28, 2017 | Digital

Digital advertising has taken its place in the media marketplace. Digital advertising is popular because it is affordable, measurable, and targetable. Facebook has become one of the largest players in the world when it comes to digital advertising. In fact, Facebook and Google combined make up 63% of all U.S. online advertising spend.

Anyone can use Facebook… however, that does not mean that everyone is experienced with Facebook advertising. Facebook makes it very easy for anyone to do some advertising — but to do it professionally is another story.

We were recently talking with a ministry about partnering with them to help with their Facebook lead generation program. After a few weeks of discussion, they decided that someone on their ministry team would handle it internally. It then occurred to me that they were unaware of the sophistication required to advertise on Facebook effectively – and they were likely not alone.

Facebook Blueprint Certification

Facebook actually realized the same problem about a year ago and launched their own media buying certification program called Facebook Blueprint Certification so that people could tell the difference between those who dabbled in ad buying and those who were professionals.

Becoming Blueprint Certified for Media Buying requires:

Learning the content from approximately 120 online courses
Six months of media buying experience
Setting up campaigns, optimizing, and learning to use the real systems – not just having book knowledge
Passing a proctored, timed, and third party observed Core Competencies Exam
Passing a proctored, timed, and third party observed Certified Buying Professional Exam

These two exams are no cake walk. They are demanding, graded like the SAT’s, and easily failed. Did I mention they are not free? The applicant must undergo a video visual inspection of your location to take these tests — and if someone so much as walks into the room, they fail. No watches, phones, devices, sticky notes, drinks, snacks, mumbling out loud or bathroom breaks — or else they must wait a month and pay again to re-take them.

Facebook does not want just anyone able to say that they are certified by Facebook to do advertising. They also don’t want anyone certified who does not understand the full breadth of their system’s capabilities. Once the process is successfully completed, the applicant will obtain this badge:

Validate and Verify

The Facebook Blueprint Certification alone still does not tell the whole story. The experience of managing millions of dollars on campaigns over the course of years is equally as important.

So, the next time someone tries to pitch you Facebook advertising, ask if they are Blueprint Certified; ask to see their active hyperlinked badge to follow up; ask them how long they have been doing this; and ask them how much money they have invested in Facebook advertising on their client’s behalf.

Also, be sure to ask for some case studies of previous campaigns.

Make sure your advertising partners are the real deal and they didn’t just boost a post or two and think they have mastered the art. If it was that simple, Facebook would only benefit by telling everyone, but instead they have let everyone know that there is A LOT more to it.

Let Infinity Concepts manage your digital advertising and inspire response for you!