Having recently passed the Advanced AdWords Reporting & Analysis Exam I thought I would feedback on the format to follow on from the Fundamental and Advanced Search Exams  that I took a couple of weeks ago.

The exam was actually much easier than I had anticipated and was certainly not as demanding as the Advanced Search exam, which was a pleasant surprise!  I had expected the exam to be a similar level to the Google Analytics IQ Exam, so I spent much of my revision time brushing up on the technical aspects of implementation, cookie length, custom filters, profiles etc.  This revision was certainly not wasted as there were questions around these subjects, but I was surprised at the number of questions that I consider to be basic and entry level as opposed to intermediate & advanced best practices for managing AdWords campaigns.

The only area I felt I had the potential to struggle with was Website Optimizer, as it represented a reasonably large percentage of the learning material.  However, only very basic questions regarding the benefits of split testing, AB v multi-variant, and a couple of questions that almost answered themselves cropped up!

Another key difference between the Advanced Search exam is that there were not as many questions that I feel were designed to trip you up.  Many of the answers were pretty clear and were written in a way that avoided confusion, as previous exams certainly seemed as though multiple answers could be correct.

The amount of time required to take the Reporting & Analysis Exam itself was significantly less than the allocated amount, as I found myself completing the exam within 45 minutes and spent only 15 minutes or so reviewing answers that I had marked to make sure that I hadn't made any silly mistakes.

I am sure each exam is different and I am glad that I effectively over-invested in terms of revision time, as it did allow me to answer with confidence many questions that I would have otherwise spent more time deliberating over. 

A large percentage of the exam questions were made up from;

• AdWords conversion code
• Benefits of using Adwords tracking
• 1^st click v many conversions
• Basic AdWords and Google Analytics installation
• Basic AdWords and Google Analytics trouble shooting
• Conversion Optimizer  Benefits
• Creating Goals in Google Analytics
• Analysing Funnels in Google Analytics
• Manual tagging / Using URL Builder
•  Analysing and Interpreting data to improve ROI
• Discrepancies between AdWords & Google Analytics
• Practicalities of creating / sharing / managing multiple Google Analytics accounts
• Benefits of Website Optimiser / Why Test
• AB v multi variant testing

Overall, I found the exam very straight-forward and not particularly taxing compared with the Advanced Search exam.  However, I'm glad I spent a bit longer brushing up on the technical aspects of Analytics and AdWords tracking as this probably helped me relax a bit more and answer the questions with confidence.

Next on the list is the Display Advertising Advanced Exam, which covers intermediate to advanced best practices for advertising on YouTube and the Google Display Network, so back to the learning resource centre it is!