Top Digital Marketing Courses to Build In-Demand Skills

Digital marketing skills are in high demand and are a great way to attract new clients or start a new part- or full-time career. Online marketing professionals can supply business owners with robust digital marketing strategies that can help build their brands, such as social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and content creation.

Whether you fit in as a beginner or are a seasoned marketing professional who wants to brush up on your skills, there are many resources and digital marketing certifications that can help you gain traction in this industry.

This article explores some of the best digital marketing courses and tutorials that can help jump-start or boost your marketing career.

Top courses to upskill in digital marketing

There are a number of ways digital marketers can learn the fundamentals and enhance their skills, and these valuable resources are available right at your fingertips. Take advantage of a full line of marketing training courses where you can learn the ins and outs of digital channels, including social media and apps, effective inbound marketing channels, and measuring success with quantifiable metrics.

Digital marketing skills are a mainstay for any business and a valuable skill set to have. Specialization courses in this area can help give your resume that edge to attract the best clients for you. This list provides an overview of some of the best digital marketing online courses and modules.

1. Udemy: The Complete Digital Marketing Course

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The Complete Digital Marketing Course by Udemy supplies a slew of tools for the budding digital marketer. This best-selling course provides learners with a crash course in topics like Google Ads, Google Analytics, copywriting, and social media marketing for a variety of platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest. You don’t have to have any previous knowledge to take this certificate program, which supplies 20 courses in one place.

Key features of this digital marketing course include:

• Create a professional WordPress website
• Learn valuable digital marketing tools as a freelancer
• Develop effective Facebook ads
  

Length: Varies; self-paced (there are nearly 82 hours of on-demand video content)

Price: $129.99 (includes full lifetime access and a 30-day money-back guarantee)

2. Coursera: Digital Marketing Specialization by the University of Illinois

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The Coursera platform helps entrepreneurs and those who want to improve an in-demand skill set from a number of universities and well-known companies, such as Google, Intuit, and IBM. With the Digital Marketing Specialization offered by the University of Illinois, users can learn from industry experts and gain the latest digital marketing skills.

Key features include:

• Learn how to evaluate and improve campaigns through marketing analytics
• Understand the importance of data collection
• Complete a real-life capstone project
  

Length: Approximately eight months (with a suggested pace of five hours per week)

Price: Free seven-day trial, then $79 per month (includes full lifetime access and a 30-day money-back guarantee)

3. edX: Fundamentals of Digital Marketing, Social Media, and E-Commerce by Wharton

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EdX aims to eliminate barriers and deliver access to quality education for everyone anywhere. EdX members gain valuable real-world skills and knowledge in numerous business management and marketing courses, including Fundamentals of Digital Marketing, Social Media, and E-Commerce from a leading higher-learning business school, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Within four modules, learners can master behavioral foundations, new forms of interaction, tools and principles, and new media platforms.

Some features to consider include:

• Earn a self-paced certification that can fit into busy schedules
• Complete themed modules covering theory and analysis with practical examples
• Examine real-world digital marketing applications
  

Length: Approximately six weeks, two to three hours per week

Price: $585 (includes access to all modules of the course)

4. Skillshare: Free Digital Marketing Classes

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Skillshare delivers short online classes designed for real-life situations. Designed with lifelong learners in mind, Skillshare empowers the creative community with ongoing relevant course offerings led by industry experts.

Members can find a number of creative classes that inspire, empower, and supply the right tools to kick-start a career in digital marketing. You can browse through a variety of free digital marketing classes, such as Instagram Engagement Secrets and SEO Basics for Non-SEOs.

Here are a few features to keep in mind:

• Create brand videos
• Discover the value of hashtags
• Leverage digital trends for impact
  

Length: Varies

Price: Seven-day free trial, then $167.88 a year (includes access to all Skillshare courses)

5. Simplilearn: Digital Marketing Specialist Program

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Get ahead with Simplilearn and upskill or reskill with industry experts. Simplilearn calls itself an “Online Bootcamp” for digital skills and provides a wide variety of professional certifications to help professionals get ahead in their careers.

The Digital Marketing Specialist Program is a top-rated digital marketing course and gives users the most up-to-date knowledge on digital marketing that’s aligned with the top digital marketing certifications, such as Google Ads & Analytics, Facebook Blueprint, and HubSpot.

Key features include:

• Master SEO, content marketing, pay per click (PPC), and digital analytics
• Master social media, mobile marketing, and digital strategy
• Earn a master’s certificate
  

Length: Six months

Price: $1,499 (includes 12-month access to the course)
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6. Udacity: Become a Digital Marketer Nanodegree Program

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Launch your digital marketing career with Udacity. This learning platform emphasizes in-demand tech skills to get people job-ready. Bring your Gmail and Facebook account and let Udacity’s Digital Marketer Nanodegree Program get you ready with real-world projects from industry leaders. Access the syllabus and see for yourself what you can expect from this comprehensive course.

Some top features include:

• Evaluate the effectiveness of various styles of marketing campaigns
• Differentiate between organic and paid marketing
• Learn the skills recruiters want
  

Length: Three months at 10 hours per week (estimated since you can learn at your own pace)

Price: $399 per month or a one-time, three-month access payment of $1,017 (includes the ability to cancel anytime)

7. LinkedIn Learning: Digital Marketing Foundations

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LinkedIn Learning offers relevant courses that can help people grow in their current role or develop the right skills for a new career in online marketing. Its Digital Marketing Foundations course supplies what users need to develop stellar marketing campaigns that deliver results. Great for the beginner, users can learn the basic blocks of an effective marketing strategy and best practices for online campaigns.

Features to consider include:

• Build and maintain followers on social media
• Measure the success of email campaigns
• Test knowledge with chapter quizzes
  

Length: Two hours, nine minutes

Price: Free one-month trial, then $26.99 if paid annually

8. Udemy: Ultimate Google Ads Training 2021: Profit With Pay per Click

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Get Google Ads certified with Ultimate Good Ads Training 2021 from Udemy. In this training course, you can learn how to boost traffic and effectively advertise online. No prior experience with Ads is required. However, you should have a landing page, website, or Facebook page that you want to drive traffic to.

The biggest features include:

• Boost traffic with an optimized website
• Measure success with conversion tracking
• Receive a certificate of completion
  

Length: Varies; self-paced (there are 24.5 hours of on-demand video content)

Price: $109.99

9. Coursera: Social Media Marketing Specialization by Northwestern University

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Learn how you can create a winning social media strategy with Coursera’s Social Media Marketing Specialization offered by Northwestern University. This training course provides learners with the marketing tools that can help them create and build a social brand.

Cool features include:

• Increase brand awareness with effective social media marketing practices
• Gain tools to become a social media influencer
• Learn with flexibility
  

Length: Approximately seven months (based on a suggested pace of two hours per week)

Price: Free seven-day trial, then $79 per month thereafter (includes full lifetime access and a 30-day money-back guarantee)

10. Kellogg School of Management: Digital Marketing Strategies

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Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management has a global, vibrant learning community and aims to transform the face of business education. The university provides several online programs for product and marketing managers and any person interested in pursuing marketing training, including Digital Marketing Strategies. The course includes eight modules with a capstone project at the end.

Top features to consider include:

• Discover the value of automation and AI applications
• Create customer journey maps
• Learn current mining techniques for data analysis
  

Length: Eight weeks (participants are expected to dedicate four to six hours a week to the course)

Price: $2,600

11. LinkedIn Learning: Free Digital Marketing Courses

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LinkedIn is another great resource to help grow a professional network and to receive free digital marketing training. Users can find a variety of free online digital marketing courses and learning paths that can supply the essential marketing tools to build a career as a digital marketing specialist.

Here are three features to consider:

• Translate data with marketing analytics
• Develop an effective social media strategy
• Become a marketing manager
  

Length: Varies depending on the course chosen

Price: Free

12. Google Digital Garage: Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

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Google Digital Garage brings in-demand skills close to hand at an affordable price. People can create a personalized learning plan with a variety of free or low-cost internet marketing courses. With the Fundamentals of Digital Marketing course, you can get unlimited access to 26 modules that can help grow your knowledge and develop impressive digital marketing skills.

Key features include:

• Complete practical, step-by-step modules
• Identify audiences for effective display advertising
• Learn best practices for search engine marketing (SEM)
  

Length: Self-paced

Price: Free

Choosing a freelance digital marketing career

No matter where you are in your career, specialized digital marketing courses can help keep your skills sharp and make you a standout job candidate. Online marketing is an ever-changing industry and continued education can keep you up to speed or propel your current career in new directions.

Find your next digital marketing project with Upwork. The Upwork platform connects talented, independent digital marketers with a marketplace of opportunities that can help entrepreneurs grow their businesses. Discover your next marketing adventure with Upwork.

Upwork is not affiliated with and does not sponsor or endorse any of the tools or services discussed in this section. These tools and services are provided only as potential options, and each reader and company should take the time needed to adequately analyze and determine the tools or services that would best fit their specific needs and situation.