Digital marketing is key for businesses that wish to increase brand awareness and draw attention to brands over long periods of time. When effectively done, digital marketing helps “funnel” potential buyers to a purchase. Training to be a digital marketer involves exploring the tools used to analyze customer data, interpreting trending topics with SEO and discovering the strategy behind driving sales.
Interested in a career in digital marketing? There are a variety of ways to enter into digital marketing as a career. For example, search engine optimization is a key part of digital marketing and may lead to a viable career path.
I chose the following digital marketing courses because of their positive reviews from the digital marketing community, their thoroughness and their approachability.
- Best for e-commerce marketers: Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate
- Best for small business owners: HubSpot Academy’s Digital Marketing Course
- Best for SEO professionals: Moz Academy SEO Starter Pack
- Best for strategic planners: Semrush Academy’s Digital Advertising 101
- Best for beginners: Coursera’s Digital Marketing Specialization
Best digital marketing courses: Comparison table
| Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate via Coursera | ||||
| HubSpot Academy’s Digital Marketing Course | ||||
| Moz Academy SEO Starter Pack | ||||
| Semrush Academy’s Digital Advertising 101 | ||||
| Coursera’s Digital Marketing Specialization |
Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate: Best for e-commerce marketers
Google’s digital marketing introduction from Coursera is suitable for beginners, and you’ll emerge from the course with a professional certificate. This course is backed by Google and is completely online. It covers a wide variety of topics, from search engine marketing and converting likes to sales on social media to marketing campaigns and setting up an e-commerce store.
This certification includes multiple courses, which should, together, take about six months to complete at 10 hours per week.
Cost
A Coursera subscription costs $59 per month, so the cost will depend on how quickly you complete the course. A six-month learning journey would cost $354.
HubSpot Academy’s Digital Marketing Course: Best for small business owners
HubSpot sells marketing and sales software and also offers free courses for learning digital marketing. This course covers email, SEO, social media, content creation and scheduling, and website advertising. It is particularly suitable for small business owners who have a business plan but are unfamiliar with digital marketing practices. It is taught primarily through video, with a transcript available.
Cost
The HubSpot Academy Digital Marketing Course is free. As with most online course materials, it requires an email address to log in.
Moz Academy SEO Starter Pack: Best for SEO professionals
When it comes to SEO, Moz Academy is a good place to start for step-by-step instructions on how to use the right tools for the trade. It provides how-tos for SERP listings and evaluating keywords; in addition, it gives contexts such as how and why pages show up in search results and the history of search algorithms. The third module, Local SEO Fundamentals, focuses on SEO strategies for local businesses.
Moz Academy generally has a good reputation among the digital marketing community in terms of a starting place for beginners. Note, there’s no guarantee the “recent trends in SEO” section will still be recent by the time you reach it since search engines are changing so rapidly.
Cost
The complete SEO Starter Pack costs $149.
Semrush Academy’s Digital Advertising 101: Best for strategic planners
Business owners or marketers looking to approach their work from a strategic angle or wanting to focus on advertising may find value in this Semrush Academy course. Along with the basics of how digital advertising works, this course covers measuring how well your campaigns are doing and building solid strategies around your most successful projects. It teaches you an overview of competitor research and how to craft an overall digital advertising strategy.
Cost
Semrush Academy’s Digital Advertising 101 is free.
Coursera’s Digital Marketing Specialization: Best for beginners
The Digital Marketing Specialization available on Coursera is taught by faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This is a relatively in-depth course, covering the theory and practice of digital marketing, but it may repeat some of the same content on other courses listed here, so choose which one will be the best format for you.
Coursera is generally considered reliable, though some of the same information in this course can be found for free. On the other hand, this specialization is good for people who want a guided path through the practical uses of digital marketing tools. It ends with a hands-on project that involves executing a digital marketing campaign.
Cost
A subscription to Coursera costs $59 per month, with a 7-day free trial, so the cost will depend on how long it takes you to complete the course. A four-month learning journey would cost $236.
Are digital marketing courses worth it?
Whether an online digital marketing class is worth the time, effort and money for you depends on your learning style and career goals. Digital marketing courses often provide a “one size fits all” overview instead of focusing on a specific job title or audience. It may be wise to look for free tutorials on YouTube before signing up for a paid class.
Digital marketing changes very quickly — just look at Google’s AI Overviews. Be sure any course you choose is up-to-date or that you can supplement it with contemporary content. Whether you have a professional certification may not matter to employers as much as whether you can show proven results.
Is digital marketing high paying?
As of May 2024, the average salary for a digital marketer in the U.S. was $64,898, according to Indeed. The higher end of the salary range could reach up to $113,442.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found the annual mean wage of Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists in May 2023 to be $83,190.
