The 10 Best Online Marketing Courses of 2023

Our Ranking Criteria

The top online marketing courses provide you with practical training, real-world exercises, analysis of successful campaigns, and technical know-how needed to become a powerful digital marketer. We researched 30 online marketing courses before narrowing down the top 10.

Basic Ranking Criteria

Before committing to an online course, you should have a sense of the time required to complete the course, whether any prerequisites are required, how flexible the schedule is, and what sort of certificate you can expect to earn upon completion. That’s why for each online marketing course covered in this guide, we looked at four basic factors:

Time to complete. You should be able to complete your online marketing course relatively quickly in order to build and launch campaigns that make an impact in the real world. The courses covered in this guide take anywhere from several hours to two years to complete.

Prerequisites required. Only one of the courses covered in this guide requires you to have completed any prerequisites. This means you can dive straight into almost any of the courses and immediately start learning.

Flexible schedule. We get it, you’re busy. That’s why we selected part-time courses with flexible schedules to best suit your needs.

Certificate of completion. All of the courses in this guide offer a verified certificate of completion, which is a valuable addition to your resume.

Advanced Ranking Criteria

The basic criteria mentioned above are relevant to nearly all online courses. However, we also looked at some key factors specific to marketing. These factors include:

• The course covers a variety of marketing skills and strategies, from frameworks and funnels to web analytics and SEO.
• The instructors are skilled teachers with firsthand experience as successful marketers, especially in the digital space.
• The course’s effectiveness has been proven by former graduates successfully launching marketing campaigns and converting clicks into sales.
• To build a sense of camaraderie and personal connection through the online platform, the course includes interactions with teachers and fellow students.
• The course utilizes hands-on, project-based exercises that help students put marketing strategies into action.
• The course acquaints students with important techniques, vocabulary, and norms within the world of marketing, especially digital marketing.
• The course is highly applicable to contemporary, 21st century digital marketing and is on the cutting-edge of new developments in the digital marketing space.

10 Best Online Marketing Courses

ClickMinded
Digital Marketing Course

Intelligent Award: Top Pick

The ClickMinded platform is devoted solely to teaching people digital marketing. The Digital Marketing Course is a bundle of seven courses designed to massively increase sales. Each of the courses is oriented around a different theme or space: social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, paid advertising, sales funnels, web analytics, and search engine optimization. The courses are taught by marketers at the most successful tech companies on the planet like Airbnb and Lyft. Each course costs $997 separately, but the bundle gives you access to all seven for a highly discounted rate of $1,997. More so than any of the other courses included in this guide, this one practices what it preaches. Its webpage and sales funnels are top-notch, its platform is fresh and user-friendly, and its variety of courses makes it a one-stop shop for digital marketing.

• Price: $1,997
• Time to complete: 42 hours
• Prerequisites required: No
• Flexible schedule: Yes
• Includes verified certificate of participation: Yes

Who should take this course? Anyone who is serious about committing time and money to learning the ins and outs of digital marketing would benefit from this bundle. After two courses, the bundle pays for itself.

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Alison
Free Diploma in E-Business

Intelligent Award: Most Affordable

Alison is a quite popular online learning platform, as it has 20 million learners, 3.5 million graduates, and 3,000 courses. This particular course acquaints you with the various aspects of an e-business as well as tips and tools for implementing a successful e-business strategy. Students learn how to design, create, edit, and track a website in order to ensure that the product or service they’re selling reaches their target audience. Specific topics covered include Google Analytics, Google AdWords, GoogleAdSense, and Google Webmaster. This course centers on teaching you how to master digital marketing via Google.

• Price: Free
• Time to complete: 6-10 hours
• Prerequisites required: No
• Flexible schedule: Yes
• Includes verified certificate of participation: Yes

Who should take this course? If you want a crash-course in e-business marketing on Google, this is a great option. It’s free and requires a relatively low time commitment, so it’s great for beginners on a budget.

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Interested in a degree instead?

Learn more about online degrees, their start dates, transferring credits, availability of financial aid, and more by contacting the universities below.

 

Digital Marketing Institute
MSc Masters in Digital Marketing

Intelligent Award: Best for Earning a Master’s Degree

This two-year distance learning program culminates in a master’s in digital marketing degree. It is the most comprehensive and time-intensive program included in this guide. The degree program aims to teach you not just how to play the game of digital marketing, but how to become “an expert’s expert.” This is an advanced sequence of courses on communications and digital strategy and planning, as well as on consumer, social media, search, ecommerce, email, and mobile marketing. The platform is cutting-edge and engaging, and the program features a nearly even split between taught courses and real-world research and implementation. Prior to joining the program, students are required to have completed a bachelor’s degree in a business/marketing related field and to have at least one to two years of experience in this field.

• Price: $11,850
• Time to complete: Two years
• Prerequisites required: Yes
• Flexible schedule: Yes
• Includes verified certificate of participation: Yes

Who should take this course? If you’re a seasoned digital marketer looking to stand out from the pack, this is a great choice for you. The time and money requirements are substantial, so this program is best suited to serious, experienced students.

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Digiteers
Social Media Marketing Intensive

Intelligent Award: Best for Social Media Specializations

The Digiteers Social Media Marketing Intensive is an intensive ten hour course focused entirely on social media marketing. Uniquely, this is a completely live course, so you can interact in real-time with the course instructors and fellow students. Every live session features a Q&A session and engaging group exercises. Students also benefit from one-on-one mentorship from an expert course trainer, which is an invaluable tool for tackling specific issues related to your content, product, or brand.

• Price: $1,345
• Time to complete: 10 hours (four sessions of 2.5 hours each)
• Prerequisites required: No
• Flexible schedule: No
• Includes verified certificate of participation: Yes

Who should take this course? Anyone looking to master social media marketing in a live online course setting would be a great fit for this course. If you’re able to attend the live class times, you’ll get to interact and engage in a way that isn’t possible on most other online courses.

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Hubspot Academy
Email Marketing Certification Course: Get Certified in Email Marketing

Intelligent Award: Best for Email

HubSpot Academy’s Email Certification Course is designed to make you an email marketing expert. The course teaches you everything you need to create an email marketing strategy that grows not only your business, but also your career as a whole. In this three-hour training, you learn practical tools and systems for building an email marketing campaign, as well as higher-level skills like building trust and forging a human connection with your audience.  By the end of the course, you’ll have a chance to apply what you’ve learned with HubSpot’s free email marketing tool.

• Price: Free
• Time to complete: 3 hours, 18 minutes
• Prerequisites required: No
• Flexible schedule: Yes
• Includes verified certificate of participation: No

Who should take this course? Anyone looking for a relatively short, free email marketing training would benefit from taking this course, especially if you intend to use HubSpot’s email services.

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Google Digital Garage
Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

Intelligent Award: Best for Beginners

Google’s Fundamentals of Digital Marketing course is a bundle of 26 modules created by Google trainers, geared specifically toward digital marketing beginners. While many other courses in this guide are best suited to digital marketers with some prior training and experience, Google’s course walks you through the fundamentals of digital marketing in an accessible, beginner-friendly way. The course design and platform are streamlined and user-friendly, and the range of topics covered includes everything from analytics and data insights, to e-commerce, to social media. This is truly a perfect comprehensive course for beginners. After completing the 26-module course, you take a final exam consisting of 40 questions. Once you pass, you receive a shareable certificate to showcase on your CV and LinkedIn profile.

• Price: Free
• Time to complete: 40 hours
• Prerequisites required: No
• Flexible schedule: Yes
• Includes verified certificate of participation: Yes, if you pass the final exam

Who should take this course? This course is perfect for anyone getting started with digital marketing. It’s free, comprehensive, user-friendly, accessible, and well-respected by industry professionals.

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Coursera
Digital Marketing Specialization

Intelligent Award: Best for Both Digital and Analog

Coursera’s Digital Marketing Specialization is a bundle of seven courses that provide an overview of the latest digital marketing skills, taught by industry experts. This is the only course included in this guide that features modules on both digital and analog marketing, so it’s good for students who want the flexibility to work inside and outside of the digital space. Course topics include marketing in a digital world, digital marketing analytics in theory, digital marketing analytics in practice, digital media and marketing principles, digital media and marketing strategies, marketing in an analog world, and finally a digital marketing capstone project where students put all of their new skills into practice. This specialization is part of the 100% online iMBA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; if you are admitted to the iMBA program, you can get credit for taking this specialization.

• Price: 7-day full access free trial; free to audit; $79 per month for verified track
• Time to complete: 8 months (5 hours per week)
• Prerequisites required: No
• Flexible schedule: No
• Includes verified certificate of participation: Yes, if you upgrade to the verified track

Who should take this course? Students who want the agility to market in both digital and analog spaces would benefit from this specialization. The specialization is also a good fit for students thinking about applying to the UIUC iMBA program, or for students who want the option to audit for free.

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Simplilearn
Digital Marketing Certification Training

Intelligent Award: Best Advanced Course

Simplilearn’s Digital Marketing Certification Training is an in-depth training program that culminates in Master’s certificates in all the sub-courses included in the program. This is a program that teaches advanced knowledge in SEO, content marketing, PPC, digital analytics, social media (with Facebook Blueprint Voucher), mobile marketing, and digital strategy. Unlike many other online courses, this one is built around live, interactive classes, which means it is potentially more engaging and personalized, but also potentially more difficult to fit into your schedule. In addition to the core certification courses, students can also choose to take electives in more specialized advanced areas.

• Price: $1499
• Time to complete: 1 year
• Prerequisites required: No
• Flexible schedule: No; courses are taught live on weekends
• Includes verified certificate of participation: Yes

Who should take this course? Serious digital marketers looking to gain advanced knowledge through live, interactive classes would be a great fit for this course. You need to be able to participate in live classes on the weekends for approximately three hours at a time.

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Udemy
Digital Marketing Course

Intelligent Award: Best for Platform-Specific Modules

Udemy’s Digital Marketing Course is a comprehensive bundle of 12 courses. Compared to other courses included in this guide, this one does a great job of breaking the program down into platform-specific modules. There are separate mini-courses on Facebook ads and Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, app, Quora, Twitter, and Youtube marketing. You also learn to make a website and navigate Google Ads. Each mini-course is broken down into bite-sized lectures under five minutes long, so the material is easily digestible and accessible. The whole course  features 22.5 hours of on-demand video, but the instructors recommend watching at 2x speed if you’re eager to complete the course in half the time. The material is self-paced and broken into sub-sections, so it’s easy to go at your pace and hop around to the mini-classes most interesting to you.

• Price: $129.99, or possibility of big discount
• Time to complete: 22.5 hours
• Prerequisites required: No
• Flexible schedule: Yes
• Includes verified certificate of participation: Yes

Who should take this course? Students who want to learn digital marketing strategies very specific to certain platforms and niches should take this course.

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Udacity
Digital Marketing Nanodegree

Intelligent Award: Best for Real-World Projects

Udacity’s Nanodegree in Digital Marketing is an extensive set of modules that teach you marketing fundamentals, content strategy, social media marketing, SEO, search engine marketing with Google Ads, display advertising, email marketing, and Google analytics. It’s a great all-around course that is beginner-friendly but also worthwhile for digital marketers with some experience. What separates this course from its peers is its focus on real-world, hands-on projects from industry experts. Udacity also offers career services to students, so you’ll have access to resume feedback, Github portfolio review, and LinkedIn profile optimization to help you make the best impression possible on current or future employers.

• Price: $1,017
• Time to complete: 3 months (10 hours per week)
• Prerequisites required: No
• Flexible schedule: Yes
• Includes verified certificate of participation: Yes

Who should take this course? This is an in-depth yet beginner-friendly course best suited to students who can commit to 10 hours per week for three months in order to launch a career in digital marketing. It’s great for hands-on learners and students who want to build a portfolio while learning.

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Online Marketing Course Comparison Chart

Tips for Succeeding in an Online Marketing Course

1. Consider the cost

How much do online marketing classes cost?

Online marketing course costs vary widely. You can expect to spend anywhere from $0 for a free course to upwards of $12,000 for a comprehensive course run by an elite business school. Most fee-based courses offer you the option of making payments in installments as opposed to upfront. Furthermore, some courses charge by the month for access, so the sooner you complete the course, the sooner you can stop paying the monthly fee. If you do not want or need a verified certificate at the completion of your course, then you can audit some courses for free.

Will my employer pay for me to take the course?

Employers often reimburse or help to subsidize the cost of professional development courses and programs for their employees. This is definitely something worth speaking to your boss or HR department about. It’s likely that your employer will be happy to cover, or at least subsidize, the cost of digital marketing training.

2. Get your tech squared away

The online marketing courses featured in this guide do not require any fancy software or programs. You can engage with all the course materials through your web browser. Your computer will need to be able to support streaming video, so you’ll want to make sure you have a fast, reliable wifi connection and at minimum, an i5-level processor and 8 GB of RAM.

3. Use the right study resources

Some of the courses included in this guide are geared towards established digital marketers. If you’re looking for beginner-friendly learning resources to engage with before or during your online marketing course(s), here are a few good places to start: Donald Miller’s book Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen and Jonah Berger’s book Contagious: Why Things Catch On.

Career Outlook for Online Marketing

The skills and strategies learned in an online marketing course can prepare you for a range of marketing-related careers, including content manager/strategist, SEO specialist, and digital marketing manager. In addition to taking one or more online courses, you’ll want to work on building a strong portfolio of work to showcase to potential employers. Below are additional jobs related to online marketing:

Social media strategist

Social media strategists or specialists create and implement quality content for their company’s or client’s social media outlets, such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. These individuals also spend considerable time monitoring and evaluating user engagement metrics via tools like Google Analytics and Hootsuite Pro. They use this data to make recommendations for improving campaigns, posts, customer interaction, etc. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median annual salary of $55,856 for social media strategists as of May 2021.

Email marketing specialist

Email marketing specialists develop and execute email campaigns to promote a company or organization’s products or services. This position involves creating engaging content that leads to action from readers (often a purchase or donation), performing market research, building emails from templates, optimizing content via hyperlinks, and scheduling dissemination. Specialists make an average of $68,363 annually, most commonly work for private marketing or in-house agencies, and have superb editing and proofreading skills.

Marketing copywriter

Copywriters produce clear and compelling text for a range of marketing materials and advertising channels. In addition to writing, copywriters must ensure that all content meets the style and brand standards of their employer or client and must have excellent editing and proofreading skills. Copywriters are also sometimes responsible for creating visual elements, such as infographics. Copywriters work in most employment sectors, from corporations to government, and earn an average annual salary of $56,592.

Market research analyst

Market research analysts gather and analyze data regarding customer preferences, business conditions, and other factors that can predict sales. They use this data to advise their employers about a product’s present or ideal market, buyer demographics, and price points. Analysts must have impressive skills in data analysis, information technology, and decision-making. In a field growing much faster than average at a rate of 19%, aspiring market research analysts can expect to earn a median salary of $63,920 per year.

Search engine optimization (SEO) specialist

SEO specialists research and analyze data to boost website traffic and search engine rankings. They achieve this by strategically incorporating frequently used keywords into websites and blogs. SEO specialists also focus on finding opportunities for link-building and paid search marketing campaigns. SEO specialists in the United States earn an average salary that ranges between $65,868 and $80,246 per year.

Educational requirements for careers in online marketing

Although many careers in online marketing require skills that individuals can learn on the job, a majority of employers prefer to hire candidates who hold a bachelor’s degree or, at the very least, an associate degree. Fortunately for individuals who earn degrees in other fields, a bachelor’s in any industry plus two or three marketing certifications is enough to make your resume competitive for entry-level marketing jobs. However, a lack of higher education — even with years of experience — may hinder a person’s chance of promotion to mid-level or senior management. In fact, many employers prefer to promote into management those with prestigious certifications or who are working on or have earned a master’s degree.

Frequently Asked Questions About Online Marketing Courses