As more and more business is conducted online, digital marketing strategies and techniques are becoming vital for businesses looking to succeed. Large and small businesses alike need to have a significant web presence if they hope to catch the attention of potential customers, and this means that digital marketing skills are vital for entrepreneurs and are in-demand job skills for prospective advertising professionals. Digital marketing covers a wide range of different skills, including advertising fundamentals, like how to design and execute a marketing campaign and tech skills such as how to collect and interpret user data, build webpages with SEO in mind, and utilize online-specific platforms and tools, like social media platforms or paid search marketing. Becoming certified in digital marketing is a good way to demonstrate your proficiency in these skills, build a portfolio of sample advertising campaigns and receive the experience you need to start running your own digital marketing plans.
Noble Desktop’s Digital Marketing Certificate
Key Information: This digital marketing certificate program is available in-person at Noble’s Manhattan campus or through live online instruction. The course takes one month of full-time study or six months of part-time study to complete. All students enrolled in the course can retake the program within one year, and students will receive one-on-one career mentorship from industry professionals.
Noble Desktop offers a comprehensive Digital Marketing Certificate program covering all major elements of designing and executing a digital advertising campaign. Students enrolled in this course will learn how to run actionable, multi-tiered advertising plans that account for traditional advertising techniques and unique affordances of the online space. Students will learn how to track and analyze user behavior using online marketing tools like SemRush or Google Analytics, how to design web content to improve search engine rankings, how to utilize tools like Google Ads and Amazon Web Services and how to market on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. During this program, students will work with a variety of tools and on a range of different platforms to build robust, multi-level marketing plans that they can easily tailor to their individual goals. Students will also learn how to be responsive in their marketing campaigns so that they can make changes to the plan as the marketing campaign develops.
This course aims to provide students with hands-on, practical experience that they can take into the real-world, either as professional Digital Marketers or as entrepreneurs running their own online marketing campaigns. Students will work with practical case studies that mirror real-world marketing campaigns and learn actionable skills for improving things like SEO and web traffic. Students will learn how to devise multiple facets of a marketing campaign, including building email marketing campaigns, re-design websites for optimized engagement, and working with paid search advertising services. This complete and practical digital marketing education will prepare students for running virtually every aspect of their advertising plans.
Students can enroll to complete this certificate program in a full-time program lasting one month or a part-time program lasting six months. Students can attend the course online or at Noble’s state-of-the-art Manhattan campus, depending on their location and preference. Regardless of the modality of instruction, students will receive live training from digital marketing experts who can provide them with assistance and feedback in real-time. This will ensure that students remain on top of their work and can easily keep up with course content. Students can also work with a cohort of like-minded colleagues with whom they can network and collaborate. The course comes with a free retake within one year of completion so that students can get even more hands-on experience in digital marketing concepts, and since this is a career-focused training program, many of the lessons focus on practical professional development. Students will attend a portfolio development seminar to help them prepare their job materials, and they will receive one-on-one career mentorship that they can use to help ease difficulties in their job search.
Noble Desktop Social Media Marketing Certificate
Key Information: This professional skills development certificate program can be taken in-person or online and is offered as a full-time one-month program or a part-time three-month program. Students enrolled in the course will receive a professional development certificate, one-on-one career mentorship sessions, and the option to retake the course for free within one year.
Students looking to hone more specific digital marketing skills may want to consider a course like Noble Desktop’s Social Media Marketing Certificate program. In this course, students will learn the strategies and techniques to consider when running an online marketing campaign on social media platforms. This will cover everything from designing digital content to share on Facebook to working with content creators and online personalities to integrate your products into their channels. This course will teach students how to design a social media marketing campaign and tailor aspects of that campaign to the affordances of different platforms. In addition, students will learn how to use the advertiser-focused tools, like the Facebook Marketplace, that individual platforms offer to entice marketers to use their platforms.
This course covers various social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, and X (formerly known as Twitter). Each platform appeals to a different audience, and those engage with the platform in different ways, so smart Social Media Marketers will understand how to build a campaign with these differences in mind. For example, advertising on Instagram may require marketers to work directly with influencers, which works well for many consumer products but less so for some services. YouTube content may be produced with in-video advertising in mind, which will require marketers to understand the viewing habits of their target audience. Facebook, X, and Instagram can all help brands build community identity. Once students understand these platforms and how audiences engage with them, they can build more robust and successful marketing campaigns.
Students enrolled in a course with Noble Desktop can choose to take the course full-time or part-time, and they can attend in-person at Noble’s Manhattan campus or in a live, digital classroom. Regardless of the delivery model, students will receive top-quality instruction from digital marketing experts who can guide them through their lessons and provide feedback on their work. This live instruction model will help ensure that students do not fall behind in their work, and it can provide students with practical and immediate guidance when they start to experience difficulties. Since this is a career-focused course, students will work on practical, professional development projects, including building a social media marketing portfolio and receiving one-on-one career coaching that can cover everything from interview preparation to job search assistance. Students who complete the course can retake the program within one year, giving them more time to practice their social media marketing skills.
Meta Digital Marketing Associate Certification Exam
Key Information: This certification exam demonstrates students' proficiency with advertising techniques applied to Meta platforms like Facebook. This 90-minute exam covers advertising fundamentals and Meta-specific concerns, and students who pass the exam will be certified for two years. No training is included, but Meta does offer a study guide and practice exam.
Meta offers a range of professional certification exams for students, marketers, and businesses looking to work with the Facebook platform professionally. Among these exams is the Digital Marketing Associate Certification, demonstrating that a test-taker has the skills to design and run an advertising campaign on Meta platforms, including Facebook. This exam is designed for entry-level job seekers and students who want to demonstrate their specific skills in working with tools like Facebook. The exam covers a student’s knowledge of the technical and legal aspects of Meta advertising and practical applications of their knowledge for designing and building marketing campaigns. Students taking the exam will be tested on privacy policies and data collection, target audiences and direct advertising tools, and optimizing Meta solutions. This practical exam will demonstrate a student’s knowledge of Meta and Facebook's specific affordances and structures as digital advertising platforms.
This is an entry-level proficiency exam, and students will have 90 minutes to complete their test. Questions cover five sections: establishing an online presence, designing content, and advertising fundamentals. Meta offers a study guide and a practice exam for students preparing to complete the test. Certification lasts two years after a student passes the exam, at which point students will need to retake the exam. Meta offers additional exams for students looking to demonstrate advanced proficiency with the platform or, more specifically, advertising and digital marketing professional skills.
Google Analytics Certification
Key Information: This is a brief, three-hour study tool for students looking to become certified in the Google Analytics application. This is a beginner-friendly program that provides students with a baseline overview of the common questions that the Google certification exam covers.
Offered through the Udemy digital learning platform, Google offers a Google Analytics Certification program for students looking to learn how to use the program in their digital marketing campaigns. This certification exam prepares students to work with the Google Analytics tool for collecting and analyzing data and making practical recommendations and marketing decisions based on that data. Google Analytics is an important tool for anyone looking to monitor web traffic or build online content with SEO considerations. It is one of the most commonly used business intelligence tools in the industry, and it is invaluable for anyone looking to ensure that their online marketing campaigns are working in full force. This industry-recognized certification is an ideal starting point for students looking to learn digital marketing skills.
This particular assistance course offers three hours of preparatory materials and a 100-question practice exam for students to prepare for Google’s certification exam. This course covers content for the exam and test-taking strategies for students hoping to maximize their chance of passing the certification exam. The course aims to assist students without prior analytics experience looking for a quick introduction to the tool's basic functions.
CareerFoundry: Digital Marketing Program
Key Information: This asynchronous certificate program aims to provide students with a comprehensive, career-focused digital marketing education. Students can complete the course at their own pace, though CareerFoundry anticipates it taking four months for full-time students and seven months for part-time students. CareerFoundry offers a money-back job guarantee.
CareerFoundry’s Digital Marketing Program is a comprehensive, career-focused, asynchronous certificate program that gives students the flexibility they need to build digital marketing career skills at their own pace. This beginner-friendly course requires no background in digital marketing, so students will start by learning the fundamentals of online advertising. The first portion of the course covers foundational skills such as using marketing analytics tools, creating digital content, and understanding and shaping your brand’s identity. Then, students will enter the digital marketing immersive portion of the course and work on a collection of focused, hands-on marketing projects to train skills like building content with SEO in mind, branding on social media, and performance marketing. By the end of the program, students will have a complete portfolio of sample marketing campaigns and materials that they can take onto the job market.
As an asynchronous program, students enrolled in this course will be free to learn at their own pace, though they will be assigned an expert mentor and tutor with whom they can work and who will provide them with guidance and feedback. CareerFoundry estimates that students who work full-time on their certificate (40 hours a week) will complete the program in approximately four months while part-time students (15-20 hours a week) will finish in about seven months. In addition to one-on-one mentorship sessions and career coaching, CareerFoundry offers a jobs guarantee as part of the program. Students who meet engagement requirements and do not find a job in the digital marketing field within six months of successfully completing the course will be eligible to receive their money back.
Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies: Digital Marketing Strategy Bootcamp
Key Information: This part-time, live online digital marketing certificate program is a 12-week program offered through the Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies. Students enrolled in this program will receive one-on-one career mentorship, meet with Georgetown alumni and have access to employee information sessions to help them find a career in digital marketing.
Georgetown offers a part-time, live online Digital Marketing Strategy Bootcamp for students learning digital marketing fundamentals and best practices. In this course, students will receive expert instruction in practical digital marketing skills such as developing multi-channel advertising strategies, calculating ROI on digital marketing plans, and pitching digital marketing strategies to invested stakeholders. Students will also learn important soft skills like analytical and critical thinking, opportunity identification, and ethical online marketing practices. This program blends lectures, hands-on activities, and collaborative workshops to help students get a feel for all the major aspects of digital marketing. The course concludes with a personalized capstone project that students can take onto the job market to demonstrate their talents and abilities.
This career-focused training program lasts twelve weeks and runs on Friday evenings and Saturdays. Students will be able to work with Georgetown faculty and meet with alumni in career development workshops and employee information sessions. Students will be paired with a career coaching mentor who will provide them with one-on-one assistance, including mock job interviews, resume-building workshops, and cover letter support. Students will also get access to Georgetown’s CRM job listing system to help put them in direct contact with prospective employers. Once they complete the program, students will receive a certificate of completion from Georgetown University and be prepared to enter the workforce as professional Digital Marketers.
University of North Carolina: Digital Marketing Bootcamp
Key Information: This part-time, live online bootcamp teaches students the foundational principles of digital marketing. UNC’s 18-week program has students attending three courses a week, completing homework assignments and attending career development workshops. Students receive one-on-one career coaching and can apply for micro-internships through a partnership with Dewey-Parker.
The University of North Carolina offers an immersive online Digital Marketing Bootcamp for students looking to start a new career in online advertising. This course will teach students hands-on experience working with common digital marketing tools and platforms, including Google Ads and Analytics, Facebook, and WordPress. Students will learn brand-building techniques and practice marketing fundamentals and strategies in a free introductory pre-course. Then, students will learn how to design digital marketing campaigns and how to optimize those campaigns for specific audiences, platforms, and search engines. The course covers creative marketing skills, like brand management and data analytics tools and skills that digital marketers use to optimize their workflow. This course aims to provide students with an understanding of both major aspects of digital marketing in an effort to prepare them to work in the field.
This course runs for 18 weeks and is a part-time program that requires students to attend three-hour classes in the evenings each week. Students will learn in live online classrooms that bring the expertise of UNC-Chapel Hill faculty into students’ homes. This is a career-focused training program, so students will benefit from practical, real-world instruction in which they design and create digital marketing campaigns that they can add to their job application materials. Enrolled students can work one-on-one with a UNC career coach who can help them build job materials, prep for interviews, or simply answer questions that are giving students trouble. Thanks to a partnership with Parker-Dewey, enrolled students can also receive micro-internships, where real-world clients pay them to produce sample digital marketing material, which can provide students with invaluable assistance in the early stages of their careers.
Digital Marketing Institute: Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing
Key Information: This self-paced, asynchronous digital marketing certificate program teaches students comprehensive digital advertising skills. Students will have the flexibility to work at their own pace, and they will have access to live webinars and Q&A sessions to receive feedback and assistance. The program comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
The Digital Marketing Institute offers a range of courses for aspiring Digital Marketers, including a Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing. This online course covers a wide range of digital marketing skills, including content creation, brand management, search engine and webpage optimization, and tools like Google Analytics. This course is aimed at aspiring advertisers hoping to specialize in digital marketing, entrepreneurs hoping to market their own businesses and marketing professionals looking to improve their skill set. This industry-recognized training program will provide students with all of the necessary instruction to start new careers in digital marketing, brand management or social media marketing. In addition to the course material, students who enroll in the class will receive future access to any modifications made to these training seminars.
This is a self-paced, asynchronous course that includes live webinar and one-on-one Q&A sessions. This means that students will learn at their own pace but they will have the opportunity to meet with advisors and instructors to receive personalized feedback on their work and assistance on their progress through the course. Over 200,000 students have utilized this platform to build their job skills and the program offers a 14-day money back guarantee for students who are not satisfied with the instruction. DMI reports that over 81% of graduates were promoted upon completion of the course and over half of all graduates saw a meaningful increase in salary. The self-paced nature of the course gives students flexibility in their training and the course consists of ten, distinct modules, each touching on a different element of digital marketing.
Thinkful: Digital Marketing BootcampÂ
Key Information: This asynchronous digital marketing certificate program offers students professional training in online marketing skills. The service provider anticipates that students who commit 15-20 hours per week will complete the course in about three months. The course is entirely on-demand, though students can work with live instructors during office hours and one-on-one mentorship sessions.
Thinkful’s Digital Marketing Bootcamp is a flexible, part-time, career-focused training program for students seeking a new career as professional Digital Marketers. Students will learn about the current and potential future of the digital marketing landscape, and they will learn how to take that knowledge and apply it to practical online marketing campaigns. This program covers training to help students succeed in specialized digital marketing career paths, including social media marketing, email marketing, brand management, and SEO management. This course is an ideal place for beginners to learn the basics of digital marketing or for marketing professionals to expand their skills and receive hands-on practical experience working with the kinds of technical tools that empower online marketing campaigns.
This asynchronous program is designed to let students learn at their own pace. In addition to pre-recorded video lectures and hands-on exercises, students can take advantage of private office hours during which they can ask questions and receive feedback on their work from digital marketing professionals. Since this is a self-paced course, students can work as much or as little as they want at any given time, but Thinkful estimates that students who work part-time (15-20 hours a week) will complete the course in about three months. In addition to course content, students will have access to personalized career coaching, one-on-one and a tuition refund guarantee for students actively seeking employment as Digital Marketers.Â
General Assembly: Digital Marketing Immersive
Key Information: Offered in-person or online, this flexible digital marketing course runs in one-week full-time sessions or ten-week part-time sessions. Students will work directly with real professional clients in the P&G Venture start-up studio, and they will receive support and assistance from professional career coaches.
General Assembly offers a certificate-granting Digital Marketing course through live online or in-person instruction. In this course, students will learn how to design and execute online marketing campaigns that improve brand awareness, increase engagement and drive traffic toward optimized webpages and applications. Students will learn how to build these campaigns by engaging with real-world case studies and a partnership with Proctor and Gamble ventures. This real-world, practical experience will be a massive boon for students looking to work in a professional digital marketing studio or want to market their own businesses online. The course has no prerequisites though General Assembly does offer self-paced introductory lessons for new students to help them become familiar with basic marketing concepts.
This course offers options for one-week full-time training or part-time training spread over ten weeks. This gives students more flexibility in their training options and lets them learn at a pace that accommodates their schedule. This is a career-focused training program, and in addition to working with real corporate clients, students will receive one-on-one career coaching from General Assembly’s expert instructors, and they will work on building a portfolio of sample projects and campaigns that they can take with them onto the job market.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Difference Between a Certificate and a Certification?
Students looking through this list may be surprised to learn that certificates and certifications are different from one another, and they represent different ways of demonstrating your digital marketing proficiency. While they are both ways of becoming certified, students earn them differently and need different qualifications to earn them. Certifications are awarded to students who pass proctored exams that test their theatrical and practical digital marketing skills and are usually offered by first-party service providers like Google, Meta, or Amazon Web Services. These exams tend to test a user’s knowledge of specific tools (so you’ll become Google Ads certified, for example), and since they are exams, they test a student’s existing knowledge of the application. This means that few certification exams come with direct skills instruction, though many will come with study materials. Many certifications expire after a fixed period of time, meaning professionals will need to become recertified every so often.
Certificates are like diplomas given to students who graduate from industry-recognized training providers. Unlike certification exams, these programs are often designed with beginners in mind and provide students with comprehensive skills training. In essence, a certification exam tests knowledge a student already has, and a certificate program is a place where students can gain that knowledge. Certificate programs are significantly longer and more expensive than certification exams, but they do not expire and may provide students with practical career support.
Do I Need to Become Certified to Find a Job?
While this will vary from position to position, for the most part, it is not a requirement that Digital Marketers become certified in any given tool (though a subset of job offerings may require employees to become certified if they are dealing with private customer data). However, becoming certified in digital marketing skills and applications is a good way to set yourself apart from other potential candidates in the eyes of prospective employers. Certificate courses often help students build job materials, and passing a certification exam can be a quick and effective way to build your resume and establish your credentials.
Should I Take a Certification Exam or Enroll in a Certificate Program?
This will mostly depend on how much digital marketing experience you have and what your long-term goals are with your digital marketing skills. Students with substantial experience in digital marketing, either through professional development courses or on-the-job training, will likely want to sit for a certification exam since it will cover the material they already know. Students without a significant background in digital marketing or wanting to build their skills will want to enroll in a certificate program. In addition, students looking to use their digital marketing skills to advertise their own businesses or products will want to enroll in a certificate program since they wouldn’t be using their certifications to find a job with another company.
Which Certificate Program is Right for Me?
Students who decide to enroll in a certificate program will then need to decide exactly what kind of certificate program is best for them. While every student learns differently, a few common affordances of different training modalities can help students make a more informed decision about the training they want to pursue. Students will need to decide if they want to enroll in an in-person or online course, and they will need to choose between live, on-demand or hybrid classes.
Which is Better: In-Person or Online?
With recent developments in online education and improvements in internet connectivity, more and more service providers are offering robust online training courses. Students can receive high-quality training in small digital classrooms, and they will be able to benefit from almost all of the affordances of a live classroom environment. This means that online courses should no longer be considered lesser than in-person courses, and students should instead consider the advantages and disadvantages of each delivery method before enrolling.
Students often prefer in-person training classes because the classroom space helps them focus on the material and direct their attention toward their instructor. They can also receive more immediate support and feedback since instructors have greater freedom to interact with students and their materials directly. In addition, many students find that being in the same space as their classmates can help them learn more effectively and provide opportunities for collaboration and networking. The drawback to these courses is that because they are in-person, students will be limited to enrolling in courses they can physically attend, which can be limiting for students who don’t live near major metropolitan areas.
Online training courses give students the ability to work from anywhere in the country, provided that they have access to the internet. This means that students will be able to choose the class whose schedule and delivery system work best for them rather than the ones that are available in their area. Students can work from their home office and learn on the devices they may expect to do much of their work on, which can be a boon. The drawback to these classes is that students will need to do more work to keep themselves engaged with the material and may need to take extra steps to receive assistance from their instructors.
Which is Better: Live or On-Demand?
The other major difference between courses is how they are scheduled and how students attend those classes. The two major modalities are live classes, which are taught in private digital classrooms in real-time and on-demand classes, which consist of individual course materials and pre-recorded content that students can study and engage with on their own time. Hybrid systems will include a bit of each kind of content, though they tend to be on-demand classes with a smattering of in-person seminars. Live classes are the best option for students looking for a comprehensive education, while on-demand classes are better suited for introductory students or students who need a lot of flexibility in their scheduling.
On-demand classes allow students to build their own schedules and work around their personal commitments. This can be important for students who can’t spend consistent time working during any given week or who need to shift from full-time to part-time regularly. Students enrolled in these courses will, however, not have access to live instructors who can help guide them through difficult concepts or offer them assistance when they run into issues with some element of the course materials, which can make the training process take even longer than it is already set to take. Students may also run into issues with course content, especially content pertaining to digital marketing tools and platforms, since these applications update frequently enough to make course content outdated, even if it is coming from a highly reputable training provider.
Live courses offer all of the benefits of working in a classroom without commuting to a training center. Students can engage with their instructors directly, receive feedback on their work and be confident that the materials they are working with are up-to-date. Students will be able to receive guided instruction and receive hands-on support as they learn the ins and outs of digital marketing. Even though these courses tend to be longer and more expensive, students' long-term earning potential will increase since the courses are provided industry-recognized support and training. Some students may need to enroll in on-demand classes to handle scheduling concerns, but students with the option to take a full-time or part-time live training course should seriously consider that option.