A Complete Guide to Choosing The Best Digital Marketing Course

The Covid-19 virus has become a global pandemic around the world. Many countries such as Italy, China, and Malaysia have issued a Home-quarantine for its citizens and they are not allowed to leave their house for a few weeks until the virus has been contained.

Being Home-quarantined can be boring as there are only so many things one can do at home. You can be on Netflix the whole day OR you could use the extra time to learn a new skill! I would rather you do the latter, therefore, I have compiled a list of Free Digital Marketing Courses that you can go through during this period if you are interested!

The list that I have compiled are skills that I feel are essential for every digital marketer and I hope this brings value to you!

1. Facebook Blueprint
   
   With almost 2.5 Billion users around the world, Facebook is the biggest social network in the world. It is no surprise why many Brands and Companies are competing amongst each other to show ads to users on Facebook.However, Facebook’s advertising platform has many technical aspects which can be a steep learning curve for new digital marketers. On the surface, it may seem very easy to use Facebook’s Ad Manager. But to use it effectively would require much learning and practice.With Facebook’s Pixel, offline conversion events and dynamic catalog ads, running Facebook ads may not be as easy as it seems. Therefore, Facebook has created a course for Digital Marketers like us to learn from!The lessons are on Facebook and there are various sets of lessons from it. There are also certifications you could take such as the Facebook Certified digital marketing associate to being the Facebook Certified Creative Strategy Professional. The certification of the course would require payment but the learning of the online courses are free!You can access the Facebook Ads lesson by clicking this link!If you would prefer coaching on Facebook Ads, I do provide Facebook ads training on how to run ads on Facebook as well as the best practices. Do drop me a message if you are interested!
2. Google Ad
   https://skillshop.withgoogle.com/
   Google Ads are the Bread & Butter for every digital marketer. Inside Google’s Ecosystem of Ads, there are a bunch of different types it serves. From Display Ads, Search Ads, Youtube Ads, and the latest Discovery Ads, Google’s platform of various types of ads expands the ad inventory where Digital Marketers can advertise on.
   
   Google is an advocate for learning. Therefore, they have also provided free learning resources for Digital Marketers to learn how to use their platform. Similar to Facebook, Google also provides certification for its various ad platforms where you can be officially certified to use Google Adwords by Google. It brings credibility to your portfolio as a Digital Marketer.
   
   I would highly recommend going through each and every course for the various Google Ad platforms. It helps you understand how to optimize the ads on each Ad platform better for better results.
   
   If you would like to take the courses that Google provides, you can click on the link here!
3. Google Analytics
   https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/Google Analytics(GA) is essential for any website. It is a free tool developed by Google that helps to monitor the Website traffic and the performance of it. GA also helps to create and target website visitors that have been on your website.GA is used together with Google Ads to help retarget audiences through the ads. Setting goals and having different views on GA also helps with organising the data you have on your website. It gives a better overview of your website’s performance in terms of where they are dropping off and the types of audience.There are many possibilities and data points which you can extract from Google Analytics. Therefore, this course is also highly recommended as it would be essential for the use of Google Ads.The GA courses are split into Beginners and Advanced Analytics. There are also many other courses included in the Analytics Academy. The beginner course is fairly easy to follow and there is also a hands-on section where you get to practice and click on the different parts of GA. So if you don’t have a website to install GA on, this course would not be an issue as they would provide the account for you to practice on.To learn more about the Google Analytics course, you can click on this link here!
4. Google Tag Manager
   
   https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/course/5
   
   Measuring and reporting how well a marketing campaign does is essential for any marketer. Data-driven campaigns are proven to have much better performance and Return on investment (ROI) as compared to those without any tracking on their campaign performance. According to a Forbes article, the collection of data from the marketing campaign allows insights on how the campaign can be further optimized and improved.
   
   To be able to track your website effectively, Google Tag Manager is one of the best tools to track and collect data from your website. From being able to track every page view to every button clicked on the site. Google Tag Manager helps to ensure better tracking and retargeting of audiences. Therefore, I would highly recommend learning Google Tag manager for tagging each button on your website for better remarketing of audiences for your marketing campaigns.
   
   Google tag manager is also good for e-commerce sites and you would be able to track each add to cart button and also what products are viewed on each page.
   
   Google has also a course to learn the basics of Google Tag Manager. However, I would recommend that you put into practice how it is used. A more hands-on approach would be better for learning Google Tag manager as you would be more familiar with how to set it up.
   
   Here’s the link to the Google Tag Manager course!
5. Google Data Studio
   
   https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/course/10
   
   Google Data Studio is a Data visualization tool that helps take the data you have on various platforms and place it on a map or graph. It also helps to keep track of the performance of your marketing efforts from the various different platforms all in one place.
   
   It is also a good reporting tool for clients if you are running a marketing agency and require a free tool for weekly/monthly reports. It is a highly recommended tool to use if you are running various ads on different platforms. 
   
   And guess what! Google also has a free course on how to use the Data Studio platform. The course only covers the basic introduction of using Data studios and building your first report. But it is a good start and first step into using the Data Studio Platform.
   
   You can start your Data Visualisation Journey here!
   
   Conclusion
   Google has a whole ecosystem of free marketing tools to use. From Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and Google’s Data Studio. The best part is, they also provide free courses on these platforms. It helps digital marketers who are willing to put in the effort to improve their digital marketing skills.
   
   In addition, Facebook also has these courses for free and although it is not mandatory to take the certification, it would be good for clients to know that you have been certified by Facebook to run ads. It elevates your credibility.
   
   So that’s it! Instead of watching a show on Netflix, these are the few courses that you can go through during the stay-home lockdown period.
   
   Hope this article brings value to you and see you in the next post!