5 Top Free Digital Marketing Courses with Certificate (Updated 2023)

Digital Marketing refers to the usage of internet or online-based technology in order to undertake marketing for a specific product or service. Online marketing or Digital Marketing is one of the most important skills required today. There are free digital marketing courses that can help you get started on your journey.

The marketing ecosystem is changing at a fast pace due to the rapid adoption of the internet and online medium for the consumption of information by consumers. As a result, businesses across the world are competing for consumer’s attention on several online platforms like search engines and social media websites. With the evolving technologies and mobile becoming a preferred medium for consumption of information, entertainment, and engagement by consumers, Digital Marketing skills are more important than ever.

Digital marketing experts earn an average annual salary of over $73,935 (Rs 53 lakh!) in the United States. Social media marketing, Pay-Per-Click, analytics, and search engine optimization (SEO) experts are few other specializations that one can aim to achieve in the field of digital marketing. In fact, bloggers and YouTubers also have opportunities to write and create vlogs for digital platforms.

Digital Marketers are responsible for marketing businesses on digital platforms. Digital Marketers understand the behavior and nature of digital platforms like search engines, websites, and social media platforms and are able to market products and services of the company/clients in an effective manner which results in better cost-effectiveness and impact.

To understand and master Digital Marketing, one can either look at taking expensive courses that are offered by specialized trainers and institutions. Alternatively, you can also start taking small steps and have a look at the following free courses that are offered online. The best part is you also get a certificate on completing most of them. Here are the 5 Top Free Digital Marketing Courses (with Certificate):

5 Top Free Digital Marketing Courses with Certificate:

1. Google Digital Unlocked: Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

The Google Digital Unlocked platform is one of the best for digital marketing courses. It has been designed by Google in order to promote the growth of digital marketing and create awareness among the people. To state the obvious, Google is the world leader when it comes to search engines. Hence, it makes a lot of sense for Google to ensure that more people are interested in learning about Digital Marketing. Under the Google Digital Unlocked platform, the course named ‘Fundamentals of Digital Marketing’ is offered completely free of cost and comes with a certificate of completion which is subject to passing the final test.

This course covers all the technical aspects and gives an overview about the basic concepts and terms used in digital marketing. It is a good platform which has been designed by Google to give an overview to an aspiring digital marketer or a start-up entrepreneur so that he/she gets some level of understanding with how the digital world works. The course has been divided into 26 modules which are largely video lessons which last for approximately 40 hours.

2. HubSpot Academy: Inbound Marketing

HubSpot became popular largely because of its software that helps in managing multiple marketing campaigns on various digital platforms. At the same time, HubSpot is equally famous for its online learning platform – HubSpot Academy – that has helped millions of marketers understand the concept of digital in an easy to understand manner.

The platform, like Google Digital Unlocked, offers multiple courses but the course on Inbound Marketing is one of the most famous ones that is found on this platform. The pattern of the course is quite similar to other free tutorials – the user is expected to complete the video modules and appear for a final test. The test would include multiple choice questions and the student would get 60 minutes to answer. The students need to score at least 50% to get the certificate from HubSpot.

3. Google Ads Certification

Another one coming from the Google family. To become a successful digital marketer, one has to go beyond mere placement of advertisements and posts on search engines and social media. A deep understanding of how these platforms work when it comes to ad placement is required in order to increase the cost effectiveness and impact of the campaign. Addressing this need, Google Ads Certification offers 6 types of free certification course programs on the Google Skillshop platform.

The certificate programs include components like Search, Display, Shopping, Video, Measurement and Apps certification. Each of these certificate program is around 40 hours long on an average and the student is expected to appear for the final exam online before claiming the certificate. For completion of each of these modules, Google will award with you with a certificate. For instance, if you have completed the Search module, you would be awarded with the Google Ads Search Certification and so on.

4. LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn is the leading professional networking platform. As part of its offerings, LinkedIn has developed its learning platform as LinkedIn Learning. This platform has over 16,000 different courses on offer.

This online learning platform offers its courses on a monthly subscription basis, and the users need to pay for the subscription fee each month to access various products offered by this social media platform.

Don’t feel bad. There is a way out. The first month is free! So if you sign up for a trial and complete as many courses in the trial month, you would receive the certificates for the courses that you have completed. Isn’t that great?

5. Google Analytics Academy

And Google is back. We are not being biased but Google has developed some of the most impressive free certification programs available on the web as on date. The best part of being a good digital marketer is not creating awesome creatives that will overwhelm the consumer, it is also to look at the hard numbers and understand what is working, what is not and what can be made better and what can be done away with among other things.

The Google Analytics Academy comes last on our list because one needs to have a basic understanding of digital concepts and terms before taking on this one. There is a beginner level and an advance level test respectively and as usual, you get your certificate after passing the test.

Conclusion

The above-list includes the best resources available on the web today that provide you with a free certificate. Who says there are no free lunches!

In case you want more resources, you can always refer to our list of top digital marketing books available in the market.

So go on, select any or all of the above mentioned courses and dive deep into the world of digital marketing. Let us know in case you have any queries in comments!