You Ask, I Answer: Free Digital Marketing Courses?

In today's episode, Isabel asks, I'm sheltering in place in the Bay Area. Thought it would be a good time to up my skills to an online class, specifically in digital advertising, but also digital marketing in general. I work at a nonprofit theater, so I'm looking for very practical stuff to help our small team, assuming we are able to weather this crisis, but maybe also certification in case I need to start looking for a job soon. Any suggestions would be helpful. This is a great time to do some skilling up.

This is a great time to uh to use that uh uh shelter in place to uh invest in your education. So there are five sets of courses that I recommend that you take in order to level up your skills. So let's uh let's bring this up here. Uh the first, of course, is Google Ads Academy, uh, which is Google's training for their search ads, their display ads, their shopping ads, uh video ads, and um well, Google Gmail ads, uh, pretty much anything that Google offers in terms of advertising, you can take through this series of courses. It is completely free, uh, and you can learn how to use all the different pieces and parts of the of their platform.

You can see that you know, it's Google My Business, AdMob, all that stuff. So there's a ton to get through, all free of charge, and there are certifications that are available afterwards, so you can get your certification uh in Google uh ads. The second, of course, that I strongly encourage everyone to take is the Analytics Academy, again from Google, again, all free. I would suggest that most people take uh analytics for beginners, advanced analytics, uh, analytics for power users, intro to data studio, and tag manager fundamentals. If you're at an organization that uses Google Analytics 360, you can take that course, but there are features that are not available to regular Google Analytics users.

So if you're not paying the uh reassuringly expensive fees for Analytics 360, you don't need to take that course. And again, there is a certification from Google for Google Analytics, the Google Analytics individual qualification is a an excellent certification. Third suggestion is HubSpot Academy. HubSpots Academy has uh a whole bunch of different uh training courses you can get uh through. Let's go actually HubSpot Academy uh HubSpot.com and their courses they have marketing sales service tutorials, and it's all of course uh heavily leans on the HubSpot platform.

Uh but uh if you some of them I think are are actually pretty decent uh for people in general to to take, and there are certifications again for each of these. HubSpot certifications are in my opinion easier to get through than Google's. Google is extremely rigorous, and uh somebody who goes through uh HubSpot may not be as knowledgeable about the the finer workings of the platform as uh someone, for example, who went through Analytics Academy, should know the finer workings of Google Analytics. That said, uh HubSpot has a ton of certifications. So uh if you are uh somebody who has like 15 of these, then clearly you're dedicated to it and and you're willing to invest in yourself.

The fourth, of course, YouTube Creator Academy. This is a great uh set of resources for learning YouTube, and you can learn uh all of the pieces of how to use YouTube video, not just for advertising purposes, but in general. Uh so you there of course is the ad side, but also how to make the most of your YouTube channel. It's a great set of uh online courses, again, all free. And finally, of course, uh, if you want to learn the Facebook ecosystem, there's Facebook Blueprint.

Uh Blueprint is, again, uh a very large uh set of courses that you can go through. Um and you can see for running pages, running Instagram ads, things like that, and uh Facebook also does have its own certification. Uh it is a fairly rigorous certification, so uh what's worth doing. All of these courses, the courses themselves are all completely free. Uh there is no charge, you just have to sign in with your information, give give away your your digital identity as as as you would expect.

Um that said, uh they're worth doing in the order that that to do them. I would say it depends on your organization. If your organization leans heavily into Facebook and Instagram, Facebook Blueprint probably would be the best place to start. If you are in B2B and you want to learn uh more on the CRM side, HubSpot Academy would be a great place to start. Uh if you are in general marketing and you don't feel strong about your analytics skills, Google Analytics Academy.

Uh if your organization has said that video is a priority for this year, go to YouTube Creator Academy. So it really depends on the the needs of your organization. But uh they're all worth doing, they're all worth going through just even just to get the background knowledge, uh, and they are all free. So there's there's no excuse not to do them. In terms of the value of the certifications, uh, like I said, certifications are uh they're like any standard, right?

They are a minimum uh certification of competence. Uh they are not indic indicative of your expertise. They don't obviously you don't get any practical experience uh or dealing with real-world problems, but you do at least have the academic knowledge. So it's kind of like a college diploma. Uh good if you have it.

Uh don't overpay for it in the case of college, in this in this case not a problem. Um but it doesn't guarantee results. It just guarantees that you have the willingness and the initiative to go out and get the thing and spend the time uh investing in yourself. And that's that in itself is a good personality marker. So uh if you're wondering about the value of these certifications and courses, yeah, having them means that you uh willingly invested in yourself because there's a good chance your employer's not asking to do all five of these.

Uh and as with all uh displays of dedication, uh, the more you do the better for this sort of thing. So if you have an analytics academy certification, your your GAIQ and your Google Ads certification and your HubSpot uh Academy certifications and uh Facebook uh blueprint certification, that says two things to a future employer. One, you've got a good academic knowledge base, two, you really like online courses. So um but good question. Take the certifications, uh the ones you like, uh the ones that you think are gonna be the best skills going forward.

Um I think all five are worth doing. Uh really do. Facebook's not going anywhere, despite uh some wishes otherwise. Uh YouTube's not going anywhere, Google's not going anywhere, HubSpot's not going anywhere anytime soon. So uh take the courses and enjoy them.

Enjoy your uh ability to focus and and and use the time uh well. So great questions, a great plan, good initiative to advance yourself in this time. Uh if you have follow-up questions, please leave them in the comments box below. Subscribe to the YouTube channel and the newsletter, and I'll talk to you soon. Take care.

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