Digital marketing can open you up to all sorts of new doors; it could bring you that much-needed new job, expose you to more customers and possible business opportunities, or maybe it could just be a good way of learning the definition of all that SEO and all that PPC stuff.

But the problem here is that there are so many courses available. Every second advertisement on Instagram is full of promises of what you can know within 7 days. Signing up to the wrong thing is simple enough, or falling down the research rabbit hole and never in fact doing anything.

The “best” course may not be the one with the most glamorous title or a higher fee. It is the one that suits your ambitions, your own timetable, and let us be frank: the one you will last out.

Know Why You’re Doing It

Why do you even need to learn digital marketing in the first place? This is a question that you ought to answer even before you look at any course.

If you’re:

• Trying to switch careers → you’ll want something broad, covering SEO, social media, ads, email, analytics — the works.
• Running your own thing → go for a course that focuses on the channels you’ll actually use. (If you’re a local bakery, you probably don’t need an entire module on LinkedIn ads.)
• Just adding skills for your job → you might be fine with a 4–6 hour course that focuses on one area.

Getting clear on this saves you from buying a 12-week boot camp when all you really wanted was to learn how to run Facebook ads.

Check Who’s Teaching It

Here’s the thing: anyone can create a “digital marketing masterclass” and stick it online. But do they actually know what they’re talking about?

A good sign is if the instructor has:

• Worked with real brands (and can talk about the results)
• Shared case studies or examples from actual campaigns
• Updated their content recently,  marketing changes fast, and a 2019 SEO course might as well be from the Stone Age
  

Pro tip: see if they have free stuff on YouTube or LinkedIn. Watch a video or two; if you like their teaching style there, you’ll probably enjoy their paid course too.

Check the Curriculum… and the Gaps

Instead of looking at the list of topics and saying to yourself, I love it, there is also SEO. Look closer. Do they take you through actual projects or do they simply give you a talk about them? When you complete a study and you learn all the jargon but you can not run any campaign, then it is useless.

Ideally, it must tap into the large things SEO, ads, email, content, analytics and demonstrate how the tools work. Google Analytics, Meta Ads Manager, Canva… the dashboards you are going to live in. Without that, you will feel that you lack something later.

Compare Price and Value

Prices are all over the place – there are courses here in which they have courses with 5-digit prices and there are courses that offer an immersive experience with 5 digits, and there are the super cheap courses down to nearly free, not to mention a Udemy course on sale costs around 20 dollars. It has got to be more than price. The question of whether the course is going to enable you to get what you need at the moment is not important.

There is not much use in picking anything but what is cheap or even free when you are only dabbling. Use Google Digital Garage, HubSpot Academy or a lower-end Udemy course to get started.

You require organization but do not wish to spend a fortune on it, and then such subscriptions like Coursera or LinkedIn Learning invite you to explore different topics for $ 20-70 per month.

Read the Reviews (Really Read Them)

The star rating does not matter much as it is all the reviews below. How are we going to get hints that there are people who say that the course gets frequent updates, or, that you are going to purchase a product, which was not touched since 2018? Or are they comprised of real conquests, like getting a job, or attracting new customers, or do they consist in saying It was good and that is all?

Also, pay attention to what they say about the instructor. The sales page may be not less glamorous, but there is always a risk that a teacher can ghost after signing up. When all the reviews feel like copy-pasted ones that simply say the same or the reviews are too broad to make any impression, you just should go away.

The suitability of a course can vary greatly depending on individual career goals, prior experience, and learning style. Always conduct your own thorough research before making a commitment