10 Best Digital Marketing Schools in 2023 (Free & Paid)

Digital marketing schools come in different types and are a great way to get into the rapidly growing digital marketing industry. But with so many schools and courses offering digital marketing education, it can be overwhelming to choose the right one.

To help you make an informed decision, we researched the 10 best digital marketing schools for 2023.

These schools have been selected based on their reputation, program offerings, instructor experience, and student reviews.

Top 10 Digital Marketing Schools

1. Reliablesoft Digital Marketing Academy
2. Google Digital Garage
3. Grow With Google
4. Digital Marketing Institute
5. Coursera Digital Marketing Specialization
6. Brainstation Digital Marketing Bootcamp
7. Udacity Digital Marketing Nano Degrees
8. Udemy Digital Marketing Online Courses
9. Simplilearn Digital Marketing Course
10. Meta Professional Certifications

1. Reliablesoft Digital Marketing Academy

Reliablesoft Digital Marketing Academy is one of the digital marketing schools you can trust for high-quality marketing education. The academy offers 13 online digital marketing courses grouped into three bundles:

SEO Course Bundle – This is for everyone wishing to learn the secrets of SEO. This bundle includes 4 courses (SEO Course, eCommerce Course, Google Analytics Course, and Keyword Research Course). Upon successfully completing all courses, you can pursue an SEO Certification by taking an online exam.

Digital Marketing Bundle – Suitable for those wishing to get into Digital Marketing, the digital marketing bundle includes the 4 courses of the SEO Bundle plus 6 more courses and offers a digital marketing certification. The courses cover topics related to social media marketing, content marketing, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and email marketing.

Ultimate Digital Marketing Bundle – It’s perhaps the most comprehensive course on the web about digital marketing. It Includes all Reliablesoft Academy courses, including courses on affiliate marketing, YouTube Marketing, and retargeting.

What makes Reliablesoft Acadamy a trusted school for digital marketing training is the experience of its instructors and the reviews entered by students who complete the reliablesoft training courses.

The instructors have worked in the digital marketing industry for over 20 years, meaning that everything you’ll learn in the courses is based on hands-on experience, not academic theory.

Reliablesoft courses are highly rated by hundreds of students who use the courses to get entry-level digital marketing jobs or start their own businesses.

2. Google Digital Garage

Google Digital Garage is one of the most popular Digital Marketing Schools. They offer several online digital marketing courses, including the Fundaments of Digital Marketing Certification.

It’s a free digital marketing certification offered by Google, accredited by the Open University.

The course includes 26 modules, and it takes a total of 40 hours to complete all lessons. The material is easy to follow and geared toward beginners to digital marketing. Each concept is explained in simple terms, with knowledge checks at the end of each module.

You must complete all modules and pass the Google Digital Marketing Exam to get certified. The exam is not difficult, it’s 40 multiple-choice questions, and you need to achieve a passing mark of 80% and above.

You should take this course if you know nothing about digital marketing and want to get an overview of it and how it works. Once you learn the basics, you can continue with a more actionable course from this list.

3. Grow With Google

Grow with Google is a library of online courses and tools to help people and businesses grow their online presence.

As part of the training library, Google offers several Google career certificates, including the Google Digital Marketing & eCommerce Certificate.

The program is offered via Coursera, and unlike the Fundamentals of Digital Marketing, this is a paid course.

The program is estimated to take around 6 months to complete, and the estimated total cost is $234. The lessons include a combination of video lessons, interactive quizzes, and practical assignments.

This program covers various topics, including search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, mobile marketing, and eCommerce strategies.

Through hands-on projects and practical exercises, students will learn how to develop effective digital marketing campaigns, drive traffic to their websites, and optimize conversion rates.

4. Digital Marketing Institute

Another dedicated digital marketing school worth considering is Digital Marketing Institute. They offer several online courses and certifications. The most popular is the Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing.

The course consists of 30 hours of content covering topics related to search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, mobile marketing, and digital analytics.

On average, it takes students 8-10 weeks to finish the course material and get certified.

Compared to other courses in the list, it’s an expensive course suited mostly for companies that can afford to spend $1368 for digital marketing training.

5. Coursera Digital Marketing Specialization

Coursera, although not a dedicated digital marketing school, it’s one of the most popular online training and certification options.

The most recognized digital marketing courses offered by Coursera are the Google Digital Marketing & eCommerce Certificate (number 3 above) and Digital Marketing Specialization offered in association with the University of Illinois.

The Coursera Digital Marketing Specialization includes seven courses, which take 140 hours to complete. It is offered with a Coursera Plus subscription, which costs $74 per month.

Upon completing all seven courses, you will learn the following:

• The impact of the digital revolution on consumers and marketers
• How digital marketing works
• What is data analytics and its application for making informed decisions
• How to structure a digital marketing campaign, from planning to implementation
• Creating, implementing, and tracking a digital marketing plan from beginning to end.

6. Brainstation Digital Marketing Bootcamp

Brainstation is a digital marketing school offering online bootcamps. A bootcamp is a crash course where lessons are presented to students over a predefined period, usually a few days or weeks.

The Brainstation bootcamp covers topics related to branding, marketing planning, marketing strategy, search marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, and digital analytics.

There is a full-time program in which you take classes Monday through Friday from 10:30 AM to 6:30 PM and a part-time program with classes on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

To apply, you first need to speak with a learning advisor. You can then submit an initial online application.

If you make it to the next step, you will receive an invitation to interview. From there, you need to complete an admissions challenge before making an ultimate decision on whether or not to accept you to the program.

The Brainstation course costs $15,000 and takes 11 weeks to complete.

7. Udacity Digital Marketing Nano Degrees

Udacity is an online training school offering nano degrees in several subjects. The digital marketing nano degree program is an online course that can be completed in three months without having prior experience.

The program covers topics related to digital marketing, such as:

• Marketing Fundamentals
• Marketing Data and Technology
• Social Media Marketing
• SEO
• PPC Marketing
• Email Marketing

With your registration fee of $399 per month, you also get access to a technical mentor, a personal career coach, and career services. This combination of services makes it easier for beginners to get an entry-level job upon completing their course.

8. Udemy Digital Marketing Online Courses

Udemy is one of the most known online courses websites. Their library includes more than 200,000 online training courses to learn new skills.

They have a plethora of digital marketing courses to choose from, but one of the courses that stand out is The Complete Digital Marketing Course – 12 Courses in 1.

It covers all aspects of digital marketing in detail, and it’s regularly updated to stay in sync with new developments in online marketing.

The course costs $99 and comes with a certificate of completion. It’s one of the best-selling programs on Udemy, with 4.5-star ratings in reviews.

9. Simplilearn Digital Marketing Course

SimpliLearn is one of the oldest digital marketing schools, founded in 2010. They offer online boot camps, post-graduate degrees, master’s programs, and certifications.

Their Digital Marketing Specialist Master’s Program is an advanced digital marketing program made up of 7 courses that cover the following topics:

1. Mastering SEO, Content Marketing, PPC, and Digital Analytics
2. Mastering Social Media, Mobile Marketing, and Digital Strategy
3. Advanced Web Analytics
4. Advanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
5. Advanced Pay Per Click (PPC) Program
6. Advanced Social Media (With Facebook Blueprint Voucher)
7. Digital Marketing Capstone

This program differs from the rest because the course material is co-created with Facebook and aligns with top digital marketing certifications, including OMCP, Google Ads, and Hubspot.

The Digital Marketing Specialist course is a premium course with a premium price of $1,499.

10. Meta Professional Certifications

Another company offering online digital marketing training is Meta (Facebook’s parent company).

Two certifications worth pursuing are the Meta Social Media Marketing Professional Certificate and Meta Marketing Analytics Professional Certificate.

The Social Media Marketing certificate will teach you how social media marketing works and prepare you for a career in social media. You can also get the Meta Digital Marketing Associate certification upon completing this certificate.

The Meta Marketing Analytics Certificate will help you build in-demand skills related to marketing analytics. It’s a six-course program that takes seven months to complete (studying 4 hours per week).

The certificate includes several hands-on projects where students can learn to visualize data using Tableau or create test campaigns with Meta Ads Manager. There are also various resources to prepare you for taking the “Meta Marketing Science” exam at the end of the course.

Different Ways to Study Digital Marketing

As mentioned above, digital marketing schools offer different ways to study digital marketing. The most common methods are:

Digital Marketing Courses – These are online courses on digital marketing. They usually cover a single topic and can be completed 100% online.

Digital Marketing Certifications – These programs consist of several courses. They offer a certificate of completion or a digital marketing certification once you complete all courses and lessons. To get certified, you may have to take an exam or submit an assignment as part of a capstone project.

Digital Marketing Degrees – These are undergraduate (bachelor’s Degree) and post-graduate (Masters’s degree) programs offered by colleges and Universities. The programs can either be full-time, part-time, or online.

Digital Marketing Bootcamps – These programs are similar to online courses and certifications, with the difference that they can be completed in less time. Bootcamps are more intensive and based on predefined schedules compared to self-paced learning offered by courses and certifications.

How Much Do Digital Marketing Schools Cost?

A digital marketing school costs between $99 and $15,000. As you can see in the table below, there are also some free options from Google and Meta.

Conclusion

Whichever method you choose to learn digital marketing, it’s important to trust your education to academies or schools that can help you build actionable skills and not just theoretical knowledge. Digital marketing is a discipline that can only be mastered by practice and not by reading theories that have nothing to do with reality.

All the programs listed above are offered by reputable academies and experienced authors, and we can safely recommend them without hesitation.