2023 Top Free Digital Marketing Courses, Guides, and Resources

Are you looking for free digital marketing courses?

When I was getting started, I learned digital marketing by reading free blog posts. Back then, you didn’t have many free courses, and the paid ones were expensive for someone just starting. But right now there are hundreds of free courses.

To help you pick the right ones, I prepared this list. The courses are all free to audit, though some require fees to have homework reviewed or to get a certificate of completion.

Let’s dive in!

Free digital marketing courses for beginners

Here are some courses that will suit marketers and business owners who are just getting started.

1. Introduction to Marketing 

Introduction to Marketing is from The University of British Columbia on edx.org. You can join the course for free, but you have to pay for a certificate. It’s six weeks long and requires three to five hours per week.

 Topics

• A primer on fundamentals, strategies, and tools
• Creating a customer segmentation system
• Understanding marketing psychology and metrics
• Developing pricing strategies

Best suited for: People who want to understand marketing basics.

2. Fundamentals of Digital Marketing 

This is a free 40-hour course from Google itself. After completing the course, you can take the exam and get a free certificate from Google if you pass. The Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe and The Open University accredit it.

Topics

• Introduction to analytics
• Setting goals for your strategy
• Segmenting audiences
• Implementing content marketing
• Using display advertising
• Setting up an online store and selling.

Best suited for: Amateur marketers who want to learn everything about marketing.

3. Facebook Social Media Marketing 

This is a course on social media marketing from Facebook. 49,492 people have already enrolled. It will take you seven months to complete if you can spend a couple of hours each week.

Topics

• An introduction to social media marketing
• Understand social media management and advertising
• Advertising on Facebook
• Understanding and measuring your campaigns

Best suited for: Marketers and business owners looking for a social media marketing course focusing on Facebook.

4. Inbound Marketing Course

This is a short course from the masters of inbound marketing, HubSpot. It’s around four hours long, and you get a certificate at the end.

Topics

• Fundamentals of inbound marketing
• Developing a plan for content creation, conversion, and lead nurturing
• Combining content creation and social media promotion
• Syncing your marketing strategy with sales

Best suited for: Marketers who want to increase organic social media engagement or blog traffic.

5. Marketing Analytics 

This is a course from the University of Virginia with over a quarter-million students. It’s an easy course that’s 16 hours long and is available in multiple languages.

Topics

• The importance of marketing analytics
• Measuring marketing efforts and tracking brand value
• Measuring customer lifetime value
• Conducting experiments to collect data
• Using the data to create better future marketing campaigns

Best suited for: Marketers and online business owners who want to get better at conversion rate optimization.

6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialization 

This is a specialization consisting of five courses from the University of California Davis. It not only shows you how SEO works but also covers how to implement basic and advanced tactics to drive organic search engine traffic. Eric Enge is an instructor for one of the courses. He’s the author of the Art of SEO and won the Search Marketer of The Year Award in 2016.

Topics

• Fundamentals of SEO
• Optimizing websites for search engines
• Syncing content marketing and social media with SEO

Best suited for: Marketers who want to implement SEO on their websites or help other businesses.

7. Email List Building

Email List Building is a free course from Leadpages and Drip. It’s for people who want to get started with growing their email list. It also shows you how to monetize it. You get 12 downloadable PDF handouts with the course to help implement what you learn.

Topics

• Creating an email marketing plan
• Building your email list
• Writing better emails
• Monetizing your email list
• Improving sales page conversions

Best suited for: Solopreneurs, bloggers, ecommerce store owners, and infopreneurs.

8. Unbounce Landing Page Course 

A complete course on creating high-converting landing pages from Unbounce. It teaches you both how to write the content and design the landing pages.

Topics

• Fundamentals of landing page
• Elements of a landing page
• Using lead capture forms
• Landing page copywriting
• Landing page forms

Best suited for: Non-designers and marketers who want to create their own landing pages.

9. Digital Marketing Strategy 

This is a popular course on edx.com from the University of Edinburgh with over 10,000 users. You need to spend four to six hours a week over eight weeks to complete the course.

Topics

• The importance of digital marketing and the changes in the digital landscape
• Creating customer personas and impactful digital content
• Auditing and analyzing competitors
• Creating a digital marketing strategy

Best suited for: Offline marketers who want to get started with digital marketing.

10. Free Social Media Analytics Course 

This is a free course from Qunitly, a social media analytics tool. It covers all the basics of social media analytics.

Topics

• What is social media analytics?
• Importance of social media analytics
• Analyzing your social media performance against competitors
• Choosing KPIs
• Automating reports

Best suited for: Marketers and social media managers.

Intermediate to advanced digital marketing courses

You can take the below courses if you already have some basic digital marketing knowledge.

11. Digital & Social

This is a free course from Twitter Flight School. You’ll find everything you need to run ads on Twitter here. It’s over five hours long and is meant for an advanced audience. They have other courses on Twitter ads for beginner and intermediate audiences.

Topics

• Why use Twitter for advertising
• Setting up and navigating the Twitter ads manager
• Creating content for ads
• Reaching the right audience
• Setting up and launching a campaign

Best suited for: Social media managers, marketers and business owners who want to use Twitter ads.

12. Viral Marketing and How to Craft Contagious Content 

This course is from Jonah Berger, a bestselling author. It’s a short four-hour course where you’ll learn what content thrives online

Topics

• Understand why some content becomes popular and why some fail
• Role of social influence in shaping behavior
• Why word of mouth is more effective than traditional advertising
• How information spreads on social media

Best suited for: Social media managers, content marketers, and creators.

13. Semrush Academy

The Semrush Academy is from Semrush, one of the biggest SEO and PPC tools. It contains short courses (one to four hours long) which help you get better at SEO, PPC, content, and social media marketing.

Topics

• Auditing your online visibility
• Role of content in SEO
• Growing an SEO agency
• PPC fundamentals and automation
• Content marketing fundamentals
• Social media marketing fundamentals

Best suited for: Marketers, freelancers, and SEO agencies.

14. Growth Academy 

Growth Academy is an advertising course from WordStream, an online advertising software. It’s a short course, but it covers a lot of information.

Topics

• Advertising basics for Facebook, YouTube, and Google
• Understand remarketing and conversion rate optimization
• Generate leads and sales with Google, Facebook, and Instagram ads
• Running a PPC agency

Best suited for: Marketers and founders who want to get better with advertising or want to start a PPC agency.

15. Facebook Blueprint 

Facebook Blueprint, from Facebook, isn’t a single course. It’s an online university with free courses and programs.You can select different courses depending on whether you’re a business owner or freelancer, or agency and learn organic and paid Facebook marketing methods. You can also get certified, but you’ve to pay a fee.

Topics

• Using Facebook and Instagram for organic marketing.
• Advertising on Facebook and Instagram
• Creating content
• Building relationships with your customers
• Creating live video content

Best suited for: Marketers, business owners, and creators who want to understand Facebook better.

Bonus: Free digital marketing ebooks

If you prefer to read, check out the following ebooks. There are ebooks for everyone from YouTubers to freelancers to marketers to agencies.

16. AppSumo Essential Marketing Start Guide

This ebook from the AppSumo team is for lean professional service businesses such as freelancers and agencies. It includes both organic and paid marketing methods.

Topics

• Best tips for kickstarting a newsletter
• Starting a B2B YouTube channel
• Creating better social media posts and acquiring B2B customers
• A step-by-step guide to using Google and Facebook ads
• Generating word-of-mouth referrals

Best suited for: Freelancers and small agencies.

17. Making Sense of Online Marketing

Here’s another free ebook for anyone getting started with online marketing. It’s from Constant Contact. You will learn about several good marketing tips and tools from the ebook. Constant Contact has many other ebooks in the Making Sense of Online Marketing series aimed at different niches.

Topics

• How people discover businesses online
• Online marketing tools you should use
• How to position yourself for success with online marketing
• How to set up a website properly
• How to use email marketing and social media

Best suited for: Anyone looking for a primer on online marketing.

18. Everyone’s Talking About Social Proof 

This is a 44-page ebook from the people who made VideoPeel and Evidence, two tools that help people boost online social proof. The 11 unconventional tactics shared in the book will help customers trust you and buy more products.

Topics

• History of social proof and its importance to online businesses
• Different ways to boost social proof
• How to encourage people to leave reviews
• Real-life examples of social proof campaigns from Amazon, AppSumo, and more companies

Best suited for: Media buyers, ecommerce store marketers, and conversion experts.

19. The ClickMinded Digital Strategy Guide

This is a free 77-page ebook from the team at ClickMinded. It will show you how to generate more traffic and sales online using various methods.

Topics

• Ways to drive traffic to your website
• Building sales funnels that increase conversions
• Creating content strategies
• Launching ads on Facebook and Google
• Automating email marketing
• Implementing a powerful analytics strategy

Best suited for: Marketers who want to use different sources and tactics to drive traffic and increase sales.

20. Noah’s Favorite Stolen Tips From Top YouTubers

Noah Kagan, the founder of AppSumo, Sumo, and SendFox, has built not only successful companies but also a popular YouTube channel with over 126,000 subscribers. In this 45-page ebook, Noah shares 16 powerful strategies for generating more views and subscribers.

Topics

• YouTube strategies with real examples
• Ways to make your videos discoverable including conducting YouTube keyword research
• Optimizing your YouTube channel for conversions
• Scripts, templates, and checklist to quickly implement strategies

Best suited for: Social media managers and entrepreneurs who want to get more YouTube views and subscribers.

21. The Essential Guide to Marketing in A Digital World

This is a 300 page ebook from Rob Stokes. It’s a complete guide to digital marketing. It’s also free to download. You don’t even need to sign up. This ebook makes it easy to learn with real-world case studies.

Topics

• Creating a strategy
• Understanding customer behavior
• Understanding SEO, digital copywriting, and social media marketing
• Implementing video marketing
• Comprehending marketing insights

Best suited for: Business owners and marketers looking for a simple guide to digital marketing.

22. The Mint Marketing Plan for Any Business Launch

Noah Kagan also helped Mint, the personal finance tool, grow to over a million users in six months. In this ebook, he shares actionable strategies to launch your business and grow swiftly.

Topics

• An introduction to quant-based marketing
• 12-week plan for launching your business
• Implementing various marketing strategies, including SEO, content marketing, SEM, and advertising
• How Mint got one million users in six months
• Checklists, outlines, and marketing spreadsheets to get started

Best suited for: Entrepreneurs and marketers launching a new business.

23. What We Learned: Facebook Advertising 

This ebook from AppSumo shows the lessons it learned from spending $5 million on Facebook ads. It contains step-by-step tactics that even newbie media buyers can use.

Topics

• Determine if Facebook advertising is right for you
• Fundamentals you need to get right before running Facebook ads
• Complete process for running ads
• Tracking and scaling ads
• What to do when ads don’t work

Best suited for: Entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and marketers getting started with Facebook ads.

24. TikTok Marketing: Ultimate Guide 

You should get this free course if you’re just getting started with TikTok or if you’ve already started but want to grow your following or try out influencer marketing or ads.

Topics

• Growing your TikTok following
• Advertising with TikTok’s ad platform
• Advertising with influencers

Best suited for: Creators and social media managers getting started with paid TikTok marketing.

25. Dr. Growth 

Dr. Growth is a 300-page ebook filled with growth strategies and hacks to grow a business. It’s easy to understand and implement the various marketing strategies in the book.

Topics

• Automating your marketing
• Finding guest blog leads on autopilot
• Becoming Twitter famous
• Getting free targeted traffic
• Mastering neuromarketing

Best suited for: Solopreneurs and freelancers who want to learn and use marketing strategies quickly.

Which Free Digital Marketing Course Will You Start With?

These are some of the best free digital marketing courses on the web. They cover everything from the fundamentals of marketing to SEO to social media marketing to ads and analytics.

Consuming all of them will probably take you over a year!

But you don’t have to go through all of them. Just take the courses you feel will help you. After you finish them, you can go through our freebies collection and find even more.