Industry Certifications for Digital Marketers

(last updated October 2018)

Industry certification is a useful way to supplement your UConn digital marketing coursework, and demonstrate your professional mastery of a set of industry-specific concepts and/or tools for digital marketing. Below is a list of companies offering industry certifications to consider, followed by my description and thoughts on each.  If you have suggestions for industry certifications, please reach out!

For students in my Professional Sales course, you can fulfill the course requirement by completing one certification marked “Y” in the “Prof Sales” column below with a passing grade.

Company  Certification Title Type Certification Cost  Prof Sales   Last Reviewed 
Hubspot  Inbound Marketing * Concepts Free Y  Sep 2018
Hubspot  Inbound Sales Concepts Free Y Feb 2017
Hubspot  Email Marketing Concepts Free  Y Feb 2017
Hubspot  Content Marketing Concepts+ Tools Free  Y Feb 2017
Google Adwords  Google Ads Fundamentals Concepts Free Y Oct 2018
Google Analytics  Google Analytics for Beginners Tools Free Y Sep 2017

Hubspot: If your focus is B2B marketing for small to medium businesses or nonprofits, certification from Hubspot is a great place to start.  Targeted at helping their clients, partner agencies and partner agency’s clients become better marketers, Hubspot’s content is consistent with the concepts taught in UConn classes, adding some Hubspot-specific language. Because Hubspot’s marketing focus is sales lead-centric versus e-commerce centric, it aligns particularly well with my Professional Sales class, with its focus on integrating digital marketing and professional sales.

  • Inbound: Launched in 2010(?), last updated 2018.  11 lessons (about 4.5 hours), 60 question certification exam: Free with registration, valid for a year
    • Introduction to Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing methodology, their term for using your owned online marketing tools in a process to “attract, convert, close and delight” customers. This process has a useful alignment with the traditional sales funnel, updated for the world in which customers are searching online long before they are in contact with a salesperson.  In addition to their target audience above, this course also a useful introduction to the basics of B2B customer acquisition for startups.
  • Inbound Sales: Launched in 2016, 20 videos (about 3 hours). 60 question certification exam: Free with registration, valid for a year.
    • An introduction to Hubspot’s Inbound Sales Methodology, their term for professional selling using a process to “identify, connect, explore and advise” prospective clients.  A natural progression from Hubspot’s inbound marketing process (which focuses on generating sales leads), this process builds on “trusted advisor” sales process concepts for the world in which sales intelligence and leads come from monitoring and responding to a prospect’s online behavior before an initial sales conversation.
  • Email Marketing: Launched in 2016. 27 videos (about 4 hours). 60 question certification exam: Free with registration, valid for a year.
    • A fresh, updated introduction to good email marketing practices, including substantial coverage of analytics and optimization.  This course reflects the continued importance of email in digital marketing, particularly in B2B.
  • Content Marketing:  Launched in 2016. 30 videos (about 4 hours). 60 question certification exam: Free with registration, valid for a year.
    • Continuously generating fresh, high-value original online content is both crucial and challenging for marketers who use Hubspot’s’ inbound methodology.  This course addresses this problem with a useful introduction to writing for the web for marketers, as well as workflows, technical concepts and other concepts to help make this work as high return as possible.

Google:

  • Google Ads Fundamentals: Launched in 2017, Study Guide plus 65 question certification exam (timed 90 minutes).  Free with registration, valid for a year.
    •  Search engines changed marketing for good, and Google Adwords is one of the largest available platforms for paid online advertising through Google searches, display ads on pages across the web, YouTube, and mobile platforms.  The Adwords Certification program incorporates both concepts of effective online advertisting and how they are specifically implemented on Google’s platforms.
  • Google Analytics for Beginners: Seventeen interactive video lessons plus four unit assessments.  Free with registration
    • Fundamental of the Google Analytics Platform for website activity reporting. Good digital marketing relies on good measurement of website data– where visitors come from, what they engage with, and how that engagement translates into valuable outcomes.  Google is a key source of such data and Google Analytics their key tool to generate and access it.  Many other platforms also provide this data in friendlier ways, but since Google is free, and since it is a gorilla in the world of website tracking, you will benefit from becoming familiar with their approach and tool.