Marketing has always been instrumental to any success in the corporate world. Businesses worldwide spend millions or even billions of dollars in marketing every year to create brand awareness, generate leads, and finally convert them to customers.
Unsurprisingly, marketing expenses are one of the most substantial elements of any business’ income statement. Hence, every business owner needs to manage them effectively. Otherwise, your business might turn a loss.
The first step to managing marketing expenses is to utilize marketing analytics. You have to grasp and analyze all the stats and numbers related to your business to ensure that all of your campaigns turn a profit and generate a high return on investment (ROI).
Furthermore, as digital marketing technologies advance, you can use a combination of marketing analytics, big data, and machine learning to know your customers better, thus boosting conversion rates in the process.
Suppose you are not a business owner. As a career skill, marketing analytics is also lucrative. This is because every business needs professionals to analyze their data and develop strategies to attract more customers and save costs.
You can master marketing analytics just by taking online courses. However, more than a thousand of them are available. It can be extremely challenging to narrow those to the top ones that provide excellent value for money.
I decided to do the heavy lifting for you. This article will only feature the best marketing analytics courses that offer high-quality instruction. Hence, you can handily select the one that suits your preferences or budget and start learning right away.
Affiliate Disclosure: This article from Victory Tale contains affiliate links. We will receive a small commission from course providers if you purchase their products through these links.
Nevertheless, we always value integrity and prioritize our audience’s interests. You can then rest assured that we will evaluate and present each course truthfully.
Things You Should Know
Prerequisites
Most courses featured in this article have no prerequisites. Therefore, everyone can start learning right away.
However, some may require you to have a basic understanding of undergraduate mathematics. If that is the case, I will specifically inform you about it in that course’s section.
Criteria
Below are the criteria for the best marketing analytics courses
1. Become a Marketing Analyst
If you are looking for a comprehensive training program for marketing analytics, I think this Nanodegree program from Udacity is unarguably one of the best you could find.
You will learn from a team of six marketing managers and data scientists and have an opportunity to gain crucial hands-on experience.
Course Content
This program consists of four sections as follows:
1. Introduction to Data Analysis – The first section will drill deep into foundational data analysis. You will use statistics and visuals to generate actionable insights, learn to use Excel to visualize data in a spreadsheet, and build robust models to analyze various outcomes.
2. Data Visualization – The second section will explain steps to create impactful data visualizations that convey the right message to viewers. You will learn to build dashboards and depict compelling stories.
3. Google Analytics – The third section will drill deep into Google Analytics, a prominent web analytics tool. You will learn how to use various reporting techniques professionally and perform steps to optimize results.
Furthermore, you will build fluency with Data Studio, generate actionable insights, and create a data-driven marketing strategy to enhance your marketing efforts.
4. Marketing Analytics – The final section will discuss various marketing metrics. You will learn how to use them to evaluate your marketing campaigns.
Along with the lessons, each section is fully equipped with learning resources, such as quizzes, assignments, and real-world projects.
The latter is the most important of all. This is because you will put the knowledge you have learned into use right away.
In total, you will work on as many as eight projects in this program. For example, you will analyze the New York Stock Exchange survey data, build interactive dashboards to generate insights from international flight data, or even create a professional marketing report.
Regarding the pace, Udacity recommends spending 5 hours per week, and you will complete the program in three months. I think the pace is perfectly manageable for students with full-time employment.
As the program is self-paced, you can also set your learning schedule. Just keep in mind that the more time you spend on the program, the higher the tuition fees.
Student Support
What makes Udacity shine above competitors is the support it provides to all students. Once you enroll in the program, you will be able to access three types of student support as follows:
Technical Mentor Support – If you don’t understand the concepts or get stuck on practice problems, you can use the ticketing system to ask Udacity’s team of mentors directly.
The team is available 24/7. Hence, you can ask your mentor at any time and receive a timely reply within less than an hour. You will not have to wait for days for an instructor to reply once again.
Project Reviews – When you work on one of the eight projects available in this program, you can ask experts to review your work at any time since Udacity allows unlimited review requests.
With this outstanding and timely support (you will receive feedback in a few hours in most cases), you can then create a healthy feedback loop that supports your learning.
Career Services – This kind of support is beneficial if you want to find a career in digital analytics or digital advertising.
The team will review your resume, LinkedIn profile, and Github portfolio (if available) and ensure that they professionally showcase your skills, effectively increasing your chances of receiving interview invitations.
Pricing
Udacity uses a subscription-based pricing model. This program costs $399 per month. However, you can opt for the 3-month bundle, which will reduce average monthly fees to $339 monthly.
Furthermore, Udacity frequently offers discounts and financial support, which can be as high as 75% off. Practically, you can enroll in this top-notch program by paying $100 per month or even lower.
If you are still unsure whether this program is right for you, I suggest downloading the course syllabus to read more about course content and features that will assist your learning.
[sc name=”udacity” ][/sc]Pros & Cons
Pros
- Overall, an excellent marketing analytics program
- Learn marketing analytics from top marketing professionals
- Well-structured and comprehensive curriculum, covering both concepts and practicals adequately
- Informative and in-depth lessons with high-quality illustrations
- Gain sufficient hands-on experience by completing eight real-world projects
- Self-paced learning
- Timely mentor support + Unlimited project reviews
- Career services are a big plus.
- Overall, provide the best value for money, especially if you can get it at a discount
Cons
- Costlier than most alternatives
- Some projects can be highly challenging for learners.
2. Digital Marketing Analytics
This program from MIT Management Executive Education available on the Getsmarter platform is a solid option if you want to learn in a more formal environment. You will discover how to optimize marketing campaigns through different marketing channels.
Course Content
This program consists of six modules. Each module will last a week. Thus, an entire program will take six weeks to complete. Below is a summary of what you will learn in each module.
1. Understanding the Digital Marketing Channel Mix – The first module will explain the nature of digital marketing and various channels that businesses use to market their products and services.
2. Implementing Integrated Digital Marketing – The second module will provide insights into crucial marketing analytics tools and how to use them to evaluate campaign performance effectively and accurately.
3. Understanding Predictive Analytics and Predictive Marketing – The third module will discuss predictive analytics. You will grasp how search, display, mobile, and social networks play a significant role in predictive analytics and understand the steps to form a predictive marketing organization.
4. Implementing Predictive Marketing Across Channels – The fourth module will provide a foundational guideline for building a predictive model. You will revisit crucial statistical concepts such as descriptive statistics and regression analysis.
Later, you will learn to use predictive analytics techniques to create a relevant model for particular marketing strategies.
5. Optimizing Return on Investment (ROI) – This module is the core of the program. You will work with marketing data and learn to optimize strategies to achieve the highest return on investment.
For example, you will select the management structures, targeting, and marketing channel for a specific product.
6. The Future of Integrated Digital Marketing: Video, Mobile, and AI – The final module will discuss the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in digital marketing and how both can benefit an organization.
The second part of the course will delve into the role of video and mobile marketing. You will grasp their influence on the digital marketing channel mix.
Like typical university courses, this curriculum is theory-heavy. You will learn a lot about marketing analytics concepts. Still, you will explore rich, real-world case studies and perceive how to apply those theories in real life. You just don’t have as many projects to complete as Udacity’s.
The best aspect of this program is that you will interact with your classmates through weekly class-wide forums and small group discussions.
Both would provide a similar learning experience to attending a business school class on-site and thus offer excellent networking opportunities.
Pricing
This program costs $2800 one-time, which is more expensive than other alternatives. However, if you want to learn from the best and have a similar experience to attending a business school, this program is unarguably one of the best available.
Still unable to decide? I suggest downloading a course brochure to get more information that may help you decide.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Earn a certificate of completion from MIT Sloan, one of the most prestigious business schools in the world
- Learn from Professor Sinan Aral, who has decades of experience consulting tech companies to foster business value through big data analytics
- Well-structured curriculum
- Clear explanations of the theories
- Self-paced learning
- Interact with classmates through small group discussions and class-wide forums
Cons
- Far costlier than other alternatives
- Focus more on the theories, which may not be optimal if you want to learn the practicals
- Not always available. Getsmarter’s programs have a fixed start date. Thus, it may not be available during some period of the year.
3. Digital Marketing Analytics: Tools and Techniques
This short edX course from the University of Maryland is a promising option if you want to focus on digital marketing analytics tools and techniques. You will understand the steps to make to best leverage your efforts.
Course Content
Below are topics that you will learn from the course.
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
- Web Analytics and A/B Testing
- Recommendation Systems
- Machine Learning, AI-powered applications, and Big Data in marketing
- Text & Image Analysis
- Attribution/MMM
Overall, you will learn about the tools and strategies you can use to analyze various types of marketing data (i.e., customer surveys, web analytics, etc.) to make better marketing decisions or solve managerial problems.
The online course is packed with real-world case studies. Hence, you will quickly grasp how professionals leverage these tools in real life.
The University of Maryland recommends spending 3-5 hours on the course, and you will complete it in 4 weeks.
You can audit this course for free. Alternatively, the verified track, which grants graded assignments and a digital certificate, costs $399.
Note: This course is part of a 4-course digital marketing program. If you are interested in a verified track and want a more comprehensive learning experience, you may wish to enroll in the entire program since you will get a 10% off all courses.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Concise explanations of essential marketing analytics tools and techniques used in marketing research
- Easy-to-follow curriculum
- Beginner-friendly (An accurate transcript is also provided.)
- Learn from various practical case studies and class activities
- Self-paced learning + Free auditing
Cons
- Costly verified track
- No large-scale projects for students to complete
4. Digital Marketing Analytics in Theory/Practice
These are a series of two courses that are part of a digital marketing specialization on Coursera. You will learn from several faculty members from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).
4.1) Digital Marketing Analytics in Theory
Below is a summary of what you will learn from this course.
- Introduction to Data Analytics
- Digital Channels (Search, Display Media, Social Media Marketing)
- Customer Journey
- Tools and Skill sets for businesses to work effectively with data
- Digital Marketing Maturity
The lessons will focus on crucial theories. Upon course completion, you will understand the science of analytics that you can apply to real-life business challenges.
This course takes around 20 hours to complete.
4.2) Digital Marketing Analytics in Practice
This course will teach you the process of putting what you have learned in the previous course into use. The following is a summary of all topics:
- Four elements of Marketing Analytics Process (MAP): Plan, Collect, Analyze, Report
- Data Storytelling – You will learn to create a comprehensive and coherent report that conveys actionable insights to the audience.
- Bellabeat Case Study
- Future of Data Analytics
Once you complete this course, you will be able to generate insights for executives, agencies, and clients professionally.
UIUC recommends spending 20 hours on the course.
Regarding pricing, you can audit both for free. Alternatively, you can enroll in the complete program consisting of seven digital marketing courses by paying $79 per month.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Learn from faculty members of a renowned US university
- Beginner-friendly
- Well-structured curriculum, covering all foundational concepts and applications
- Excellent reading resources
- Free auditing
Cons
- No large-scale projects for students to complete
- The curriculum puts an emphasis on reading assignments. Thus, both courses have only a few short video lectures, therefore not the best if you want to learn from videos.
- Provide only very few assignments
5. Facebook Marketing Analytics Professional Certificate
With more than two billion users, Facebook (and social media in general) has become an important marketing channel that no business can ignore. Hence, successful business owners and marketing teams also need to interpret and analyze this data effectively.
If you are still devoid of such skills, this Coursera specialization by Facebook itself can help you master Facebook marketing analytics in a series of seven courses.
Course Content
This program consists of seven minor courses as follows:
1. Marketing Analytics Foundation – The first course will introduce you to marketing analytics. You will learn about its role in marketing and the challenges you will face when dealing with various types of marketing data.
2. Introduction to Data Analytics – The second course is essentially data science basics. You will learn steps to polish your data to make it ready for use.
Later on, you will learn about fundamental programming concepts and how to perform data analytics tasks using spreadsheets and SQL queries.
3. Statistics for Marketing – The third course will delve into the statistical background of marketing analytics. You will grasp the concepts of variables, hypothesis testing, inferential statistics, and many more.
4. Data Analytics Methods for Marketing – The fourth course will explore data analytics methods popularly used by marketing professionals. You will learn to evaluate the effectiveness of particular advertisements through various means.
Subsequently, the course will discuss methods to optimize your marketing mix and steps to evaluate sales funnels.
5. Marketing Analytics with Facebook – The fifth course is the core of the program. You will learn about how the Facebook advertising platform works in detail. Furthermore, you will perceive how Facebook reports results and the best way to customize them to suit your business goals.
In the second part of the course, you will learn about Facebook experiments and A/B Testing for your ads to generate the highest return on ads spend (ROAS)
6. Facebook Marketing Science Certification Exam – This final course aims at students who want to earn certification from Facebook. You will get helpful tips and a quiz that will help you prepare for the exam.
Facebook recommends spending 4 hours per week on the program, and you will complete it in 5 months.
Like other Coursera programs, you can audit this one for free. However, if you want a digital certificate and graded assignments, you have to subscribe to the full program, which costs $49 per month.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Best online course for Facebook marketing analytics
- Learn about best practices for using Facebook’s marketing platform from Facebook experts
- Well-structured curriculum
- In-depth and informative lessons
- Free auditing
Cons
- No large-scale projects to complete
- The transcript is quite difficult to read.
Coursera Plus
If you are interested in more than one Coursera specialization, it would be wise to subscribe to Coursera Plus.
Why?
- Coursera Plus provides full access (not just auditing) to almost all courses, specializations, and programs on the Coursera platform, which is more than 3000 in total.
- Coursera Plus pricing starts at $33.25 per month (annual subscription), which is cheaper than the monthly fees you need to pay for each program ($39-$79 per month).
If you are still unsure, I recommend starting a 7-day free trial to try Coursera Plus.
[sc name=”coursera” ][/sc]Other Alternatives
Below are some other alternatives that you may want to consider.
Marketing Analytics: Data Tools and Techniques – This edX program from Wharton trains students to measure, manage, and leverage customer data to make prudent decisions. However, as of November 2021, this course is now archived. You have to wait for future dates to be announced.
Marketing Analytics – This edX program from Columbia University guides students to develop quantitative models to leverage business data to generate actionable insights and support business decisions.
Again, this course is also archived. If you are interested, you have to wait for future announcements.
Digital Marketing and Analytics – This program from ISB Executive Education aims to provide an end-to-end perspective on the digital marketing ecosystem that can help evaluate marketing performance and form lucrative strategies.
Overall, this program covers the same content as the MIT program but focuses more on the usage of the tools and strategies to generate customer insights.
Since this program is available on the Emeritus platform, it only accepts limited seats and may not be available during several parts of the year.
Free Courses? – Suppose you are looking for free online courses on marketing analytics. In this case, I suggest auditing programs available on edX and Coursera. You will have a better learning experience than free courses that may be misleading and provide little value.
Related Courses
Below is a list of “best” articles on Victory Tale that will help you find the right course or training program to enhance your skills.
Business Analytics – Skills and practices that allow professionals to generate insights from business data. Marketing analytics can be considered a subset of business analytics.
Tableau – A data analytics and data visualization software popularly used by businesses worldwide
Data Analytics – An excellent choice if you want to learn more about data analytics concepts and techniques in general
Digital Marketing – Coming Soon
AI in Marketing – Coming Soon
Social Media Analytics – Coming Soon
