If you want to start a career in the high-demanding fields of digital marketing and e-commerce but have no experience or university degree, the Google Digital Marketing & eCommerce professional certificate is a great starting point.
I took the certificate a month after it was released (May 2022) and revisited the lessons multiple times to keep track of Google's changes. The most notable addition is the introduction of AI into the lessons, teaching how to use AI to develop a marketing strategy and conduct market research.
In this review, I will explain everything I learned during the process to help you decide if this certificate is suitable for your needs.
In my opinion, this is one of the best entry-level digital marketing certifications for building job-ready skills. It can be completed in less than six months, and you can get an accredited certification from Google.
The lessons are practical and easy to follow, covering the most important tasks a digital marketing professional is expected to perform daily. The total cost of $249 is affordable for anyone wishing to make a small investment in their education.
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About This Certificate
The Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate is an entry-level certification designed to help individuals enter digital marketing and e-commerce without any prior experience or degree.
During 6 months (or less), you'll learn how to design and execute digital marketing campaigns utilizing popular channels like search, social media networks, and email marketing.
The certificate includes 7 courses prepared by Google marketing professionals and delivered by Coursera. All courses can be completed 100% online.
The certificate is globally recognized by employers and is accredited by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) and the American Advertising Federation (AAF).
Is It Worth It?
The Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate is worth the money and effort. It's one of the best Google certifications both in terms of content quality and employment opportunities.
The course is comprehensive and practical, and it's a great resource for beginners who want to build their digital marketing and e-commerce skills.
Upon completion, you’ll gain access to several career resources and be connected directly with employers (like Google, Wayfair, and others) hiring for entry-level jobs in digital marketing and e-commerce.
In addition, the course is accredited by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) and the American Advertising Federation (AAF).
Who Is This Certificate For?
It's an entry-level certification aimed at beginners without experience in digital marketing or eCommerce. The Google trainers do a great job explaining all the concepts from scratch, and the lesson structure is well-designed and easy to follow.
The first five courses are more focused on digital marketing, and the last two courses concentrate more on e-commerce.
Upon completion of the certificate, you can apply for various digital marketing jobs, including:
- Junior Digital Marketing Specialist
- SEO Specialist
- Google Ads Specialist
- Email Marketing Specialist
- Junior eCommerce Specialist
What You’ll Learn?
It's a comprehensive course covering various aspects of digital marketing and eCommerce. Throughout the course, you'll learn how to:
- Create a digital marketing and eCommerce strategy
- How SEO works and the most important search engine ranking factors
- How to use social media to connect and engage with customers
- How to use email marketing
- How to measure the success of your marketing campaigns
- How eCommerce and online shops work
- How to prepare for job interviews and how to apply for digital marketing related jobs
In addition, you’ll learn how to start using popular digital marketing tools like Canva, Constant Contact, Hootsuite, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Shopify, Twitter, Google Ads, and Google Analytics.
How Long Does It Take?
The total time to complete the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate is 190 hours. If you allocate 40 hours of studying per month, you can finish all courses in 6 months.
If you have some knowledge of online marketing, you can complete this certificate in less time. I did it in 2 months but skipped some lessons. You can do the same, provided that you complete all graded assignments and quizzes.
You must complete all seven courses and pass all graded quizzes to get certified.
How Much Does It Cost?
The total cost for the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate is $294. Coursera offers the course through the Coursera Plus subscription, which costs $49 per month. On average, it takes students 6 months (6 X $49) to complete the course and get certified.
Coursera offers a 7-day free trial to review the course material before committing to a paid plan.
Course Contents And Structure
To finish this Google certification, you must complete all seven courses in the series.
- Foundations of Digital Marketing and E-commerce
- Attract and Engage Customers with Digital Marketing
- From Likes to Leads: Interact with Customers Online
- Think Outside the Inbox: Email Marketing
- Assess for Success: Marketing Analytics and Measurement
- Make the Sale: Build, Launch, and Manage E-commerce Stores
- Satisfaction Guaranteed: Develop Customer Loyalty Online
1. Foundations of Digital Marketing and E-commerce
This is the first course on your path to becoming a Google Digital Marketing certified professional. It's an introductory course aimed at beginners. It starts with an overview of digital marketing and eCommerce and explains in detail what topics will be covered in the rest of the courses.
You'll also meet your course instructors, all marketing professionals in various positions on Google.
The time investment required to complete this course is 19 hours and to get a certificate of completion, you need to pass 4 graded quizzes (50 minutes each).
If you already have some experience with online marketing and eCommerce and are willing to study for a couple of hours per day, you can finish this course in a week. The topics cover the basics and you don't need to spend more time than needed to get through the material and exams.
| Week | Topic | Time To Complete |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Introduction to foundations of digital marketing and e-commerce | 5 hours |
| Week 2 | The customer journey and the marketing funnel | 5 hours |
| Week 3 | Digital marketing and e-commerce strategy | 5 hours |
| Week 4 | Measure performance success | 4 hours |
2. Attract and Engage Customers with Digital Marketing
The second course, Attract and Engage Customers with Digital Marketing, is the most interesting because it touches on one of the most effective digital marketing channels, SEO.
While many people in the industry have already assumed that by taking this course, you'll become a Google SEO-certified expert, that's not the case. Google does not offer an official SEO certification; this course alone will not make you an SEO expert. It's a basic course that covers the basic SEO principles.
If you're a beginner, you'll find a lot of value in this course because it will help you understand how SEO works and why it's important. However, if you already have a basic knowledge of SEO, this course won't be very helpful.
Other SEO certifications in the market are more practical, covering basic and advanced SEO concepts.
The total time needed to complete this course is 22 hours, and to get a certification of completion, you need to complete 4 quizzes.
| Week | Topic | Time To Complete |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Introduction to attract and engage customers with digital marketing | 6 hours |
| Week 2 | Understand search engine optimization (SEO) | 4 hours |
| Week 3 | Apply search engine optimization (SEO) | 5 hours |
| Week 4 | Search engine marketing (SEM) and display advertising | 7 hours |
3. From Likes to Leads: Interact with Customers Online
From Likes to Leads: Interact with Customers Online is the third Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Certificate course. It covers a popular marketing channel, social media marketing.
Through the lessons, you'll learn about the importance of social media networks for creating a brand and how to use social platforms to find and engage with potential customers practically.
It's a practical course with examples, case studies, and guides on how to use various tools, such as Canva, to design social media posts.
During week 5, you'll learn about paid ads on social media. While it does mention Facebook in the reading material, it does not cover Facebook Advertising in detail. That's a disadvantage because in a real-life scenario Facebook and Instagram ads are part of almost all social media campaigns.
Nevertheless, this is a good course for beginners in social media. By the end, students will have a good understanding of how to use social media for business purposes. If you want to enhance your Facebook marketing skills, you can continue your training with a dedicated Facebook Ads course.
To complete this course, you'll need around 26 hours. Part of the graded assessment is 5 quizzes and practical assignments like creating a Twitter profile for business use.
| Week | Topic | Time To Complete |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Introduction to from likes to leads: interact with customers online | 3 hours |
| Week 2 | Social media strategy, planning, and publishing | 6 hours |
| Week 3 | Listening and engagement on social media | 8 hours |
| Week 4 | Social media analytics and reporting | 4 hours |
| Week 5 | Paid social media | 5 hours |
4. Think Outside the Inbox: Email Marketing
The fourth course is about email marketing. Despite what some people might think, email marketing is not dead but it's still one of the best ways to increase conversions for any kind of business.
The lessons cover the most important email marketing concepts and can help you build the job-ready skills needed to work as an email marketing specialist. You'll learn how to select an email marketing platform and how to design, execute and monitor email marketing campaigns.
Overall this is a complete course for anyone wishing to learn email marketing. It's suitable for beginners and for people who want to refresh their email marketing skills.
The total time to complete the Google email marketing course is 24 hours. Here is a detailed breakdown of the lessons:
| Week | Topic | Time To Complete |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Introduction to think outside the inbox: email marketing | 4 hours |
| Week 2 | Types of email marketing | 4 hours |
| Week 3 | Useful tools for email marketing | 5 hours |
| Week 4 | Collect and analyze email campaign data | 3 hours |
| Week 5 | Run your own email marketing campaign | 6 hours |
5. Assess for Success: Marketing Analytics and Measurement
The fifth course in the Google Digital Marketing Certificate is about data analytics. Digital marketers should know how to gather and analyze data from various sources and present their findings in a meaningful way.
What is nice about this course is that it covers all the theoretical steps for performing marketing analysis. This is extremely helpful for beginners as it will help them understand what KPIs are important and how to find them.
On the other hand, to get a complete hands-on experience with some of the tools you have to go through the additional reading material.
For example, the course touches on Google Ads reports but does not cover in detail how to optimize a Google Ads campaign based on the results of your analysis. They provide additional resources to achieve this but it's not part of the main course material. Students who need to become experts in Google Ads can take the official Google Ads Certification or follow a third-party Google Ads training course.
The total time investment for the marketing analytics course is 24 hours. In addition to the videos and reading material, to get the course certificate you need to pass 4 graded quizzes and successfully complete all practical exercises (around 9 hours).
| Week | Topic | Time To Complete |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Introduction to assess for success: marketing analytics and measurement | 6 hours |
| Week 2 | Use metrics from Google Analytics and Google Ads | 6 hours |
| Week 3 | Measure the success of marketing campaigns | 4 hours |
| Week 4 | Share metrics and insights with stakeholders | 8 hours |
6. Make the Sale: Build, Launch, and Manage E-commerce Stores
The Make the Sale: Build, Launch, and Manage E-commerce Stores is the sixth course in your learning journey for becoming a certified digital marketer.
While the rest of the courses were focused on the digital marketing aspect, this is the first course to talk about eCommerce. To clear any misconceptions, by completing this course you'll not be awarded a Google eCommerce Certificate but a course completion certificate. To get the Google Digital Marketing & eCommerce professional certificate, you need to complete ALL seven courses. There is no Google eCommerce Certificate.
This course will teach you how to start an eCommerce business. You'll learn how to use popular eCommerce platforms and in particular, Shopify to create an online store and set up your product listings.
In weeks 3 and 4, you'll learn how to promote your store using Google Shopping campaigns and Google Smart campaigns as well as how to optimize your store for conversions.
This is a great course for anyone wishing to get into the exciting world of eCommerce and start selling online.
To successfully complete the Google eCommerce course, you need to allocate around 22 hours. This includes 5 hours of practical exercises.
| Week | Topic | Time To Complete |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Introduction to make the sale: build, launch, and manage e-commerce stores | 6 hours |
| Week 2 | Learn about online stores | 6 hours |
| Week 3 | Ads and campaigns in e-commerce | 6 hours |
| Week 4 | Engage customers with an online store | 4 hours |
7. Satisfaction Guaranteed: Develop Customer Loyalty Online
This is the final course in this Google certificate. Once you get to this point, you'll be 20 hours away from getting the official Google Digital Marketing Certification!
While you can take the courses in any order you want, it is recommended that you complete courses 1-6 before attempting the Satisfaction Guaranteed: Develop Customer Loyalty Online course. It will be easier for you to complete the activities at the end of this course.
In the first 2 weeks of this course, you'll learn more about customer loyalty and how to use different marketing techniques to reach your existing customers. You'll also be introduced to Shopify analytics.
In the third week, you'll learn through practical exercises how to create an internet marketing proposal and how to prepare for digital marketing and eCommerce interviews.
In the final week, you'll get some tips on how to add your digital marketing certificate to your portfolio and how to add your badge to your LinkedIn profile.
The official time needed to complete this course is 24 hours but you can finish it in less time because some sections (preparing for job interviews and certificate review) are easy to go through, especially if you skip some optional lessons.
| Week | Topic | Time To Complete |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Introduction to satisfaction guaranteed: develop customer loyalty online | 4 hours |
| Week 2 | Analyze trends for an online store | 6 hours |
| Week 3 | Prepare for jobs in digital marketing and e-commerce | 11 hours |
| Week 4 | Certificate review | 2 hours |
Sample Exam Questions
To successfully finish the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate, you have to complete ALL seven courses, pass all graded quizzes (with a mark of 80% or higher) and complete all practical assignments.
All quizzes are in the form of multiple-choice questions and are easy to complete. In case you fail to pass a quiz, you can make 3 attempts every 24 hours.
In the practical assignments, you’ll be asked to apply the skills learned during the lessons in practice. For example, you’ll have to create an X (Twitter) profile and post content on social media.
In general, if you go through the lessons and build some basic knowledge of all digital marketing concepts covered in the course, you'll have no problem in passing all the exams on the first attempt.
You can see below some sample exam questions to get an idea of what the exams look like.
Other Digital Marketing Certifications Worth Considering
Google is not the only company offering digital marketing training. You can use the resources below to read our reviews of other great courses and certifications.
- Digital Marketing Courses: a list of highly-rated digital marketing courses from reputable academies.
- Digital Marketing Certifications: a list of the best certifications covering basic and advanced digital marketing concepts.
You can also consider the Digital Marketing Full Course. It's a highly rated course that includes 14 courses covering topics missing from the Google course (or not covered in detail), such as affiliate marketing, content marketing, YouTube Marketing, Facebook ads, Google ads, eCommerce SEO, retargeting, and keyword research.
Upon completing this course, you can pursue a Digital Marketing Certification and an SEO Certification.
Other Google Career Certifications
The Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate is part of the Google Career program, which includes nine other certifications.
If a digital marketing or eCommerce career is not what you’re looking for, you can read our review of the other Google career certificates and pick a career that suits your needs.
