7 free online courses to become a Digital Marketer!

Another week, another important topic!

Did you know that because of the Covid-19 pandemic, 65% of businesses have increased their digital marketing efforts?
This is why, in recent years, it has become increasingly important to focus on a business’s online presence and online courses are here to help you!

Suggested Courses

To become a Digital Marketer Professional you must have a strong understanding of varied topics, which is why online certifications can help you achieve a complete education. 

Compared to traditional degrees, virtual programmes are frequently shorter and more targeted, allowing for the development of focused skills over the course of a few weeks or months.

Become a Digital Marketing Specialist

Email Marketing

Digital Marketing Analytics

Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

HubSpot Marketing Software

Digital Skills: Digital Marketing

Analytics Academy

But what is Digital Marketing?

David Chaffey, marketing pioneer, in his book simply define it as “Achieving marketing objectives through applying digital media, data and technology”. 

In short terms Digital Marketing is about managing different forms of online firm presence includes things like company websites, applications for mobile devices, and social media company pages that are integrated with the various online communication tactics. 

 

 

Become a Digital Marketing Specialist

by LinkedIn Learning

As a digital marketing specialist, you will use your analytical and tactical skills to help businesses grow and develop new opportunities. This path walks you through the best practices and principles of digital marketing, from marketing plans and content strategy to SEO and ads. This 11-module course will teach you digital marketing skills from experts, explore marketing channels such as social media and email, practice with Google Analytics and Google Ads, and design with the Adobe suite.

Start now with Become a Digital Marketing Specialist

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Find here Mailchimp's Email Marketing

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Email Marketing

by Mailchimp

If you ever study marketing, you will know the useful platform of Mailchimp. The Mailchimp Academy aim was to assist in learning new ways to use Mailchimp’s all-in-one Marketing Platform. The certification consists of a series of courses and short tests that assess your understanding of the course material. If you pass all of the assessments, you will be awarded a certification badge, which serves as a symbol of your expertise. 

In the Email Marketing certification you’ll learn how to create email marketing strategies and launch email campaigns. However, you need to have passed the Foundations course before. 

Digital Marketing Analytics

by EDX

This certification offered by EDX is different from the rest since you have to decide the date to enroll and it will consist in 3-5 hours for 4 weeks. In this case you will discover how to use cutting-edge approaches and tools to digital marketing data analysis. Moreover, you will dive into SEO and Paid search techniques, web analytics, online testing, machine learning, and AI and Big Data applications to boost and maximize your resources.

Discover Digital Marketing Analytics

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Don't miss Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

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Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

by Google Digital Garage

In this 26 modules course, accredited by Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe and The Open University, you will cover: Analytics and data Insights,  Business strategy, Content Marketing, Display advertising, E-commerce, Email marketing, Local Marketing, Mobile, SEM and SEO, Social Media and Web optimization. 

In my opinion this is the most complete one, it will last around 40 hours, but it is the best way to spend your time!

Hubspot Marketing Software

by Hubspot

This certification is an introduction to the HubSpot Marketing Hub: you will get tips to improve the usage of their tools and explore case studies. It’s a large platform with many tools, and to get the most out of them, you need a solid foundation of knowledge and an understanding of how they all interact. In this course, you will become familiar with buyer personas, the contacts database and segmentation; plan a campaign and blog; create landing pages with call to actions; and comprehend email and social media in Hubspot.

Have a look to the video preview!

Subscribe to Hubspot Marketing Software

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Digital Skills: Digital Marketing

 

by Future Learn

This course created by Accenture is the perfect combination of practice and theory for Digital Marketing. The course will assist you in delving into each marketing strategy, such as banner advertising, pay per click advertising, content marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing, and email marketing.  It is split into weeks, activities and steps to help you keep track of your learning and to gain the essential digital skills. 

Discover the Digital Skills by Future Learn

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Analytics Academy

by Google

Analytics Academy teaches you about Google’s measurement tools so that you can grow your business by collecting and analyzing intelligent data. Google Analytics is a platform that collects data from your websites and apps in order to generate reports that provide business insights. Have this training is essential for a digital marketer since with these tools you will be able to track online traffic, understand your target group and user behavior, improve SEO and content marketing, track goals and performance. There are different level of expertise, you can start with the beginners course and if you are particularly interested you can continue with the advanced one. 

Navigate between Google Analytics

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Hootsuite

If you are a student you can request a free coupon to take the Hootsuite Platform and Social Marketing Certifications at no charge. 

The first certification is about developing the skills to fully utilize core Hootsuite products, increasing the impact of your social media efforts, driving results, and proving ROI. The second one you’ll learn the fundamentals of social marketing in order to increase your followers, engagement, and business results.

Forage

This platform is offering virtual work experiences free for students. It’s the perfect occasion to showcase your knowledge and get noticed by recruiters from top companies. Learn relevant tools and skills required to complete tasks that replicate an employee’s work day in only 5-6 hours.

The post 7 free online courses to become a Digital Marketer! first appeared on wbsdigital.

Third-Party Cookies

But first, what is a third-party cookie? A third-party cookie is often described as a cookie that is created by domains differently from a website domain directly visited by the user, and saved on the user´s computer to track information about them, i.e. their login information or shopping cart history, and is in general used for online tracking purposes (Dao & Fukuda, 2021). In other words, cookies allow servers to identify users and remember things about them. The concept “Cookies” stems from 23-year-old Lou Montulli back in 1994 when he was an engineer at Netscape trying to solve a pressing problem making websites remember who their users were or what they had done in previous visits (Quartz, n.d.). The intent behind cookies was pure, however, almost immediately, advertisers and marketers realized, learned, and found ways to utilize cookies in their efforts to track users online and increase market shares. Cookies are an effective way for digital advertisers and marketers to learn about web visitors and their overall online behaviors, such as their visitation frequency, purchase history, and interests in various other websites (HubSpot, 2021). And with this detailed data plan, organize and build targeted content and ads for their users.

Cookies are distinguished into two categories; third-party and first-party cookies. Whilst third-party cookies are generated and placed on the website’s user´s device by a separate and different company than the one the user is visiting, first-party cookies are usually generated and placed on the user´s device by the website that the user is visiting (Cookieyes, 2022). First-party cookies are often referred to as the “harmless cookie” due to their characteristics of simply identifying returning visitors so that they do not have to use the username and password to log in on successive visits (Cookieyes, 2022).

Why Are Third-Party Cookies Being Phased Out?

The phaseout is a result of users expressing concern regarding their privacy online, and the demand for transparency, choice, and control over how their data is used. As users, we spend countless hours each day online, and the amount of information available on every user is infinite. The power companies hold in today’s market is immense compared to previous years. Consumers are becoming increasingly more aware of their surroundings and their rights as users, and therefore, sparked an objection to change the web ecosystem to meet and evolve the needs and demands of its users. 

Google Chrome is not the first browser to phase out the third-party cookie, however, it is the biggest (HubSpot, 2021). As early as 2013 did Firefox and Safari take the plunge to ban third-party cookies from their browser, but as data from Statista shows Chrome stands for more than 56% of the web’s total browser market. Due to Chrome accounting for more than half of all global web traffic, Safari at 11%, and Firefox at 3.15%, shows that 70,15% of the total global web traffic will be “free” from third-party cookies in the future. Case in point there has been a significant demand for increased privacy amongst users.

Exclusive Data Provided by HubSpot and GetApp Discovered That…

• 41% of marketers believe their biggest challenge will be their inability to track the right data (HubSpot, 2021).
• 44% of marketers predict a need to increase their spending by 5% to 25% in order to reach the same goals as 2021 (HubSpot, 2021).
• 23% of marketing experts plan on investing in email marketing software due to Google´s new policy (HubSpot, 2021).

Alternative Targeting Solutions to Third-party Cookies

As previously mentioned, cookies will never completely disappear due to its clear significance within the marketing and advertising fields. The deprecation of third-party cookies set for 2023 has made marketers think of innovative and creative ways for alternative data targeting solutions, and it is believed that there are three new major plans for how the industry will resume to utilize the benefits of third-party cookies without the use of third-party cookies.

Googles Federated Learning Cohorts (FLoC) model:

Google began testing a new technology March 2021 called the FLoC model as a replacement for third-party cookies. The browser tracks users and groups them into cohorts alongside thousands of peers with similar online habits for the purpose of interest-based advertising (Quartz, n.d.). The FloC model informs the site of which cohort users belong to, and based on this information helps advertisers tailor ads to people with similar interests.

First-party data tracking:

Before third-party cookies, there was first-party data tracking which in essence is data about a company´s customers that is collected and owned by that company (Signal, n.d.) The collected customer information is compiled through software and systems that the company itself owns (Signal, n.d.), and from there the data is used to create content, ads, personalized experiences etc. Effectively each company whether it be marketers, advertisers or publishers each collect their own data about their customers respectively.   

Identity-based tracking:

The last alternative data tracking solution is that all web users would be assigned an advertising ID that would allow advertisers to track and collect data every time a user uses a website. Much like third-party cookies, advertisers and marketers will be able to gain insight in user´s browsing habits, and create targeted content and ads based on users advertising ID´s.

Four Quick Key Takeaways from the Phase-Out

1. Google is not banning all cookies.
2. Google will not stop data tracking users entirely.
3. Professionals saw the cookie phase-out coming.
4. The phase-out will encourage creative and innovative thinking to future data collection.

To Conclude…

Initially there are several challenges and disadvantages with the removal of third-party cookies. The importance and benefits sought from using this tool has over the last few years grown immensely, and nearly every website owner uses cookies in the twenty-first century.  The phaseout is met with heaps of resistance from business owners, however, this development is a reaction to users concern and want for increased online privacy. The evolving ecosystem that is the internet will never be free from third-party cookies as it has become a fundamental part of how the web works, however modifications are being made to meet and satisfy the users demand for privacy.

“Cookies are just a fundamental part of how the Web works, about as essential as Wi-Fi, HTML, or electricity. All cookies do is recognize your computer as it travels between Web pages – so you need them for critical things like logging into a website, or buying something from a store.”  Silktide founder, Oliver Emberton.

If you enjoyed this and want to learn more about third-party cookies and its ban, you should check out “The Third-Party Cookie Ban: Unlocking The Secrets of First-Party Data with Ann Handley” podcast available on Spotify, or “What are Third Party Cookies, How do They Work?” podcast also available on Spotify.

Sources

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2022/01/14/15-top-trends-that-will-impact-marketing-in-2022/

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/third-party-cookie-phase-out

https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/a-more-privacy-first-web/

https://qz.com/guide/the-end-of-third-party-cookies/

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/history-of-cookies-and-effect-on-privacy/

https://qz.com/guide/the-end-of-third-party-cookies/

https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3485983.3494860

The post The Cookieless Future – Goodbye Third-Party Cookies first appeared on wbsdigital.