Google Ads (formerly AdWords) is the most popular Pay-per-click (PPC) platform, allowing you to create ads that appear on Google Search, Maps, Shopping, YouTube, and more. However, Google is not alone in the ad selling business; for instance, Meta and Tiktok offer fierce competition.

Knowing how to use Google Ads is essential to drive traffic and leads to your website. In this Best Courses Guide (BCG), we’ve selected the best online courses from the Class Central catalog with over 200 Google Ads courses, including offerings from popular course providers such as Google Skillshop, Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, and Skillshare.

We’ve also compiled BCGs on other digital marketing topics:

Click on the shortcuts for more details:

• Top Picks
• Why You Should Trust Us
• Courses Overview
• How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Here are our top picks

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Why You Should Trust Us

Class Central, a Tripadvisor for online education, has helped 80 million learners find their next course. We’ve been combing through online education for more than a decade to aggregate a catalog of 250,000 online courses and 250,000 reviews written by our users. And we’re online learners ourselves: combined, the Class Central team has completed over 400 online courses, including online degrees.

Courses Overview

• Over 10.3K people follow the Google Ads subject on Class Central
• 3 courses are free and 7 courses are paid
• 5 courses have in total over 437,900 enrollments and views, the other 5 courses don’t provide this data.

Best Google Ads Course for Beginners (Isaac Rudansky)

Ultimate Google Ads Training 2021 is a comprehensive course taught by Isaac Rudansky, a certified Google Adwords Pro. You’ll learn how to drive traffic to your website, create campaigns, track conversions, and more.

No experience required. You will only need a website, landing page, or Facebook page to send traffic to.

What you’ll learn:

• Set up your Google Ads account from scratch
• Understand the theory behind successful online advertising
• Use keywords to your advantage
• Set up conversion tracking and track phone calls, sales, revenue, and form submissions
• Take advantage of competitor reports and customer data in your campaigns
• Perform A/B testing on your ads
• Optimize your cost per click by increasing Quality Score
• Structure your account, campaigns, ad groups, and keyword lists for optimal results
• Work with external tools such as Excel, SEMrush, and Optmyzr.

Isaac Rudansky YouTube channel provides free tutorials and resources on Google Ads.

“You won’t find value like this on YouTube! There was no fluff, straight to the point and taught me everything I needed to know with much more. Even got some great resources you won’t find anywhere else. I 100% recommend this to anyone looking to get into Google Ads.” – Eleazar G., Udemy learner.

Also Great: Google Search Ads for Beginners (Joshua George)

Google Ads For Beginners 2024 – Step By Step Process is a practical course designed to teach you the basics of Google Search Ads, step-by-step. Taught by award-winning SEO agency owner Joshua George, you’ll learn how to create an effective campaign from scratch, using tools and strategies that will make your journey into digital advertising simpler.

What you’ll learn:

• Set up your first Google Search Ad
• Understand what keywords to use and target for your business
• Learn about match types and how to write ads that generate clicks
• Experiment with different bidding strategies
• Learn about Quality Score and ad extensions
• Optimize your ad campaigns
• Set up and track conversions.

This course is also available on Skillshare.

“Great course for a beginner who’s looking to learn the basics and different strategies to use for your business. Taught at a great pace and very thorough with key information and endless examples. Feel a lot more confident running ads and analyzing my data after doing this course.” – Daniel M., Udemy learner

Best Google Ads Bootcamp with Live Sessions (Noble Desktop)

If you prefer instructor-led learning, Noble Desktop’s Google Ads Bootcamp offers real-time feedback and accountability that pre-recorded courses can’t match.

What I find interesting is that this program runs both in-person (NYC campus) and online (Zoom). Even if you’re attending online, you’ll have individual attention and can see other students in the classroom. You’ll be able to interact with instructors, receive feedback, and ask questions during sessions. Plus, you’ll get access to class recordings and workbooks – pretty helpful for catching up if you miss a class or reviewing what you learned.

Key Benefits

• Small class sizes (8-15 students)
• Free retake within one year
• Certificate of completion to showcase achievements
• Detailed class files with real-world projects

Noble Desktop knows what they’re doing – they’ve been around for over three decades providing instruction with industry experts. So you can rest assured your mentorship will not be with someone who just finished the course. Don’t take my word for it – student reviews on Yelp and Google praise their practical approach and instructor quality.

What You’ll Learn

• Set up a Google Ads account to create paid advertising campaigns
• Keyword research to control ad visibility and reach the right audience
• Develop bidding strategies and learn Google Ads auction to maximize ad performance
• Write ads with strong calls to action for high conversion rates
• Manage conversion tracking to measure campaign success and track user actions
• Google Ads interface to analyze reports, optimize campaigns, and segment data
• Advanced techniques like remarketing for search and display to develop strategies
• Use campaign automation tools to boost ad results

Flexible Schedule Options

• 2 days full-time (weekdays)
• 2 weeks (evenings)

“I highly recommend Nicole at Noble Desktop. She explains complex digital marketing in a very user-friendly and simple way to understand. She has exceptional skills in teaching in a group setting while also going around the room for individualized attention and answering everyone’s questions.” – Saudy Tejada

LinkedIn Learning’s Best Google Ads Course for Beginners (Brad Batesole)

Google Ads Essential Training is an introductory and practical course that will teach you the foundations of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising with Google Ads. Taught by marketing specialist Brad Batesole, you’ll learn how to set up and manage Google Ads campaigns, write effective ads, and track your results.

What you’ll learn:

• Set up a new Google Ads account
• Keywords research
• Create a new campaign and write your first ad
• Use Google Ads reporting and Google Analytics to track your campaign’s performance
• Optimize ads to get more clicks, conversions, and ROI
• Use ad extensions to improve your click-through rate (CTR).

“Easy to understand, helpful hints and tips as well as clear chapter quizzes. I highly recommend this course even if you have no experience in Google Ads. It’s a good base to start learning.” – Meera Al Habtari, LinkedIn learner

Google Ads Search Free Certification (Google Skillshop)

This free course from Google Skillshop will teach you how to build and optimize Google Search campaigns. By earning the free certification, you’ll demonstrate your ability to:

• Translate a vision for online marketing into a digital marketing strategy
• Generate a plan to increase sales or website traffic
• Develop a plan to reach new and existing customers
• Ensure your marketing plan is aligned with your budget.

What you’ll learn:

• The fundamentals of Google Ads Search
• The main types of Google Search campaigns
• How to reach your audience with Google Search campaigns
• The more technical aspects of Google Ads, such as bidding, writing effective ads, and using ad extensions
• How to use Google’s Audience Solutions with your Search campaigns
• How to boost performance with Optimization Score and increase conversions with Performance Planner.

If you’re interested in other free certificates, check out this article with thousands of courses from Google and other providers.

HubSpot Academy’s Free Google Ads Course (Jorie Munroe)

This practical free course from HubSpot Academy will teach you the fundamentals of Google Ads and how to build and customize a Google Ads campaign based on the needs of your business and target the right buyer personas using HubSpot and Google audience creation tools.

What you’ll learn:

• Set up your Google Ads account from HubSpot
• Create a remarkable Google Ads campaign
• Optimize your Google Ads campaign using ad extensions and landing pages
• Control your costs with Google auction tips
• Increase your Google Optimization Score in HubSpot and troubleshoot your ad campaigns
• Target your Google Ads with remarketing, Google In-Market Audiences, and HubSpot ad audiences
• Report on your Google Ads with HubSpot Ads Reporting
• Understand the role of attribution in advertising
• Optimize your ad budget with Smart Bidding.

Best YouTube Tutorials (Surfside PPC)

This collection of free tutorials from Surfside PPC, one of the most recommended resources on r/googleads subreddit, will teach you everything you need to know to create and manage successful Google Ads campaigns, from the basics to more advanced topics.

• Set up your Google Ads account
• Create and manage Google Ads campaigns
• Target your ads to the right audience
• Write effective ad copy
• Set your budget and bidding strategies
• Track and measure your results.

If you are familiar with the basics, you can skip to more advanced topics: Dynamic Search, Display Network targeting options, bidding strategies, ads budgeting and forecasting, and much more.

Best Google Ads Crash Course (Skillshare)

This concise introductory course from Skillshare, Digital Marketing with Google Ads, taught by digital advertising expert Ben Lund, will teach you the basics of Google Ads and best practices to drive customers to your business.

What you’ll learn:

• Create a Google Ads account
• Create a search campaign
• Create display campaigns, including retargeting
• Create YouTube ads with video ads
• Measure the effectiveness of your campaign
• Understand your return on investment (ROI).

“Ben knocked it out of the park with this one. Coming into this I had no experience with Google Ads but after completing this course I feel confident I will be able to apply what he has taught me in a meaningful way to benefit either myself or the company I work for.” – Steven Clowes, Skillshare learner

Google Ads and Facebook Ads Course (ClickMinded)

This course from ClickMinded will teach you everything you need to know about paid advertising, with a focus on Google Ads and Facebook Ads. You’ll learn the fundamentals of paid advertising, how to target your ads to the right audience, create high-converting ads, and optimize your campaigns for success.

What you’ll learn:

• The fundamentals of paid advertising, including targeting, ad creation, and the auction system
• How to set up a Google Ads campaign, including keyword research, match types, negative keywords, bidding and budgeting, ad group structure and organization, dynamic keyword insertion, and ad extensions
• How to analyze and optimize your Google Ads campaigns
• How to set up a Facebook Ads campaign, including targeting and ad creative creation
• How to track and analyze your Facebook Ads campaigns.

“The Google Ads content was amazing. I’ve already made positive ROI campaigns for every single one of my clients, and I LOVE the course update! Head and shoulders above the previous one. Thanks so much for refreshing it. Can see right from the start this version is so much better. I’m redoing the whole thing and was so pleasantly surprised when I saw it had been completely revamped.” – Sonja Graser, ClickMinded learner

Best Google Ads Advanced Course (LinkedIn Learning)

This advanced Google Ads course from LinkedIn Learning, taught by co-founder and COO of Ladder.io Michael Taylor, will teach you how to take your Google Ads expertise to the next level using advanced techniques from automation to competitive analysis.

What You’ll Learn

• Bid and budget optimization rules
• How to defend your optimization decisions
• How to use the Google Ads Editor to quickly make changes in bulk
• How to modify campaigns via bulk sheets
• How to run Google Ads scripts to automate nearly anything on your account
• How to efficiently track campaign performance
• How to leverage other Google channels, such as Google Shopping.

“It was a great experience to learn Advanced Google Ads in a simplified manner. Teaching method was awesome. Good course for anyone who’s looking for advanced google ads learning” – Nibras Hamza, LinkedIn learner

How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Trying to find “the best” can be daunting, even for those of us who live and breathe online courses. Here’s how I approached this task.

First, I combed through Class Central’s Catalog and the internet to find a variety of free and paid courses.

Second, when choosing courses, I considered the following factors:

• Renowned Institutions: I picked the most recognized institutions in Digital Marketing, SEO, and Google Ads.
• Instructor experience: I looked for instructors with extensive experience in Google Ads and Digital Marketing.
• Course content: I looked for courses that covered a wide range of topics, from the basics to more advanced techniques.
• Student reviews: I read student reviews (when available) to get a sense of the quality of each course.

To evaluate each course, I watched some of the course videos and read the course syllabus. I also looked at the course’s rating and reviews on Class Central.

Ultimately, I used a combination of data and my own judgment to make these picks. I’m confident these recommendations will provide you with the knowledge and skills you need to create high performing ads for your business using Google Ads.