Many years ago, I teamed up with a mom-and-pop digital marketing agency and launched an online store. After three years of diminishing returns and increasingly more expensive ad budgets, I had to call it quits. From what I now understand, they never provided me with enough data to make smarter decisions.

Fast forward to today, and I find myself on a new quest to make sense of data, this time as a writer for Class Central. We’ve decided to shift towards more data-driven decisions to better support and understand our learners’ needs. Moving beyond gut instincts, we’re now employing data analyses. Google Analytics 4 (GA4), alongside Google’s Search performance tools and social media engagement metrics, have become my arsenal in this search for insight. They’re the tools I’m using to truly listen to our audience, pinpointing what learners engage with the most and directing our efforts towards creating engaging posts and articles.

This journey has inspired me to curate the best resources for learning marketing analytics from both my personal learning experiences and an analysis of reviews and other recommendations. This Best Courses Guide (BCG) is a collection of the courses I’ve taken on and those saved for future learning. Join me on this path to learning marketing analytics, as we leverage the power of data to make more informed decisions.

Click on the shortcuts for more details:

• Top Picks
• What is Marketing Analytics?
• Courses Overview
• Why You Should Trust Us
• How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Here are our top picks

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What is Marketing Analytics?

Embed: What does a marketing data analyst do?

Marketing analytics involves analyzing data to make marketing efforts more effective and budget-efficient. It focuses on evaluating lead sources, acquisition costs, sales potential, and optimizing budget allocation.

Responsibilities of a Marketing Data Analyst

• Data analysis: use knowledge to inform strategy, analyzing how customers interact with the brand online to improve marketing tactics
• Strategy optimization: work leads to refined marketing approaches based on customer behavior insights
• Budgeting influence: advise on budget allocation for maximum revenue impact, based on data insights.

Skills Needed

• Technical abilities in programming (SQL, Python) or analytics tools (Power BI, Tableau)
• Digital marketing tool proficiency (Google Analytics, Google Ads, Meta Ads)
• Strong communication to share insights and impact decisions.

Education and Career Paths

Paths to becoming a marketing data analyst vary:

• Degrees in marketing, business, math, or statistics
• Self-taught skills in relevant tools and analytics principles.

It’s important to note that having a specific degree or technical background is not as important as having the right blend of analytical skills and marketing knowledge to start in this field.

Courses Overview

• 2 courses are free and 4 are paid
• 1 course offers a free certification accredited by Google
• The most featured providers are Udemy and DataCamp.

Best Marketing Analytics Course with Meta Certification (Meta)

If you’re just starting out into Marketing Analytics, you’re probably feeling overwhelmed and have no idea how to get started in this field.

This 30-week program, developed by Aptly in collaboration with Meta, will provide you with the foundations to get into this field and even prepare you for an entry-level job. Also, this course serves as a great tool to marketers in small companies who need to handle their marketing data to make informed decisions on budget allocations and ads optimization.

Starting with the foundations of marketing data analysis, this program requires no previous experience. Hands-on projects throughout the program ensure you can apply what you’ve learned in real-world scenarios.

Completing the 8 free-to-audit courses in this program prepares you for the Meta Marketing Science Certification exam, with successful learners earning both Coursera and Meta Marketing Science Certifications.

What learners will gain:

• Understanding of basic marketing principles and how data informs marketing decisions
• Proficiency in using spreadsheets, SQL, and statistical methods for data analysis
• Skills in audience segmentation, campaign evaluation, marketing mix optimization, and sales funnel evaluation
• Experience in visualizing data with Tableau and creating, evaluating, and optimizing campaigns using Meta Ads Manager.

“Great introduction to marketing analytics terms and concepts, and to the Meta Ads Manager platform to plan, run and evaluate your marketing experiments. ” – Kai

Best Course for Marketing Analytics Strategy for Beginners (Udemy)

If you want to learn how you can leverage data without using Python, R, or other complicated data analysis tools, Marketing Analytics Mastery: From Strategy to Application is the choice for you. It requires only some digital marketing experience and basic Excel skills.

Designed by Stephen Tracy, an award-winning data analyst with over a decade of experience, this course demystifies the complex world of marketing analytics. You’ll learn how to collect, interpret, and act on marketing data, enabling data-driven decisions that propel business growth.

What you’ll learn:

• Core concepts of marketing and how to measure its impact effectively
• Common measurement platforms, from web and app analytics to email marketing
• How to create a solid analytics strategy and map out marketing campaigns for better measurement
• How to choose the correct metrics for your business objectives and how to benchmark your performance
• Insights on optimizing marketing efforts through data analysis and experimental testing
• Techniques to measure and enhance returns on marketing investment.

“Got an overview knowledge about Marketing Analytics and he was pretty good in explaining all the concepts with examples. Overall a nice package to get a good knowledge about Marketing Analytics.” – Preetham V., Udemy learner

Best Concise Course for Customer Analytics & Market Segmentation (Udemy)

Analyze markets using customer data analytics in Marketing Customer Analytics, Segmentation, and Targeting. This beginner-friendly course does not require prior knowledge in data analytics.

Using case studies, you will learn how to effectively segment customers, choose the right marketing strategies for niche or mass targeting, and utilize location-based analytics for insightful market analysis.

What you’ll learn:

• Fundamentals of customer analytics for effective marketing segmentation and targeting
• Walkthrough of MRI-Simmons and ArcGIS Business Analyst software
• Utilization of digital marketing tools and media selection for precise targeting
• Strategies for both mass and niche marketing approaches
• Techniques for location-based market analysis, with applications in the restaurant and retail industries
• Case study insights on selecting customer segments and designing targeted marketing campaigns.

“Really great course that helped me understand the fundamental concepts of customer analytics, understanding segmentation, and how to apply these new skills with real-time software. Highly recommend this for anyone looking to learn marketing analytical skills.” – Betzy H., Udemy learner

Google Analytics 4 Free Certification (Google)

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is one powerful tool that marketers can use without any additional cost to get insights of real customer behavior while using their websites or apps.

Through Skillshop, Google provides a free GA4 training with free certification. If you already have experience and want to take the exam, you can go to the final module: Google Analytics Certification.

“The certification consists of 50 multiple-choice questions that you need to answer in 1 and half hours. 80% is the passing threshold.

The questions mostly consisted of a lot of basic trivia about Google Analytics and some of the other products it’s connected to like the Tag Manager and Advertising. If you finish the optional course materials it recommends, passing wouldn’t be a problem.

“If I remember, you can retake the test once a day if you fail. The free certificate was mailed to me a day later.” Dhawal Shah

Best Course on Python-Powered Marketing Analytics (DataCamp)

Python-Powered Marketing Analytics sets you on a path to becoming a marketing analytics expert, using Python to uncover hidden patterns, predict trends, and make data-backed decisions that drive success.

This comprehensive 28-hour program spread across 7 courses and a capstone project empowers you with the skills to analyze campaign performance, measure customer engagement, and predict customer churn using Python. Ideal for marketing professionals eager to adopt data-driven strategies, this course provides hands-on experience with real-world data sets, including retail transactions and social media data.

What you’ll learn:

• Python’s most powerful libraries for marketing analysis, including pandas for data manipulation, Matplotlib and seaborn for data visualization, and NLTK for text analysis
• Analyze campaign performances, social media engagement, and predict customer behaviors using statistical models and machine learning
• Skills in market basket analysis, customer segmentation, and predicting customer churn to understand and influence consumer behaviors
• Apply your learning in a real-world project focused on combating subscriber churn through targeted marketing, using machine learning models for actionable insights.

Best Course to Master Marketing Analytics with Tableau (DataCamp)

If you want to master marketing analytics through the use of Tableau, Marketing Analytics in Tableau is designed for you.

Throughout the course, learners will tackle the complexities of marketing attribution and the distinctions between B2B and B2C marketing. With hands-on practice in Tableau in an interactive platform, you’ll be able to use Tableau functions including FIXED, DATEPARSE, and CONTAINS. You’ll also conduct analyses on trending performance across web ads and email marketing.

What you’ll learn:

• Analyzing marketing performance, benchmarking metrics, and optimizing strategies across various channels
• Hands-on practice with Tableau functions for marketing data analysis
• Techniques for analyzing marketing performance over time and across channels
• Strategies for benchmarking performance using metrics like LTV/CAC and engagement rates
• Methods for identifying areas for improvement in marketing strategies.

Why You Should Trust Us

Class Central, a Tripadvisor for online education, has helped 60 million learners find their next course. We’ve been combing through online education for more than a decade to aggregate a catalog of 200,000 online courses and 200,000 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.

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 open courses, some with certificates. You don’t need to enroll in a university to learn about Marketing Analytics.

When choosing courses, I considered the following factors:

• Renowned Institutions: I looked for recognized institutions in Marketing Analytics
• Instructor experience: I sought instructors with extensive experience in Marketing Analytics and engaging presentation styles
• Popularity: I checked numbers of enrollments and views to find popular courses
• Course content: I examined courses that covered a range of topics and presentation styles, including the basics and more advanced topics. I watched some course videos to sample courses I hadn’t already taken
• Learner reviews: I read learner reviews (when available) to get a sense of the quality of each course, leveraging the Class Central database with its thousands of course ratings and reviews written by our users as well as available course provider reviews.

Then, I defined the scope for these recommendations. A Marketing Analytics course can cover various topics, so I chose top courses from a range of sub-fields.

Ultimately, I used a combination of data and my own judgment to make these picks. I’m confident these recommendations will be a reliable way to learn about Marketing Analytics.