How to train in digital marketing: complete guide to options

Training in digital marketing today is easier than ever. And, at the same time, more confusing than ever: there are university degrees, master's programs, vocational training, bootcamps, online courses, specialized schools... But not all options are equally valuable or useful. It will also be very important to choose the most suitable one for each moment of your career.

If you really want to work in digital marketing, you need to understand two things: what kind of training exists and what career path makes sense according to your professional goal. But you must build your own.

Let's take it step by step. But before you keep reading, a warning: if you want to be a good digital marketing professional, none of the training you do will be definitive, as we need to stay up to date constantly if you don't want to become a dinosaur or a beautiful ficus.

Regulated training: the necessary foundation to build a career in digital marketing

Formal training is not a complement, it is the basis. It is where the fundamentals are acquired: how a company works, how a strategy is structured, how a market is analyzed or how decisions are made with criteria. Without this basis, everything else becomes improvisation.

From here, the usual route goes from less to more, and will depend on when you left secondary education:

Middle grades

Intermediate marketing degrees are a good option for young people who do not want to follow the path of the baccalaureate and have an interest in marketing topics in our case.

They serve as a starting point to acquire work habits, understand basic business dynamics, and are usually a first step to later access a higher degree.

Once this study is completed, our recommendation here is to continue studying with programs that allow you to follow a logical path according to your interests and abilities.

Higher Vocational Training (FP)

Here we are already entering relevant territory. Whether you come from a vocational training program or high school, this step is the best if you are unsure about the university path but want to be a good professional.

The training programs in marketing and advertising offer a quite practical approach, initial contact with digital tools, and a rather applied vision of marketing, although in my opinion, depending on the extracurricular itinerary, it may fall short in the humanistic field.

In many cases, they are another alternative to university to start in the sector, and they are especially recommended if you are looking to enter the job market at a young age. And a practice of learning by doing, not just studying. These programs also always include an internship program in companies, which will allow you to have your first contact with the job market and validate if this is what you like and what you want to dedicate yourself to. From here, decide whether to join the workforce or continue studying.

Normally, the higher-level students who arrive at digital marketing agencies come from the Higher Degree in Marketing and Advertising. In my opinion, it's a good starting point, but too generalist and not very focused on digital marketing. Recently, the Spanish government has launched a GS in SEO, SEM, and social media. We have high hopes for this program, but it is still in the implementation phase and it is too early to know if it will be useful for both students and companies.

University degrees

Call me old-fashioned, but whenever possible, I must recommend pursuing a university degree. The type of degree and the institution are up to you. But what it will give you on an academic and life level is incomparable. Degrees such as Marketing, Business Administration, Advertising, or Communication provide a strategic and methodological layer for dedicating yourself to digital marketing. There are some centers like Tecnocampus in Catalonia that offer university degrees in Digital Marketing, and they are very interesting programs. The proof is that we have an agreement with them that provides a student to our agency each year, and many of them have been able to integrate into the normal operations of La Teva Web.

In marketing faculties, they work with a global business vision, studying consumer behavior in depth, focusing on planning and strategy. Their value lies in the context and mental framework they provide. Not so much in the technical execution of current digital marketing, which often outpaces the syllabus.

They make sense if you're looking for: a solid long-term foundation, and a broader vision of marketing and the company.

University masters

The final step within formal education. This is where specialization within digital marketing should take place: SEO, analytics, online advertising... a master's in digital marketing can also be a good idea if your base degree is not in the field, although it will still be generic in the end.

But not all master's programs fulfilll that promise. The difference lies in the approach, as if it is practical and connected with the sector, it adds a lot. On the other hand, if it is just theoretical, it contributes little more than the degree (which is important, depending on where you want to go).

Before choosing, it is advisable to pay attention to aspects such as the active faculty, the use of real tools, or the project-oriented approach. When well-structured, the master's program can indeed be the bridge between academic foundations and real-world work.

With the utmost respect for these universities and professors who participate in these master's programs: often the syllabus, the instructors, and the dynamics are very far from the job market reality. In our applied case: a person who has studied high school, a degree in marketing, and a university master's in digital marketing, and has not done anything else in parallel, will not contribute much to us in the short term, as they will not have the necessary knowledge, skills, and experience. However, it is an excellent foundation for having a long-term career with a strategic or management focus. When to study for the Master's? Well, that's an excellent question: in my opinion, the ideal thing is not to study the master's immediately after finishing your degree. Once you finish your degree, test yourself in different disciplines of digital marketing, and when you find the one you are most passionate about, look for the best Master's program to become the best.

Non-regulated training: where the practical begins

This is where digital marketing becomes really fast-paced, fluid, unstructured if you will, but you learn a lot.

Non-official training is, in many cases, more up-to-date, more direct and more connected to the market. All the foundation you have from before will be useful to you, but doing this type of training throughout your career is essential in the sector we operate in.

Digital marketing bootcamps

Intensive, short programs that are highly focused on employability. It can be a good lever if you need a boost for a digital marketing challenge and need to catch up, or if you want to pivot a professional career that was already advanced in another direction.

These programs offer you quick learning, with a practical focus and the possibility of immediate incorporation. But like everything express, it can be lacking and you will need to complement it with additional training and real experience. In these programs, they don't always go in-depth (there's no time), you might learn how to do things but not their meaning, and the quality varies greatly depending on the center (it's a trend like brunch, there might be some good ones but what abounds the most is posturing).

They work well if you need a quick change or a first entry into the sector. In any case, pay close attention to the programs and centers, there is a little bit of everything. A good option in this sense would be the Digital Marketing Bootcamp of Neoland Digital Marketing Bootcamp.

Business schools

They offer more structured programs, usually with more resources and networking, and there are always synergies with the labor market, both in approach and landing (their agreements with large companies are a common feature).

They usually combine strategy with real cases, and some theoretical basis, but this is not the center of the thing.

They are useful if you are looking for a more global profile and business friendly, come from another sector or have an entrepreneurial idea with a digital marketing base or orientation. In case you join an agency like ours, it would probably be a good base but you will need a more technical background, to complete until you have the ideal profile.

Schools specializing in marketing

There are some academies specializing in digital marketing studies that have powerful programs. There are even agencies similar to ours that have much of their structure and resources geared towards their academies.This is where the most focused training in specific areas of digital marketing such as SEO, Paid Media, Analytics, Growth or now AI is usually found.

The key is that they are closer to the day-to-day life of the professional. For me, they are a very interesting option to specialize in something, or to solidify the path. Let me explain: many digital marketing professionals have arrived at this through their own projects or life coincidences, and it turns out that we have been implementing digital marketing actions for years, but we do not have a solid academic base. In these cases, a program from these schools can help you get the degree you do not have (in case you do not need it to prove what you already know), but above all it will help you compare ways of working and acquire methodologies that you can implement in your day to day life.

Online courses and capsules

In this case we refer to short courses on a specific topic: Google, Meta, Coursera, specialized platforms... they have programs that are very good

They are useful for getting started, complementing other training, updating knowledge or exploring new paths. But they are only a superficial and often impractical view, which, when well complemented, can help.

Specialization is not optional

This is where many people stop halfway and it's a shame. Studying marketing doesn't make you a digital marketing professional. It gives you context and basic knowledge. But the market doesn't look for contexts, it looks for profiles that know how to do specific things. And I also think that while a 360 vision is very interesting to have in order to understand situations and support them, the complexity of what we have in hand requires specialists.

Digital marketing is too broad to cover everything. And sooner or later, you have to choose. The main areas are the SEO, SEM / Paid Media, Digital Analytics, Social Media, CRO or Automation and artificial intelligence.

At first it makes sense to touch on several areas. Understand the ecosystem. See what fits you. But the professional leap comes when you specialize. Because that's where you bring real value, you can demonstrate results, you become more than employable, you are very useful.

Training without key qualifications

Here's the part that almost no one explains: in digital marketing, much of the learning doesn't happen in classrooms. It happens outside.

Informal training (but essential)

If you're not here, you're left behind:

• LinkedIn: professionals sharing real experience
• YouTube: tutorials, tools, cases
• Newsletters: trends, algorithm changes, new strategies
• Specialized blogs
• Websites with training programs, often freemium, on different aspects of digital marketing

This has a clear advantage: it goes much faster than official training. It's where you see what works now, not two years ago. You can test, implement, comment, refute, make mistakes, get it right, improve day by day.

Real experience: the differentiating factor

You can have degrees. You can have courses. But if you haven't done anything, you don't have a desirable professional profile.

There are no shortcuts here: you have to touch real projects as soon as possible and the more the better, no matter what formative stage you are in.

I give you some ideas:

• in all courses, do as many internships as you can: curricular, extracurricular, paid or unpaid
• create your own website
• launch your own SEO project
• run SEM campaigns with a small budget
• experiment with AI
• analyze data from own projects
• you talk to your friends, family and acquaintances and offer them your digital marketing services for their SME

This is what makes the difference in an interview. Because in digital marketing, what counts is not only what you know(which is very important), but what you can do. And you often learn by doing (and making mistakes). So get to the mess!

My personal experience

The paths to becoming a digital marketing professional can be very varied, and they depend on many circumstances that often are not within your control. I'm going to explain my case in case it helps or inspires you, but it's not the only one. Simply so you have an option and a perspective:

1. I finish my secondary and high school studies (social), with very good grades. Like almost everyone at that age, I have no idea what to do with my life, but I do have an ideology. I want to change the world. So I signed up for Political Science, a degree in which I learned a lot, enjoyed it to the fullest, and which still today allows me to win at Trivial in most forums. Experiences like summer camps, contact with very influential students and professors, or the Erasmus program, provide me with a background that I will later appreciate.
2. The undergraduate training is somewhat vague, so I need a Master's. Since I want to change the world but from the micro level and day-to-day, here we go to the Master's in Public Management. My expectation is to be a high-ranking official. Right away, I see that it's not for me, but I needed to see it (and experience it, in the internships).
3. I get into politics. I want to change the world starting with my surroundings, so there's no better way. After years of activism, doing the master's program presents the possibility of creating a new political formation, of which I am an important part. I enjoy organizing electoral campaigns like never before, we enter the institutions, and suddenly I'm a parliamentary advisor. A dream come true, from which I learn a lot, but that lasts for a while and that's it, if you have ideology and principles. There I discover that the part of political action that attracts me the most is the communicative aspect: speeches, slogans, social media.
4. I find myself unemployed. And with no prospects of finding a job in my field. So I sign up for all the courses, subsidized or not, that I like. I pick up where I left off in the previous stage, let's get trained and solidify concepts: I sign up for courses in community management, copywriting, email marketing. My mind is blown and I'm passionate about this, I need to put it into practice. I don't see where or how.
5. I need to apply my digital marketing knowledge, but no company is giving me a chance. I open all the ones that come my way: with a friend, we set up our own digital project. An online store forwhich I handle the SEO, SEM, social media, and the blog. I learn a lot. I discover that I hate Prestashop, a great learning experience. It doesn't earn me a living, but it's a fundamental springboard.
6. My personal project opens the door for me to get a job at a marketing and advertising agency. There I learn a lot but under maximum precariousness: late and not always regulated payments, countless unpaid hours, and many more things I prefer not to remember. There I see that it's not the ideal place, but working in an agency is perfect for professional growth: dynamism, demands, application of innovative techniques, etc.
7. Second agency and freelancestage: I become self-employed and discover the freedom and uncertainty it gives you in equal measure. In this stage, I collaborate with a second agency, but at the same time, I get involved in projects that allow me to work with professionals, agencies, and clients of all kinds. Here, in addition to improving my professional skills, I get seasoned in everything related to client relationships, budgets, invoices, etc. For the first time, there are fires exploding in my face, and if I look behind or to the sides, there's no one there. Forward.
8. The bohemian life is very hectic, but macroeconomic and personal circumstances make me seek stability. One of the agencies I had collaborated with, La Teva Web, offered me a position on their team. I hesitated a lot before saying yes, which allowed me to take the leap my career needed: a solid and long-term project, a well-established team, and a space where I was always allowed to contribute if it was for the collective good. The result is visible: in these 10 years at La Teva Web, I have grown like never before professionally and at the same time, I would say I have notably contributed to collective successes. All the previous steps, as eclectic and rare as they may seem, contribute and give meaning to what I have been able to achieve upon reaching the right place.
9. One very important thing is that I have always complemented my main education with secondary ones: in high school, I studied Arabic, in university, German, and now I am taking AI courses. Always a little beyond what is mandatory, and what is straightforward.

This has been my path, but you must build your own. If you ever find yourself in doubt on that path, you can contact me and I'll try to lend a hand.