Ultimate Guide to Digital Marketing Bootcamps

Table of Contents

• What is Digital Marketing?
• The Digital Marketing Economy
• Average Salary for Digital Marketers
• Skills for Digital Marketers
• Typical Digital Marketing Job Titles
• The Best Digital Marketing Bootcamps
• Digital Marketing Skills Courses & Certifications
• Further Reading:

When you think of your next tech job, does “Digital Marketer” come to mind? It should; a solid understanding of marketing, combined with analytical and a few tech skills, can lead to a fulfilling, evolving career. By 2024, digital advertising revenue will amount to $460 billion dollars! With the increase in marketing buys over the last few years, experts have forecasted that digital will eventually account for 50% of total advertising spend. So what is digital marketing, and exactly what skills do you need to be successful? Check out our Guide to Digital Marketing Bootcamps to find which types of jobs and salaries you could land in digital marketing, the skills you need to excel in the field, and the best Digital Marketing Bootcamps today.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing refers to a company’s online branding assets – it’s an umbrella term for all marketing done online. While you may think of marketing as print ads, commercials, direct mail, or telemarketing, expect digital marketing to soon overtake these traditional methods and impact how we consume ads.

The opportunities are nearly endless for digital marketers. Many types of companies require these skills – job positions are not limited to the tech industry! Many marketers work in advertising agencies, but every company, in pretty much any industry, has the potential to need a digital marketer to promote their product or services online. Digital marketers work with email, social media, video, and SEO to promote brands across the digital sphere.

The Digital Marketing Economy

What does the digital marketing landscape look like? Well, digital marketing is expected to see exponential growth over the next few years. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, demand in marketing jobs should increase by 10% by 2026, which is above average for all careers. 

Average Salary for Digital Marketers

According to Glassdoor, US digital marketing salaries range from $43,000 to $86,000 with an average salary of $67,230. For Advertising Managers, Promotions Managers, and Marketing Managers, the salary potential is even higher with the average being $127,560 per year according to The Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Skills for Digital Marketers

There are a lot of areas that Digital Marketers can specialize in. But if you want to be an all-around marketer, these are some of the technical tools and concepts that marketers need to know about:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Pay Per Click (PPC)
• Social Media Advertising (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Hootsuite, Buffer)
• Email Marketing (Hubspot, Mailchimp, Customer.io, Constant Contact)
• Display Advertising
• Cross-Channel Advertising
• Demand Side Platforms (DSP)

New artificial intelligence tools for digital marketing are now being used on the job. Digital marketers today may add AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Jasper, and Zapier to their workflow to increase productivity. 

What soft skills will you need as a digital marketer? It’s important to understand that your job will be to get messaging across to consumers and stakeholders. Marketing is a creative science; the goal is to get the public to trust and believe in your product. As Dave Boscom, a VP of Marketing and Mentor at Springboard explains, "The best digital marketer is creative but also cares enough about the analytics and the data behind that creative. I've seen a lot of people who are super creative, but they just don't pay attention to the numbers or care about the results. Others are super analytical, but they don't have any good ideas on ad copy. To be successful, especially at the strategic level, you've got to have a combination of creative and analytical skills."

If you want to be successful, you need to combine your tech knowledge with these soft skills:

• Communication/ Interpersonal Skills
• Creativity
• Analytical Thinking
• Quick Learner
• Multitasker

Typical Digital Marketing Job Titles

The digital marketing field encompasses various positions to help grow the brand and consumer base of a business. Here’s a shortlist of the types of marketing roles you could land:

• Social Media Marketer
• Email Marketer
• SEO Specialist
• Inbound Marketer
• Growth Hacker
• Content Marketing Manager
• Digital Marketing Specialist
• Digital Marketer

For example, at growth marketing agency Digital Hot Sauce, CEO Scot Sustad explains what they’re looking for in marketers: “Depending on an employee’s competencies, they can go into project management, account management, strategy, client interactions. Or they can go into a specialist role like SEO (search engine optimization), PPC (pay-per-click), copywriting, design, etc.” Digital Hot Sauce likes hiring from San Francisco-based coding bootcamp RED Academy because their graduates learn full stack marketing. Scot notes that “bootcamp students may not be amazing at any one thing, but they’ll know how to do it all, and can dive into client work right away.”

The Best Digital Marketing Bootcamps

Learning digital marketing at a bootcamp is an efficient way to streamline and expedite your education of the field (and some bootcamps will help you find a job!) Here’s a full list of schools with digital marketing courses on Course Report, but check out our top digital marketing bootcamps below:

BrainStation
Length: 10 weeks or 5 weeks, part-time
Curriculum: Students will learn Branding & Strategy, Owned, Paid & Earned Media, E-Mail Marketing, and Analytics by completing a digital marketing campaign that is actionable and measurable.
Career Prep: BrainStation offers interview guidance and practice, as well as tips on building a stand-out resume and portfolio.
Cost: $3,250
Location: NYC, Vancouver, Toronto, London, and Online

Digital Creative Institute
Length: 12 months, full-time
Curriculum: Digital Creative Institute offers a digital marketing apprenticeship program for recent college graduates to join the San Antonio and Austin workforce. Topics covered include Google Analytics, Content Marketing, PPC, Marketing Automation, Email Marketing, Data Science, Front-End Web Development, and SEO.
Career Prep: Students work in a paid digital marketing position at an innovative company.
Cost: $12,000
Location: Austin and San Antonio

General Assembly
Length: 10 weeks, part-time 
Curriculum: Students gain proficiency in social advertising using Facebook, Google AdWords, and Google Analytics to understand user behavior.
Career Prep: The General Assembly careers team partners with companies for course development and graduate placement.
Cost: $4,500
Location: Online

Jelly Academy
Length: 6 weeks, part-time
Curriculum: The curriculum covers social media, public relations, SEO, Google Analytics, and Google, Facebook, and Instagram ads. Students will learn how to strategize, identify and reach a target audience, and how to set marketing goals and analyze results.
Career Prep: Students receive resume and job interview preparation, as well as networking connections and help in securing a job at agencies.
Cost: $3,999
Location: Online

UT Austin Boot Camps
Length: 18 weeks, part-time
Curriculum: The Digital Marketing Boot Camp at Texas McCombs through UT Austin Boot Camps takes a multidisciplinary approach to helping students attain proficiency in marketing strategy, campaign development, digital advertising, and modern tools in site analytics and reporting.
Career Prep: Students receive career services, such as portfolio reviews, resume and social media profile support, career events, workshops, mock interviews, and 1:1 career coaching.
Cost: $9,495
Location: Online

Digital Marketing Skills Courses & Certifications

If you’ve already graduated from a digital marketing bootcamp or have some marketing experience, then you may be looking for a shorter, more concise course. These programs offer short courses and/or certification courses for those looking to upskill their digital marketing knowledge base:

• HubSpot Academy
• JobPrepped
• Udemy Digital Marketing Course
• Digital Marketing Academy of Canada (DMAC)

Further Reading:

• Here's how to get a job in digital marketing after graduating from a digital marketing bootcamp.
• Learn how Deveshree pivoted from fashion to digital marketing by enrolling at BrainStation.
• Deepti had a decade of communications & marketing experience, but here's why she enrolled at The Digital Marketing Boot Camp at Texas McCombs to level up her career. 
• See why the Global Marketing and Operations Senior Director of Boston-based MassChallenge likes hiring from Startup Institute’s digital marketing bootcamp.