Digital Marketing for Beginners
Read a marketing funnel, work out what an ad campaign really costs and earns, and answer "which channel works?" from Google Analytics 4.
Free · Beginner · No sign-up to start
Free digital marketing training
Learn digital marketing from zero: the marketing funnel, PPC metrics like CPC, CTR and ROAS, and your first GA4 report. Free lessons and a glossary.
For marketing coordinators, small business owners, founders and anyone who has been handed the company’s ads or website traffic and needs to understand the numbers.
Digital marketing is how a business finds customers online: through search engines, paid ads, social media and email, and then measures which of those actually turned into sales. Most of the job is not posting or ad design. It is knowing which numbers to watch and what to change when they move.
- 3free lessons
- 1course
- 34minutes of lessons
- 12glossary terms
- 3questions answered
- 2learning paths
Start here · Free course
Digital Marketing for Beginners
Read a marketing funnel, work out what an ad campaign really costs and earns, and answer "which channel works?" from Google Analytics 4.
Digital marketing courses
Short series of lessons in order, from the basics to doing the real thing in a free tool.
Every lesson
Each lesson opens with a real business problem, works through it with real numbers and ends with a quick quiz.
The Marketing Funnel Explained, With a Worked Example
The marketing funnel with real numbers: awareness, consideration and conversion, how to find the stage that leaks, and the metric for each stage.
PPC Metrics Explained: CPC, CTR, CPA and ROAS With Examples
Core pay-per-click metrics in one worked campaign: CTR, CPC, conversion rate, CPA and ROAS, how they connect, and which lever to pull first.
Google Analytics 4 for Beginners: Read Your First Report
A beginner GA4 tutorial on Google’s free demo account: open Traffic acquisition, compare channels, read engagement rate and key events, add bounce…
Learning paths for a real goal
Short, ordered sets of lessons for one job or one goal.
Judge a Paid Search Campaign
Find where your funnel leaks, then decide from CPC, CPA and ROAS whether an ad campaign is worth more budget.
Report on Your Website Traffic
Put numbers on each funnel stage, then answer "which channel sent the most customers?" from a Google Analytics 4 report.
The glossary and your questions, answered
Plain-English definitions with worked examples, and straight answers to the questions people search for most.
Glossary: 12 terms
- Bounce rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of website visits in which the visitor leaves without meaningfully engaging. In Google…
- CPA (cost per acquisition)
CPA, or cost per acquisition (also cost per action), is what an advertising campaign spent for each conversion it…
- CPC (cost per click)
CPC, or cost per click, is the average amount an advertiser pays each time someone clicks one of its ads. It is…
- CTR (click-through rate)
CTR, or click-through rate, is the percentage of people who click something after seeing it: clicks divided by…
Questions: 3 answered
- What is a good click-through rate?
A good CTR depends on the channel: search ads often get 3% to 6%, display and social ads well under 1%. How…
- Should a small business start with SEO or PPC?
PPC first if you need customers this month; start SEO now if you can wait 3 to 6 months. Most small…
- How do you calculate ROAS, and what is a good ROAS?
ROAS is ad revenue divided by ad spend. A good ROAS is any figure above your break-even ROAS, which is 1…
Do the repetitive parts with AI
Stepthrough started as free AI training. The AI at work lessons show how to hand the repetitive parts of digital marketing work to AI tools, step by step, and the AI glossary explains the AI words in plain English.
Frequently asked questions
Is the digital marketing course really free?
Yes. All 3 lessons, the 12-term glossary and the answered questions are free, with no sign-up and no credit card.
Do I need any experience?
No. Marketing coordinators, small business owners, founders and anyone who has been handed the company’s ads or website traffic and needs to understand the numbers. Every lesson starts with a real business problem and works through it step by step.
How long does it take?
About 34 minutes for all 3 lessons. Each one is short enough to finish in one sitting and ends with a quick quiz.
Can AI help with digital marketing?
Often, for the repetitive parts. Stepthrough's free AI lessons at https://learn.ynteractive.com/ai show how to hand that work to AI tools, step by step.
Ready? Lesson 1 takes about 9 minutes
The Marketing Funnel Explained, With a Worked Example. No account, no credit card.
Start learning free