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Digital marketing courses
Beginner friendlyThis Google Ads course teaches you PPC the way the job is really done: working out what a click is worth before you pay for it. You'll track conversions with consent, research keywords by intent, build a themed search campaign in Google Ads Editor and write ads that echo the search, then audit a messy inherited account and write the report a client actually wants to read.
Course overview
This course takes a fictional Sheffield bike shop's Google Ads from a blank practice account to a campaign ready to launch. It starts with how the auction prices a click and what a booking is worth, then moves through tracking, keywords, structure, ads, Quality Score and bidding, on to optimising, Shopping, Performance Max and YouTube, and ends with a capstone audit and rebuild.
By the end you can set bids and budgets you can defend, build a search campaign that doesn't leak money, fix the landing page behind a weak Quality Score and rank the fixes in an account somebody else left in a mess. Whether you run ads for your own business, your employer or your clients, you'll know exactly what every click is buying.
Free course guide
Every module and what it covers, the price, how you're assessed and where the course can take you.
10-page PDF, free
Curriculum
An indicative outline of the modules and what each covers. Work through them in order, at your own pace.
Key benefits
Everything you need to learn the skill, prove it and put it to work.
Getting started
There is no application, no waiting for a start date and no sales call in the way.
Pay once. Instant access, yours for life.
Career outcomes
Google Ads spend is easy to waste and hard to defend, which is why PPC interviews so often ask you to audit an account or talk through a report. This course has you do both, so you arrive with the work as well as the certificate.
Source: National Careers Service (gov.uk), September 2026.
An example of the certificate for the Certificate in Google Ads.
If you're brand new to marketing, start with Digital Marketing, which shows how every channel fits together first. If your customers browse rather than search, Meta Ads will reach them better: search ads work best when people already know what they want. And if you want to be found without paying per click, SEO is the slower route, and it keeps paying back once it's working.
A course advisor will talk it through with you free, and will say so if a different course fits your goal better.
Good to know
Search first, then the rest of Google's campaign types. You start with how the auction works and what a click is worth, then set up conversion tracking, research keywords, structure the account, write ads, and work on Quality Score, landing pages and bidding. After launch you learn the weekly routine of optimising and auditing, then Shopping, Performance Max, Demand Gen and YouTube, and finish by auditing, rebuilding and reporting on an account in a capstone.
No. Google Ads and its manager account are free, and you only pay when ads run. Everything you build stays paused in a practice account, and ads can't run until billing details are added, so nothing goes live by accident. Going live on a small capped budget of your own is optional.
Google Ads if you need enquiries this month: you pay for each click, and traffic starts the day a campaign goes live. SEO if you can wait months for traffic you don't pay for per visit. They work well together, because paid search shows you which searches actually convert before you spend months trying to rank for them.
No. The course follows a fictional Sheffield bike shop, so you build everything for it. If you run a business, or an employer's account with permission, you can use it for the capstone instead and work with its real results.
A Windows or Mac computer. Google Ads runs in the browser, but you build campaigns in bulk in Google Ads Editor, Google's free desktop app, which runs on Windows and Mac only.
Interfaces change often, so the course teaches the principles first and the current screens second. The way the auction, keywords and Quality Score work changes far more slowly than the menus do.
Yes. Pass the final assessment and you get an OBA certificate of completion that an employer can verify online. It isn't one of Google's own Google Ads certifications or preparation for them. The campaign, audit and report you build are the other half of the proof.
Download the free info pack first. It walks you through every module, what you'll build and what you need before you start, so you can enrol knowing exactly what you're getting. If you'd like to talk it through, get in touch and we'll help you choose.
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Free info pack
Every module, the price, how you're assessed and where it can take you. Yours free, and it opens straight away.
Takes 30 seconds
