Digital Marketing for Marketing Managers Training Course

Course overview

Marketing managers are expected to convert digital activity into measurable commercial results while balancing brand consistency, lead quality, customer experience and budget control. Yet many teams still report channel metrics separately, optimise campaigns without clear attribution rules, and struggle to explain which investments are producing incremental revenue. This course equips managers to make informed decisions across paid, owned and earned digital channels, using evidence rather than platform-driven assumptions.

Participants build a practical management framework for digital marketing strategy, audience prioritisation, channel selection, campaign planning, measurement and optimisation. They learn to set SMART commercial objectives, translate customer journeys into content and conversion plans, allocate budget across search, social, email and website activity, and assess performance through GA4, Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager and Looker Studio. The course also addresses first-party data, consent, brand safety, agency management and the governance required to run accountable campaigns.

Teaching combines instructor-led briefings with worked campaign data, channel-planning workshops and management decision exercises. Participants analyse a realistic performance dashboard, diagnose underperforming activity, challenge a media-plan recommendation and build a 90-day digital marketing management plan. They leave with a documented channel strategy, KPI framework, reporting dashboard specification, test-and-learn backlog and action plan ready to adapt for their own team.

The course is designed for marketing managers who already oversee campaigns, agencies, budgets or digital specialists and need stronger command of the decisions that connect digital execution to business outcomes.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Define a digital marketing strategy using commercial objectives, audience segments, customer journeys and channel roles
• Construct a channel plan that assigns budget, timing, content formats and conversion actions across paid, owned and earned media
• Set KPI trees linking awareness, acquisition, conversion, retention and revenue measures to management decisions
• Interpret GA4 acquisition, engagement and conversion reports to identify performance issues and optimisation priorities
• Evaluate Google Ads and Meta Ads Manager campaign results using reach, frequency, CPA, ROAS and incremental-value indicators
• Build a Looker Studio dashboard specification for weekly marketing performance and executive reporting
• Create a structured test-and-learn backlog covering audiences, creative, landing pages, offers and bidding hypotheses
• Apply first-party data, consent, brand-safety and agency-governance controls to digital marketing operations

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Marketing Managers — who own campaign performance, team priorities and channel budgets
• Digital Marketing Managers — who need a stronger management framework for cross-channel planning and reporting
• Brand Managers — who must connect brand activity with measurable digital demand and conversion outcomes
• Demand Generation Managers — who need to coordinate paid media, content, landing pages and lead-quality measures
• Customer Experience Managers — who improve digital journeys across acquisition, service and retention touchpoints
• Marketing Team Leaders — who supervise specialists or agencies and need to challenge recommendations confidently

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience of marketing planning, campaigns or customer communications and be comfortable discussing objectives, audiences, budgets and performance measures. Familiarity with common metrics such as impressions, click-through rate, conversion rate, cost per acquisition and return on ad spend is helpful. Attendees should be able to work with spreadsheets and navigate web-based reporting interfaces. No coding, data-science background, advanced statistics or prior platform certification is required. The course explains GA4, Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager and Looker Studio from a management and decision-making perspective rather than as a platform-operator course.

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor-led modules followed by applied management workshops. Participants work with campaign briefs, GA4-style reporting extracts, paid-media results and dashboard examples to make budget, targeting and optimisation decisions. Small groups review a cross-channel case, identify measurement gaps and present a recommendation to a simulated marketing leadership team. Individual exercises build towards a 90-day plan for each participant’s organisation. The instructor provides templates for KPI trees, channel plans, test backlogs, reporting specifications and agency performance reviews.

Course outline

Day 1: Digital strategy and the management agenda

• Digital marketing’s role in revenue, brand and customer experience
• SMART commercial objectives and marketing outcome statements
• Audience segmentation using needs, value and intent signals
• Customer journey mapping across discovery, evaluation, purchase and retention
• Paid, owned and earned channel roles
• Value propositions, messaging hierarchies and conversion actions
• Competitor and category digital presence assessment

Workshop: Participants map one priority customer journey and produce a channel-role matrix linked to a business objective.

Day 2: Channel planning, content and budget decisions

• Search marketing strategy and keyword-intent mapping
• Paid social audience, creative and frequency planning
• Email lifecycle design and triggered communication journeys
• Website landing-page architecture and conversion-rate principles
• Content planning by funnel stage and buying question
• Media budget allocation using reach, response and marginal-return logic
• Integrated campaign calendars and campaign brief templates

Workshop: Participants produce a six-week integrated campaign plan with channel budgets, content assets and conversion actions.

Day 3: Measurement, analytics and executive reporting

• KPI trees from business goals to channel measures
• GA4 users, sessions, events, key events and acquisition dimensions
• UTM naming conventions and campaign tracking governance
• Conversion measurement and lead-quality feedback loops
• Attribution models, limitations and incremental impact
• Looker Studio dashboard requirements and data-story structure
• Weekly performance reviews and management decision logs

Workshop: Participants diagnose a GA4 and channel-reporting case and create a KPI tree plus executive dashboard specification.

Day 4: Optimisation and platform oversight

• Google Ads campaign structures, bidding and search-term management
• Meta Ads Manager objectives, audiences, placements and frequency controls
• Creative testing frameworks and message-variable design
• Landing-page testing and conversion-friction diagnosis
• Test-and-learn hypotheses, sample considerations and decision rules
• ROAS, CPA, customer acquisition cost and lifetime-value interpretation
• Agency briefs, performance reviews and escalation protocols

Workshop: Participants review an underperforming paid-media account and produce a prioritised optimisation and agency-action plan.

Day 5: Governance and 90-day implementation

• First-party data strategy and audience-data quality
• Consent management and lawful marketing communications
• Brand safety, ad fraud and platform-risk controls
• Marketing, sales and service handoffs for lead and customer data
• Operating cadences for planning, reporting and optimisation
• Digital capability roles, agency models and resource planning
• 90-day roadmap development and stakeholder alignment

Workshop: Participants complete and peer-review a 90-day digital marketing management plan containing KPIs, governance actions, tests, budget decisions and ownership.

Tools & standards covered

Google Analytics 4, Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager, Looker Studio

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions