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The 10 best free Facebook Ads courses for 2024
Feb 16, 2024
By Chris Paterniti
Facebook (now Meta) is an ad machine.
If you've spent more than 5 minutes on the app, you've either scrolled past an ad, seen it interrupt your Stories or Reels, caught a glimpse as you browse Marketplace or found yourself impatiently waiting for it to finish playing halfway through your video.
But that's pretty good news for marketers and business owners. You've got 1.98 billion users waiting to be spoken to and the advertising ease is getting better by the year.
And it’s not just about the sheer numbers – it’s also the fact that Facebook gives you crucial insights into your audience. You can learn about their preferences, purchases, personal interests and so much more. All this info allows you to fine-tune your targeting and optimise your ads so that you reach the right audience.
However, creating a Facebook ad campaign that drives traffic and conversions is easier said than done. It takes skill and experience – and ongoing attention.
Lucky for you, we live in the age of information. There are plenty of tools readily available to help you gain skills fast. To help you get started, we’ve compiled the best free Facebook Ads courses (and some bonus paid ones) that'll give you the best foundation for running your own ads.
1. Coursera: Meta Social Media Marketing Professional Certificate
Offered by Meta and delivered by Coursera, this free Facebook ads course is considered one of the best both by industry professionals and those who take it. The course claims it can get you from beginner to skilled enough to start a job in Facebook marketing in 5 months.
The course sets out four main goals:
- Create and analyse an effective advertising campaign for your target audience
- Create a creative brief that includes the assets for your paid ad
- Create, edit and troubleshoot ads in Facebook Ads Manager
- Establish and manage a social media presence
With a flexible schedule and no prior experience required, it takes you through all the basics as well as offering an applied learning project where you get to test your new skills on the job.
The course offers free registration and sign-up and it’s great for fitting into busy schedules. Simply invest 2 hours a week and you’ll finish the course in 7 months. Or speed it up and get skilled quicker – it’s up to you.
Website: Meta Social Media Marketing Professional Certificate
Duration: 7 months (2 hrs/week)
Cost: Free (without the certification)
2. Meta Blueprint: Official Facebook Training
It’s no surprise that Facebook themselves offer training. They want your money, yes, but they also want you to be successful with your campaign. After all, if their platform helps businesses succeed then more businesses will get on board. It’s a win-win.
You can sign up for this Facebook Ads course free of charge. The content is fairly high quality and is broken into easy-to-follow modules that are very interactive. The modules cover the basics as well as more advanced topics like awareness building, how to choose an ad format, how to distribute and monetise content and how to drive lead generation.
If you’re a beginner and looking to gain awareness about how the system works - this is a great resource and shouldn't be overlooked.
Website: Meta Blueprint
Duration: At your own pace
Cost: Free
3. LinkedIn Learning: Advertising on Facebook
In this highly useful Facebook ads training course, social media strategist and viral marketer Megan Adams helps you to amplify your social media marketing campaigns with Facebook advertising – from the bottom up.
The content is very accessible for beginners. It even covers some of the more boring (but very important) topics like budgeting and reporting. You’ll also gain insight into how to target the right audience, calculate impressions using frequency and reach, and use success metrics to reach your goals.
Along the way, you can test your knowledge with 5 quizzes. Plus, the course is compatible with mobile devices and tablets, making it great for learning on the train or when you’re out and about.
The standard price is $39.99, but if you sign up for a free 1 month trial you can complete the Facebook ads course for free.
Website: Advertising on Facebook via LinkedIn Learning
Duration: 1.75 hours
Cost: $39.99 (but free with a 1 month trial)
4. Skillshare: Facebook training
Skillshare is like the Netflix of online training: you sign up and pay a monthly subscription. Once you're in you have access to a wide range of different courses, including a whole bunch of Facebook ads training courses.
Skillshare’s platform is a great way to learn more about the various sides of Facebook marketing from the beginner level through to more advanced. You can even dive into the world of Instagram and Snapchat marketing. Basically, any Facebook advertising hacks, tips and tricks (yep, they literally have a course called that) you could think of, you’ll find.
If you’re searching for somewhere to start, try their Facebook Ads & Facebook Marketing For Beginners 2022. This is a blow-by-blow of everything you need to know from what Facebook ads are to the best practices for creating video campaigns and how to make the most of audience insights.
Keen to get your hands dirty without committing financially? You can sign up for a 1-month free trial and get access to any Skillshare Facebook Ads course free of charge.
Website: Online Facebook Classes via Skillshare
Duration: Variable
Cost: Variable (1-month free trial)
5. HubSpot Academy: Facebook Marketing and Ads Training
Learn from the brains behind one of the best social media management tools with HubSpot Academy. This is a self-paced crash course in all the basics (delivered through engaging videos):
- Maximising organic reach
- Building out promotions
- Creating targeted, effective ads
- Driving more conversions
- Understanding the platform algorithm
- Executing lead-generation campaigns
Their insights are based on real-world situations and experience, and are perfect for a range of skill levels. The course is led by one of HubSpot Academy's senior Professors, who has taught social media marketing across some of the world's best Universities, including Harvard Extension, Boston, and Mass College of Art.
Website: Facebook Marketing and Ads Training
Duration: 48 minutes
Cost: Free
6. Simplilearn: Free Facebook Ads Course with Certificate
Expert social media marketer Marc Campman takes you through an engaging 41-video course on everything you need to know about Facebook Ads. This course demystifies essential Facebook advertising building blocks like crafting effective creative, choosing campaign objectives, and drilling into your target audience. The focused curriculum cuts out the fluff, so you can soak up vital concepts quickly.
And the reviews speak for themselves! With an impressive 4.6 stars, you can see their nearly 35,000 students have gotten real value from this.
He also covers some of the more overlooked topics like understanding the algorithm and complying with privacy and security policies (like not running lead-gen ads without a secure privacy policy in place!).
Website: Free Facebook Ads Course with Certificate
Duration: 5 hours (self-paced)
Cost: Free
7. Wordstream: PPC University Facebook Course
If you prefer to read than have someone talk to you, this training is perfect! Through a series of well-curated and incredibly insightful 10-minute guides, Wordstream breaks down everything you need to know about the fundamentals of Facebook marketing strategy and advertising.
Explore actionable tips around:
- Writing winning copy
- The perfect ad schedule (best times to run your ads)
- Strategies to lower your cost-per-click and cost-per-sale
- How to localise your digital marketing efforts
- All the ways you can optimise your ads
- How to troubleshoot ad issues
- The difference between targeting potential customers and retargeting
- Must-know Facebook advertising benchmarks
Website: PPC University Facebook Course
Duration: Varied (self-paced)
Cost: Free
8. Kai Bax: eCommerce Facebook Ads Training
If you enjoy spending time on YouTube, this one's for you. Business scaling coach Kai Bax takes you through a solid hour of everything you need to know about running ads for eCommerce businesses. The insights however are pretty transferrable, even across to lead-generation accounts.
He covers pretty much all of the basics:
- Creating your first account
- Setting up a campaign
- Monitoring and measuring performance
- Which columns are the most useful in reporting
- Making decisions based on the right data
It's a pretty intense hour so be ready to take notes!
Website: Kai Bax's Facebook Training for eCommerce
Duration: 1 hour
Cost: Free
9. Coursenvy: The Ultimate Guide to Creating Facebook Ads
Another solid YouTube entry. This time more of a lecture with proper slides, Coursenvy deep dives into a structured overview of Facebook ads and some slightly higher level tips:
- Different types of Facebook campaigns
- Choosing your objectives based on your business goals
- How to set a suitable budget
- Running effective A/B experiments
- Using dynamic creative features
And so much more! Though it seems like more of a "class" it's by no means boring. And you can take it at your own pace, pausing to take notes and even trying things out on the platform as you go!
Website: The Ultimate Guide to Creating Facebook Ads
Duration: 1.5 hours
Cost: Free
10. Neil Patel: Facebook Unlocked
Popular Digital Marketing expert and consultant Neil Patel breaks down Facebook marketing and Advertising as part of that (so it's a little more holistic). In this video-driven course, he covers all the basics in two core modules.
Set-Up:
- Setting up your business on Facebook
- The different content types available
Optimisation:
- Reaching users organically
- Running Facebook Ads
- Growing your brand
The lessons are accompanied by hands-on downloadable tools including a taskmaster worksheet and advertising checklist. So it's very practical and actionable content.
Website: Facebook Unlocked
Duration: Varied (self-paced)
Cost: Free
Bonus: Some really good (paid) courses
The free stuff is good but if you're willing to invest in your digital marketing training, there are some amazing paid social media marketing courses that'll set you up as a certified Facebook Ads manager.
1. Udemy: The Complete Facebook Ads Course – Beginner to Advanced
Udemy is one of the largest and most comprehensive training platforms out there. Naturally, they’re really good at what they do. Udemy offers a range of different courses aimed at different aspects of the Facebook ad campaign. Their courses cover important aspects of online marketing and e-commerce that feed into Facebook advertising at some point or another.
This course is a comprehensive dive into what makes Facebook ads succeed (and fail), as well as how to generate leads and increase your ROI.
The course costs $89.99. If you’re not sure it’s worth it, you get a 30-day money-back guarantee. But the positive ratings and reviews on this course suggest that there’s a lot of gold to mine in this Facebook ads training.
Website: The Complete Facebook Ads Course - Beginner to Advanced
Duration: 6 hours
Cost: $89.99
2. Udemy: Facebook Marketing - Build Facebook Messenger Chatbots
If you’re looking into diversifying your Facebook ads campaign with complex Facebook Messenger Chatbots, this is the course for you. Udemy promises to teach you everything you need to know without writing any fancy code.
This is a great course if you’re fairly new to Facebook ads but know that you’re after a more interactive support chatbot or feedback mechanism on your page.
Littered with solid reviews, this course follows a similar pricing structure to all of Udemy’s high-quality Facebook ads training. Once paid up you’ll get lifetime access which is useful if you want to pause and come back to it once your campaign is underway. It’s like a reference book you can keep flicking through when you need an extra bit of help.
Website: Facebook Marketing - Build Facebook Messenger Chatbots
Duration: 11.5 hours
Cost: $109.99
3. Open Academy: Facebook Marketing Essentials
Social media ace Latasha James packs her signature Facebook Marketing Essentials course with proven strategies to skyrocket your success. This covers organic strategies as well as paid marketing which frankly is a great way to think holistically and make sure your digital marketing is consistent.
With over 50+ video lessons, Latasha lets you in on hard-won techniques leveraged by big brands and lean startups alike. Master organic reach, craft compelling creative, ace advertising and analytics, and troubleshoot like a pro. Latasha’s transparency about her own expensive Facebook flops is also an incredibly refreshing perspective.
Website: Facebook Marketing Essentials
Duration: 16 hours
Cost: $179
Not sure you’ve got time to train? Let the experts get on with the job
To get great results with your digital marketing efforts, it’s crucial that you know what you’re doing. But training up and learning the skills takes a big investment of time, energy, and money – even if the Facebook Ads course is free.
If you’re a busy business owner, there might be other things you’d rather be spending your hours on. Handing it over to the pros could cut back the stress and free you up to focus on what’s important to you.
If you’re at the stage where you think you’re ready to enlist the help of Facebook marketing professionals, get in touch with our expert digital marketing team. With a finger on the pulse of online marketing, we’re ready to create, run and grow your campaign.
Give us a call or reach out via email today.
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