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University of Colorado Boulder · on Coursera

Social Media Advertising

Beginner English Professional CertificateFREE

What you'll learn

Plan a paid social advertising campaign end to end
Define and target the right audiences
Choose objectives and budgets that match goals
Read the metrics that reveal campaign performance
Optimise spend based on results, not guesses
Apply the approach across changing social platforms

This course includes

Yes
Certificate
Yes
Mobile access
English
Language
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Instructor

CJ
Chris J. Vargo
Coursera instructor
learners courses instructor rating

Chris J. Vargo is a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who researches computational advertising and social media analytics. His teaching brings a data-driven lens to paid social rather than surface-level tactics.

Requirements

  • No prior advertising experience required

Who this course is for

  • Marketers running paid social campaigns
  • Founders and freelancers managing their own ads
  • Anyone moving into performance marketing

About this provider

CO
Coursera
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Frequently asked questions

Yes — it focuses on planning, targeting, and reading the analytics that decide whether ad spend works, which is exactly what self-serve advertisers need.
No. It's a beginner course with no prerequisites, building the concepts from the ground up before getting into optimisation.
You can audit the full course free on Coursera. A certificate is available with a subscription.
It emphasises principles and analytics that carry across platforms, so the skills stay useful even as individual ad tools change.
It's a focused course — most learners finish the core material in a couple of weeks at a relaxed pace.
Free
to audit
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