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Digital Performance Essentials Certificate

Master the essentials of digital performance marketing and get your career off to a great start.

Discover the key disciplines in digital marketing, including SEO and Paid Search, and develop the skills you need to plan and implement successful digital marketing campaigns.

Who is the qualification for?

Specially designed for junior practitioners working in the communications industry. You may be in your first year within a digital agency or specialist department.

It’s also ideal for more experienced individuals looking to add knowledge of digital to their existing skill set.

What are the benefits?

  • Gain an essential grounding in how to be a successful client manager and strategic thinker.
  • Become better at briefing, planning and executing digital marketing campaigns.
  • Understand each key discipline in digital marketing, providing you with background knowledge that will enable you to hold your own in team and client meetings.
  • Learn how to buy traffic through display marketing and how to manage successful campaigns.
  • Explore how SEO has evolved and how to make it work for you.
  • Understand affiliate marketing, what’s involved and how to manage campaigns successfully.
  • Learn about Paid Search and how to manage your keyword strategies efficiently.

View the full Digital Performance Essentials Certificate syllabus.

How is the qualification delivered and assessed?

  • Ten hours of learning accessible through the IPA website on any device.
  • A mandatory multiple choice test must be passed before the exam date. If the candidate does not pass this test by the exam date, the final exam will not be accessible to them and they must follow deferral or cancellation policy.
  • The qualification is then assessed via a formal 70-minute online exam, 105-minutes in non-English speaking countries.
  • If you pass the exam, you will be awarded a digital certificate of completion and two MIPA stars towards personal accreditation.

For more information, download the qualification brochure.

How do you book onto and access the qualification?

Please select your chosen exam date from the ‘Intakes’ drop down on this page and proceed to checkout.

Once booked, you can access and start your online learning via the IPA website. To access, please head to your personal IPA portal via the profile icon and click on ‘Training’. Or, visit your personal Training page.

Exam dates

  • 5 March 2025. Booking deadline 31 January 2025.
  • 2 July 2025. Booking deadline 30 May 2025.
  • 1 October 2025. Booking deadline 29 August 2025.
  • 3 December 2025. Booking deadline 31 October 2025.

We are currently updating the Digital Performance Essentials Certificate. Please register your interest to be emailed when bookings go live in early 2025. 

Price 

  • Members: £225+VAT.
  • Non-Members: £450+VAT.

If you are purchasing the certificate as a business based outside of the UK and believe you should not be charged VAT on the sale, please get in touch with learning@ipa.co.uk. If your business is based in the EU, we will ask you to confirm your VAT number before making your booking. This VAT number will be recorded as part of your sale transaction. If your business is based outside the EU, we will ask for further evidence of your business location.

Policies

We operate a 14-day cancellation policy. Please view the policies for further details:

For more information please email learning@ipa.co.uk.

Please note: if you are taking one of our courses or qualifications through your employer or educational establishment, we may need to share your information – including your course or qualification results – with them. For further details about how we treat your personal data, please see our privacy policy.

Putting new joiners through the qualification will not only take the pressure off more senior staff, but give your new joiners a self-service learning platform where they can build confidence by developing knowledge away from their day-to-day team environment