Digital marketing: choosing a course with an internship

1. Understand the route

A digital marketing course with an internship combines two different things: structured teaching, where you learn and practise the core channels, and a period of supervised work, where you apply them inside an organisation. Both parts matter, but they answer different questions. The teaching tells you whether you will learn the skills properly. The internship terms tell you what experience you will actually get, where, and on what conditions.

LSBUK's Digital Marketing in Practice is built in that order: 12 weeks of teaching covering SEO, social media, paid advertising, content, email, e-commerce, analytics and AI tools, followed by a 12-week internship with LSBUK or a partner organisation. The internship is guaranteed for learners who successfully complete the taught phase, under the published placement terms. An internship is work experience. It is not an offer of permanent employment, and no course can promise you a job afterwards.

2. Check entry, workload and cost

Entry. No marketing experience or degree is needed. Applicants are aged 16 or over, hold a high school qualification or equivalent, have basic computer literacy and workplace-level English. Admissions review each application individually.

Workload. Plan for two different phases. The course page sets out around 330 hours of teaching, workshops and live projects across the 12-week taught phase, which averages roughly 27 hours a week. The internship then runs for about 40 hours a week. That is a substantial commitment: before you enrol, ask admissions for the actual timetable for your intake and check it honestly against your job, studies and time zone.

Cost. The published fee is £650 for the Live Online route and £1,600 for the Campus route in London, charged in pounds sterling. Ask what the fee includes, whether payment options are available and whether any extra costs apply.

3. Compare your choices

• Online or in London. Both routes follow the same syllabus with the same tutors. Live Online classes are taught in UK time, so check the times where you live: a UK evening class can fall late at night in India or after midnight in China.
• A course with an internship or "placement support". Placement support often means CV advice and job-board access. An internship is a defined period of supervised work. Ask which one you are buying.
• Free resources or a structured course. Free platform courses are useful for definitions and tools. A structured course adds sequence, feedback and assessed practice. Many learners use both.
• Where to start. If you are unsure which channel suits you, our guide to whether to learn SEO, social media or Google Ads first explains the trade-offs.

If you are joining from outside the UK, read the checklist for learners in India or the guide for learners in the UAE. For roles and titles to research afterwards, see digital marketing jobs for beginners.

4. Inspect a practical example

The campaign and portfolio practice pack walks through a fictional local business campaign from brief to results: 10,000 impressions, 200 clicks, £100 of spend, 10 leads, 2 sales and £240 of revenue. It shows how to calculate click-through rate, cost per click, cost per lead, cost per acquisition and return on ad spend, and why a revenue-based ROAS is not profit. The maths marketers actually use explains the same measures in more depth.

5. Ask the right questions before you enrol

Write down the answers admissions give you, so you can compare providers on the same terms:

1. When does the next intake start, and what are the class times in my time zone?
2. What exactly must I complete to start the internship?
3. For my intake, is the internship remote or on-site, who supervises it, and is it paid or are expenses covered?
4. What does the fee include, and what payment options are available?
5. What will I have at the end: certificate, internship evidence and portfolio work?