5 Coding Skills To Enhance Your Digital Marketing Career

As a digital marketer, there are 5 coding skills that will enhance your career in any industry that is going through digital transformation.

Currently, digital marketing is much too data-driven. It’s all about making accurate decisions, given that customers are tech- and information-savvy. And, businesses all over are adapting to the recent trends in technology in today’s customer-centric market. 

One way to keep up with the recent digital transformation of businesses is to have a good familiarity with coding. Organisations want to enhance user experience in the online scenario as much as possible. 

Such steps require interpreting data, tracking marketing campaigns on a granular level, enhancing email design, etc. Along with that, there are technical SEO aspects such as indexing, page elements, etc. 

It is not essential to be a hardcore coder in this industry. But basic knowledge of programming languages is sure to enhance your professional development. 

Even if you are running your own small business or doing freelance work, you will not need to resort to developers or data analysts for small tasks when you have these coding skills. 

So, the next question is, “Which ones should you know and apply as a digital marketer?”

This blog covers the top 5 coding skills that will not just equip you for the time being, but for the long term as well. 

Click on any of the top coding skills below.

1. HTML
2. SQL
3. Python
4. JavaScript
5. Bash

5 Coding Skills For Digital Marketers

This list of five coding skills for digital marketers is considered to be the most crucial for all professional levels. 

HTML for Content Structuring & Email Landing Pages 

When you are using content management systems such as WordPress, you will come across HTML.

Abbreviated to Hyper Text Markup Language, it is used for formatting your content. It works for interlinking your anchor tags, spacing, heading divisions, embedding social media posts in your blog, and so on. 

All HTML codes do is tell how your content is displayed across the web.

Now, WordPress editors such as Gutenberg are great for non-HTML-savvy users. But not all editors and CMS platforms are easy for formatting. You will need knowledge of HTML for them. 

Another use of HTML is for your email landing page design. Nowadays, you will find many email marketing tools with drag-and-drop editors that require no coding. 

But what if you want to customise the template more? 

With HTML knowledge, you can go further in your designs. Tools such as MailChimp have the Paste in Code feature that you can use for your campaigns related to email marketing. 

It is easy to learn, too. Choose from hundreds of beginner-level HTML courses. 

SQL for Data Analysis

If you are on the path to becoming a digital marketing analyst, SQL knowledge will be required. SQL or Standard Query Language is largely used for retrieving and managing data in a relational database management system (RDBMS). Common RDBMS platforms include MySQL, Oracle, etc. 

What this means for you as a digital marketer is that you can extract any customer information that your company has. You do not have to rely on specialists for it. 

In fact, you can take advantage of having SQL knowledge to run advanced queries in analytical digital marketing tools such as Google Analytics. You can look into customer behaviour data, analyse your channels, etc., using BigQuery, a Google product. 

While that may be so, SQL knowledge can improve your SEO efforts too. SEO tools such as SEMrush and others offer a huge amount of raw data. Such data are useful for businesses with larger audiences. You will still need to filter out and analyse more to make your marketing efforts effective and accurate to your specific requirements. 

With SQL, you can combine all different datasets that pertain to your business alone. This is much harder and more time-consuming with spreadsheet software. It is easier to aggregate and understand keyword patterns, do audits on backlinks and interlinking practices, etc. 

To get started, check out our SQL tutorial for beginners. You can also check out the top database and SQL courses for beginner-level certs. 

Python for A/B Testing and Sorting Large Amounts of Data

Python is one of the most powerful programming and scripting languages out there. In terms of its importance in digital marketing, professionals use it for automating vast amounts of data. Apart from mining and visualising data, one of the best uses of this programming language is that you can perform A/B tests easily. Python provides statistical differences, which allow marketers to make more accurate decisions without losing market opportunities. 

There are also a bunch of Python libraries that you can use and finish tasks without having to write codes anew. For instance, if you have large amounts of data that cannot be loaded in MS Excel or Google Data Studio due to size, you can do so by sorting in Pandas quickly. 

Do check out Python courses

JavaScript for Embedding and Tracking 

JavaScript, an object-oriented programming language, helps marketers analyse marketing efforts on a microscopic level. PPC professionals who use Google Ads know JavaScript to automate repetitive tasks. 

Other than that, if you want to embed components on your website and track them on Google Analytics, you can use it. 

There are plenty of short JavaScript courses with certifications that you can explore. 

Bash for Restructuring and Automating Data

Bash is a command-line interface and is only present on Ubuntu systems. You can use Bash to restructure data and move it to another server. Likewise, it can be used for running both Python and SQL scripts. 

If you plan on getting started with Bash, check out these courses

• Bash Scripting And Shell Programming(Linux Command Line) on Udemy
• Linux and Bash for Data Engineering on Coursera

Parting Thoughts

So these are the top five coding skills to get started with as a digital marketer. You can start with any of them. The best way to learn is to practice on your own. Try learning and practising coding with apps such as Grasshopper, for instance. With that, you will be a pro in no time!