LinkedIn Certification: Marketing Academy and Sales Navigator. Hours, Exams, Validity

In October 2026, the top of the LinkedIn Marketing Academy site carries a banner with three pieces of news: a new course on boosting posts, new videos and a “Certification maintenance reminder”.

A reminder to maintain your certification? Yes, because a LinkedIn certification expires after two years, and the expiry date goes into your profile automatically, so an outdated entry is plain to see. LinkedIn also checks that agencies do not use the certification label without having earned it.

I only took this on because I had done my previous certifications in December and some of them were about to expire, but I also wanted to go through the full LinkedIn Ads Certified Agency program that LinkedIn announced in May 2026.

All the numbers below come from LinkedIn’s course pages, catalog and FAQ as of October 21, 2026. LinkedIn changes them without notice, so I give the source for each.

Why do so few people hold a LinkedIn certification?

I think there are several reasons, but I do not know the real answer.

1. The certification process itself is fairly new. Before it there was only LinkedIn Marketing Labs, with free courses and no certificates, so few people were interested.
2. Since 2022 you could get certified as an individual, not as an agency, in Marketing Fundamentals and Marketing Strategy. But that only gives you the certificates you can see on my profile.
3. The full certification path I went through is, on paper, a three-day course, but in practice you need to know Campaign Manager inside out and have a few campaigns behind you, including the newest formats, such as boosting posts from personal profiles, which arrived a few months ago.
4. Clients are not yet aware that they should ask LinkedIn trainers or agencies about their LinkedIn Marketing, Ads and analytics certifications, so nobody feels like spending several days and an ad budget on it.

Does it matter to you, as a potential client, that I hold these 4 LinkedIn certifications, or is experience enough?

So where is the catch, because there is always a catch? Every certification exam has a few questions the courses do not answer and a few more where the material gives you only part of the answer and you have to work out the rest. So you need experience.

My tips for anyone who wants to take these certifications.

Topics outside the courses that came up in my questions (the questions are random, so yours may differ):

• Advertising Fundamentals: Dynamic Ads categories, ads personalized for the viewer and what to do when the campaign budget goes up. If you have Google Ads experience, you will manage.
• Content and Creative Design: targeting organic posts from a Company Page, why you define the Page’s goal and how to map content types to content pillars. Run a few campaigns first and you will see the pitfalls you would otherwise trip over, and they are in the questions.
• Marketing Strategy: the technical requirements of Lead Gen Forms (URLs), choosing an ad format to research customer priorities and interpreting a case study. Hard: you really need to run a few failed Lead Gen campaigns. In my opinion one of the two most important courses and certifications.
• Marketing Measurement: what Conversions API can be used for and how different test types treat the control group. The courses cover almost everything here, but practice is where you will slip. For example, WordPress loads pixels badly, and if you work on a site built with Astro or Next.js you have to watch Partytown and how events and groups are passed on.

The Content and Creative Design practice exam adds the limit of Product Pages, data on the effect of posting regularly and what Page analytics show about individual followers.

The answers are known to someone who has set these things up in an ad account and on a Company Page, not to someone who read a lesson about them. An example: setting up a product in the LinkedIn ecosystem so that you can target campaigns at it requires a paid Premium Company Page and a tedious, weeks-long approval process. I went through it while bringing a client’s product, Grafik Optymalny, into the LinkedIn ecosystem, and it was an ordeal. Setting up a few campaigns just to see how it is done, and then running A/B tests, is also a matter of months rather than weeks. Then there is the pressure: 60 questions in 60 minutes is a minute per question, so notes help you check a number but do not replace practice.

Another thing LinkedIn trainers usually do not tell you: without these certifications an advertising agency cannot become a LinkedIn Ads Certified Agency. Two are required, Advertising Fundamentals and Marketing Measurement, and not for one person but for the required number of the agency’s Business Manager users. More on the requirements in the section on whether a LinkedIn certification is worth anything.

What certificates does LinkedIn offer?

There are three kinds and they are very easy to confuse, because each one ends with a PDF that says “certificate”, and on your profile they all land in the same Licenses & certifications section. Only the first one proves you passed an exam. The other two say that someone finished the courses.

* The certification exam is free, but it is hard to pass without practice, and practice costs money. You first need to spend some budget on LinkedIn Ads campaigns and use all the features of a Company Page, which takes a Premium Company Page subscription. Without it you will not see features the exam asks about, such as “Custom testimonial”, “Who’s visited my Page” and defining a product.

** You get the certificate of completion just for watching the courses, but without a paid subscription, at least LinkedIn Sales Navigator Core, there is no point, because you cannot practice anything from those courses.

*** LinkedIn Learning has no individual subscription and no way to buy single courses. Access comes with every LinkedIn Premium subscription and with Sales Navigator Core (from PLN 440 net per month, see Sales Navigator pricing). A curiosity: the more expensive Sales Navigator Advanced and Advanced Plus do not include LinkedIn Learning.

Where to find them: LinkedIn Marketing Academy, Sales Navigator training and LinkedIn Learning.

Marketing Academy has four certifications. Each one has its own exam and its own preparation path, and once you pass the exam the certification gets a “Complete” badge.

The survey at the end of a Sales Navigator path is an open question about your opinion and a rating from 0 to 10. It does not test knowledge, so a “LinkedIn Sales Navigator certificate” on someone’s profile tells you only that they finished the courses. A Marketing Academy certification tells you that someone passed an exam with 75% within the last two years.

Both platforms run on Skilljar. When you sign up for Marketing Academy, LinkedIn asks for your consent to share your name, photo and primary email address with Skilljar, and you sign in with your regular LinkedIn account.

A LinkedIn Learning certificate is not a certification

LinkedIn Learning is a video course platform, separate from Marketing Academy. It has, for example, a course called “B2B Marketing on LinkedIn”, which runs 38 minutes and is simply a recorded video. The certificate of completion is generated automatically once LinkedIn Learning records that all the course videos have been watched. You do not need to do any quizzes or exercise files to get it.

What does that mean? You can play such a course in the background and do something else, and the certificate will arrive anyway. In my opinion people will confuse it with a Marketing Academy certification, because on a profile they look alike. LinkedIn itself says that LinkedIn Learning is not accredited and that a certificate of completion does not mean someone is certified in the course topic.

The exception is Professional Certificates in LinkedIn Learning: there you only get the certificate after passing an assessment.

LinkedIn Marketing Academy: how many hours and what topics

The Marketing Academy catalog has 328 items in seven languages. In English there are 80: 31 courses, 30 short videos, 7 paths, 8 practice exams (four inside the paths and the same four on their own) and 4 certification exams.

Each certification has its own path. The times are what LinkedIn states on the course pages:

Each path also comes with a practice exam (20 minutes according to LinkedIn) and the certification exam (an hour). This is the Marketing Academy course catalog on my account: 31 courses, each with the time LinkedIn gives and a “Complete” badge.

How much is that in total? The courses for all four certifications come to about 9 hours, because one course, “Building a Full-Funnel Content Marketing Strategy” (36 minutes), is in two paths and you count it once. The exams add 5 hours 20 minutes (four times 20 and four times 60 minutes). That makes about 15 hours.

What is inside:

• Content and Creative Design: the Company Page, a posting rhythm, Page analytics, creative, boosting posts and full-funnel content;
• Advertising Fundamentals: an introduction to ads, creating a campaign, targeting, ad formats and optimization;
• Marketing Strategy: full-funnel content, brand awareness, lead generation, ABM and boosting;
• Marketing Measurement: what to measure in B2B, reporting, conversion tracking, CRM sync, Conversions API, experiments and revenue attribution.

There are also three paths without a certification: events (4 courses, about 1 h 40 min), video (4 courses, about 1 h 40 min) and Business Manager (4 courses, about 40 min).

What is missing? Your personal profile, social selling and Sales Navigator. Marketing Academy is a school of company marketing on LinkedIn: the Company Page, Campaign Manager and measuring campaigns.

The courses are mostly text and interactive lessons (flashcards, scenarios, clickable graphics) mixed with videos. The videos are short, usually a few minutes each, and all Marketing Academy recordings add up to about 4.4 hours. The courses contain 62 short knowledge checks, usually 3 to 8 questions each, and none of them is mandatory: LinkedIn treats them as a self-check.

LinkedIn practice exam: 20 questions and two attempts

The practice exam has 20 questions and the same pass mark as the real one, 75%. LinkedIn lists it as 20 minutes, but there is no timer. There is a different catch instead: you only get two attempts.

Why take it if it is optional? Because it shows the style and scope of the certification exam well, and some of its questions come back there in a different form. You do not see whether an answer is right while you take it. The score and the correct answers only appear at the end, so that is the moment to take notes for the real exam.

LinkedIn certification exam: 60 questions in 60 minutes

The rules from the Marketing Academy FAQ:

• 60 multiple-choice questions in random order;
• 60 minutes;
• a 75% pass mark, which means 45 correct answers;
• the questions test how you apply knowledge: they are scenario-based, recall and process questions;
• you may use your own notes;
• three attempts, and after three failed ones you contact LinkedIn support;
• no prerequisites: you can take the exams in any order, without the courses and without the practice exam.

There is one question per screen, you can go back with the “Previous” button and you do not know how you are doing until the end. Once you pass, you get your score with a review of the answers (right or wrong for each question) and two buttons: add the certificate to your LinkedIn profile and download the PDF.

What kind of questions are on the LinkedIn Marketing Academy exam?

There are four types:

• single choice;
• multiple choice (“Select three”, “Select all that apply”);
• true or false;
• short scenarios with a character: someone wants to reach a campaign goal, what should they do.

Which ones are the hardest? The multiple-choice ones, because you only score when you get the whole set right. Questions about numbers and limits almost always have their answer in the course material, but you need it in your notes, because searching the courses during the exam eats your minute per question.

The oddest questions: real examples from the courses

I do not publish questions from the certification exams, because those exams are still in use and that would simply be a cheat sheet. The knowledge checks in the courses, on the other hand, are open to anyone who signs up and have the same style. Two that show how detailed LinkedIn can get:

• “What is the recommended number of free preview pages when setting up gated content with a Document Ad?” You choose one, two or three pages. The course recommends three at most: the cover, a table of contents and a page with data that makes readers unlock the rest through a Lead Gen Form.
• “What do Text Ads and Dynamic Ads have in common?” The answer: both formats appear in the right-hand column and only on desktop. If you have never run such campaigns, you guess.

The certification exams have even more surprising questions; here are only the topics, without the questions: budget types in Campaign Manager in a multiple-choice question that only scores the full set, and what the ABN AMRO bank campaign is an example of, which is a single case study to remember.

The areas of the four exams

• Advertising Fundamentals: numbers and limits in campaigns, ad formats, budget types and bidding strategies, diagnosing a campaign (for example a large audience with low delivery, or high engagement with low conversion).
• Content and Creative Design: the Company Page (roles, Showcase Pages and Product Pages, content pillars), Page analytics, when to boost a post, creative principles.
• Marketing Strategy: brand versus demand (the 95-5 rule, mental availability), Lead Gen Forms, retargeting, thought leadership, lead scoring, leading and lagging indicators.
• Marketing Measurement: the most scenarios. Which tool answers which question (Brand Lift, Conversion Lift, A/B tests), test requirements, p-value, attribution models, Conversions API and the Insight Tag.

How long is a LinkedIn certificate valid and how do you renew it?

Two years from the day you pass the exam. The certificate shows the validity period, a number and a verification link; in this example, from October 21, 2026 to October 21, 2028.

After that the certificate expires, and to stay certified you have to pass the current version of the exam. LinkedIn opens the retake in month 22, two months before the certificate expires. Hence the reminder banner.

Every certificate has a public verification page at an address with the certificate number. It shows who earned it, when, and until when it is valid, so a recruiter or a client can check it in seconds.

You can check my certificates yourself by clicking the links:

• LinkedIn Advertising Fundamentals Certification
• LinkedIn Content and Creative Design Certification
• LinkedIn Marketing Strategy Certification
• LinkedIn Marketing Measurement Certification

All four are valid until October 21, 2028.

Adding a certificate to your LinkedIn profile takes a minute:

1. Go to your Marketing Academy profile.
2. Next to the exam you passed, click “Add to profile”.
3. LinkedIn opens the add license or certification window with the fields filled in: name, issuer, issue date, expiry date, credential ID and credential URL.
4. Click “Save”. The certificate appears in the Licenses & certifications section.

Changing your name? The certificate takes your name from your LinkedIn profile, so once you change it there it changes on the certificate too, while the number and the verification link stay the same. The certification belongs to you, not to your employer, so you take it with you when you change jobs.

Sales Navigator certificates: completion instead of an exam

On the sales side, LinkedIn has 12 English paths with a certificate of completion, among them Sales Navigator Essentials, Find Leads and Accounts, Understand Leads and Accounts, Build Relationships and Engage, Coach and Motivate My Team, paths about CRM and paths for administrators. A typical path has 4 to 14 short courses:

• Find Leads and Accounts: 10 courses, about 38 minutes;
• Understand Leads and Accounts: 14 courses, about 41 minutes;
• Sales Navigator Essentials: 4 courses, about 52 minutes.

At the end there is a survey, not an exam. Once you fill it in, the certificate of completion arrives by email. The exception is the Sales Navigator Masterclass: 21 recorded webinars, about 8 hours in total, each followed by a three-question quiz. The whole English sales training catalog has 151 items and about 19.6 hours of recordings, 14.2 hours of which are webinars.

Compare a certificate of completion with a Marketing Academy certification: it has no expiry date, no number and no verification link.

I went through the Sales Navigator Essentials and Learn About AI Features paths in December 2025, and above is the certificate for the first of them.

If you are still checking whether you need Navigator at all, start with What is LinkedIn Sales Navigator and who is it for.

Is a LinkedIn certification worth anything?

For an advertising agency, yes, because without it the agency cannot become a LinkedIn Ads Certified Agency. There are three requirements: Business Manager, monthly invoicing and the required number of Business Manager users with Marketing Academy certifications added to their profiles. Advertising Fundamentals and Marketing Measurement are required, Content and Creative Design and Marketing Strategy are optional. The page does not say how many people are needed. LinkedIn reviews an application within 15 business days.

And for an individual? The certification shows on your profile in the Licenses & certifications section, together with its expiry date. After two years the entry stays, but the certification is no longer valid: one earned in the fall of 2023 expired in the fall of 2025.

Who will benefit:

• a marketer who runs or is starting to run campaigns in Campaign Manager;
• the person responsible for the Company Page and its analytics;
• an agency that wants certified status;
• someone who wants to learn, in about 15 hours, the language LinkedIn itself uses to describe its ads.

Who will not:

• a salesperson who works with Sales Navigator and their own profile, because Marketing Academy does not cover those topics;
• someone looking for personal branding training;
• someone who needs materials in Polish.

How to get a LinkedIn certification, step by step

1. Go to training.marketing.linkedin.com and sign in with your LinkedIn account (consent for Skilljar).
2. Choose a certification. An agency starts with the two required ones: Advertising Fundamentals and Marketing Measurement.
3. Go through the path for that certification. Write down numbers and limits, because they come back in the exam.
4. Check in Campaign Manager and on a Company Page what the course covers in a single sentence: the Product Pages limit, Lead Gen Forms, post targeting.
5. Take the practice exam, keeping in mind that you have two attempts, and review the answers at the end.
6. Book an uninterrupted hour for the certification exam, preferably on a computer (LinkedIn recommends it), and keep your notes at hand.
7. Once you pass, click “Add to profile” and put the month 22 date in your calendar.

Training a team on Sales Navigator rather than on ads? You will not find that in Marketing Academy, so take a look at my LinkedIn Sales Navigator training for teams.

PS: Marketing Academy emails come from training.marketing@skilljar.linkedin.com to the primary address on your LinkedIn profile. Add it to your contacts before you start, or they may end up in spam.