Digital strategy course in New Zealand. Become a certified digital strategist in 11 weeks.

CADSE runs for 11 weeks. Each week is one module and one piece of your strategy, so plan on roughly 6–8 hours a week alongside your role. If a busy quarter gets in the way, you can take up to 6 months to finish, and your portal access lasts 12 months. The internship and post-graduation support come after week 11.

CADSE starts six times a year, on the first Monday of January, March, May, July, September and November, with enrolments closing on the Wednesday before. Upcoming start dates and the week each intake finishes are under Price and intakes.

CADSE is $4,789 + GST ($5,507.35 including GST), and that price holds for 2026 and 2027. Many people put it through a professional development budget: we can invoice your organisation directly, or you can pay online by card when you enrol. The fee covers the modules, unlimited mentoring, coaching, the exam, your certificate, the internship and post-graduation support.

The Management Capability Development Fund (MCDF) helps eligible New Zealand businesses build management skills, and strategy and planning sit squarely in that brief. Eligible businesses can get up to 50% of the cost covered. See if your business qualifies. StudyLink loans and allowances don’t cover industry certifications like CADSE.

It depends on your goal. If you want to plan, budget and lead digital marketing while you keep working, IDNZ’s Certified Agile Digital Strategy Expert (CADSE) covers strategy frameworks, brand and content, channels, automation, budgets, data, leadership and pitching in 11 weeks, with unlimited one-to-one mentoring and a real internship. If you need a formal qualification or a student loan, an NZQA diploma or postgraduate programme may suit you better. IDNZ’s comparison page sets out the differences.

CADSE is an industry certification from the Institute of Digital Marketing New Zealand, and it isn’t an NZQA qualification. What it gives you for a promotion conversation or an interview is evidence: a 12-month digital strategy, a budget with three scenarios, an executive dashboard and a pitch you’ve delivered, all built for a real organisation and reviewed by your mentor.

CADME, the Agile Digital Marketing Expert certification, teaches you to run each channel hands-on: SEO, Google Ads, social media, email, analytics and AI. CADSE teaches you to plan, budget and lead across those channels: strategy frameworks, budgets, data, leadership and pitching to a board. If you’re new to digital marketing, start with CADME. If you manage people, budgets or the plan, CADSE is the better fit.

You don’t need to have written a strategy before. CADSE suits people who already work in or alongside marketing, communications, product or customer experience, or who run a business. If you’re unsure whether it matches your role, book a free 15-minute call and we’ll talk it through.

Your mentor works on your strategy with you as it takes shape. You can book unlimited one-to-one sessions during the 11 weeks, and they’re most useful at the decision points: setting objectives in week 2, testing the budget in week 7 and rehearsing the board pitch in week 11. Mentors are New Zealand-based and have more than a decade of experience in NZ marketing.

Yes. You build the strategy, budget and dashboard for your own organisation or business, one piece a week, so you finish with a plan you can put to work, checked by your mentor.

When your 11 weeks are done, you join a real internship on live marketing for a business, supported by IDNZ. For CADSE graduates it’s a chance to see a plan through to delivery and add that to your track record. Book a free call to hear which placements are open.

The CADSE exam is taken online after module 11 and is proctored. It has 200 questions and you have 2.5 hours, and the fee is part of the course price. When you pass, you become a Certified Agile Digital Strategy Expert and receive a certificate and a LinkedIn badge.

Strategy frameworks including SOSTAC, RACE, OKRs, the balanced scorecard, PESTLE, SWOT, Porter’s Five Forces and the 7Ps; agile methods including Scrum, Kanban and ICE and RICE scoring; and tools including GA4, BI dashboards, HubSpot, Klaviyo, Salesforce, ChatGPT and Perplexity. You use them on your own organisation’s strategy.

Yes. You can enrol one person or a whole team, and team training is quoted per team. Eligible New Zealand businesses can get up to 50% of the cost through MCDF. Book a free call to plan it.