CXL’s Minidegree Review — Is It Worth Your Time?

In the span of 5 years I’ve attended dozen of Marketing & Business courses and educations. Most of them were a waste of time. Including most of my formal education as well.

If you are not a sheer collector of certificates and you seek practical knowledge — this one is for you. (even though you’ll get a lot of certificates)

If you are interested in the Marketing or Business Development field on top of that, then you’ve hit a golden buzzer.

Quick info before jumping into the article — This is not just a review article. Towards the end, I’ll share some interesting templates and worksheets I’ve stolen throughout the Minidegree.

It’s probably worth your time.

Table of Contents

Introduction to CXL
Introduction to Growth Marketing
Growth Marketing Mini Degree Review
Mini Degree Obligations
Is This Course for You
Top 5 Teachers & Courses
What Do You Get From CXL
What’s The Pricing
Final Words

CXL Institute? — Claims You Learn from Top 1% in The World

Conversion XL institute gathers knowledge and insights from marketing experts (or other closely related professionals). They deliver their courses in form of larger Minidegrees, All-access Courses, or Mini-Courses.

They promise (A LOT) on their website and it sounds attractive from the get-go. The words “best” and “great” appear more often than not.

CXL Offers Super Valuable Content (the “best” I’ve seen so far…)

I’ve been skimming their blog long before I applied for Minidegree. It actually helped me a lot with my work and always pushed the right buttons.

You can find a lot of free resources on their website. The free stuff is not there just to grab your attention and get you to sign up. You should probably look it up.

CXL is a go-to institute for top-of-the-food-chain IT companies. Google, Cisco, and Amazon use their all-access resources to train and certify their staff.

On top of that, they offer free access to their Minidegree programs.

Which is why I applied in the first place. Words “free” and “mini degree” made my Balkanic brain intellectually aroused.

BTW — There are 7 different Minidegrees at the time I’m writing this. The one I applied for is “Growth Marketing” Minidegree.

You Can Get Accepted for Free— But there is a catch

17 weeks ago, or around 11 years ago if you are reading this in 2032, I enrolled in a Growth Marketing Minidegree Program. A course I probably would have bought at some point.

But I didn’t buy it. I got it for free.

I applied for the mini degree scholarship by filling a form where they ask few questions. They came back and replied “Good, you‘re in. You’ll start on Monday.”

Pro Tip: If you consider applying, mention you are growth-oriented person (in case you are). If you do marketing, explain why, how, and what. You should get accepted.

The catch is that you have 12 weeks to finish the course.

Each week you write and you do exams as you go. In the last week, you are given a final exam that takes around an hour or two to finish.

Once you hit the last day, you’re done. You lose access to all materials.

The best things in life are not for free. It’s a fact.

The 3 Pillars of Growth Marketing? (Please skip if you came for REVIEW only)

Comparison is a powerful learning tool.

Let’s start by putting it up against the term you know more of.

#1 Growth marketing vs Brand marketing

What is brand marketing?

• Focused on campaigns
• Builds brand’s recognition & awareness
• Is mostly focused on the promotion
• Is often measured by the level of creativity
• Usually favors “best ideas”
• Is more prone to favoring vanity metrics (likes, shares, engagement, etc.)
• Is usually done by companies like Coca-Cola, Apple, Nike, Cedevita :)

What is growth marketing?

• Is focused on holistically growing your business through the most efficient channels
• Is focused on results and creating a lifetime value for customers
• Is a never-ending process where the status quo of doing things is always tested
• Favors ideas that showed promising results after testing
• Is measured with KPI’s (revenue, revenue per user, ROI, lifetime value)
• Is done by companies like Amazon, Dropbox, HubSpot, Airbnb, Yelp, PayPal

Here is how I would sketch it up if I was to do it awfully bad.

Coca-Cola Marketing vs. PayPal Marketing

Now, there is nothing wrong with building a brand. It is essential for most businesses nowadays.

But growth marketing is more directly related to sales, customer satisfaction, and inspiring action.

That is why growth marketing is best suited for subscription businesses, eCommerce websites, and emerging technology startups or companies.

In growth marketing, users or customers, regardless of their purchase history are always within some sort of funnel. They are always important and there is always some way to “use/reach/influence” them.

#2 Fix what you can immediately and keep it fast-paced

Nothing in growth marketing or conversion optimization ever starts with long experiments. You start with what you can clearly see needs fixing.

Let’s say you have an eCommerce client.

This client has 16 required fields in the checkout process. So, the user has to fill in 16 fields.

16 FIELDS… You would tell this client immediately:

“Please sir, you don’t need their ancestor’s name in the form as a required field. If we remove this requirement, more people will complete the purchase.”

Meaning, your client will make more money.

The second thing implies that you work fast. More tests, more changes, less time.

The more tests you run, the more winners you’ll have.

Easy. Oh yes, who or what are the winners?

#3 Hypothesize, experiment, measure. Then do it again.

Growth marketing and conversion optimization are experiment-oriented.

Nothing is ever written in stone but should be adequately tested and checked for results.

The results could confirm the hypothesis is true. But could be a learning experience if the hypothesis was wrong. Failed tests open 5 or 10 more tests that could be run.

Here is one example of a proper hypothesis you’d want to test.

“If I change the color of a button from gold to red on a product page, then I’ll increase conversions by 1.1% in all userbase because red inspires action and is easily spotted on a page.”

The goal of growth marketing or conversion optimization is to find a winner.

A winner is a test that wins… a test that accomplishes or proceeds the expected result.

The process looks something like this:

1. You hypothesize with a formula

“If I apply (THIS CHANGE), then (THIS BEHAVIORAL CHANGE) will happen, among (THIS GROUP OF PEOPLE), because of (THIS REASON).”

2. You test on a percentage of the audience

You search for statistical significance, statistical power, significance level, and other otherworldly expressions. Those make sure the test is good from the start.

3. You measure with right KPI’s

With the right KPI’s. With the right tools. With the right people who know how and what to measure.

There are of course common practices on how to do all of this which is not a topic of this article.

The topic is the Minidegree, of course.

Growth Marketing Minidegree Review — It Was Worth The Time

Ultimately, after watching the entire course I’d say it was worth the time. I barely finished it but it was worth it.

Once the Minidegree kicks off you have few obligations.

Mandatory Stuff

“Failure to follow through with any of these requirements will result in an immediate expulsion from the CXL Institute Scholarship program” — CXL

#1 Watch the recorded materials

You are supposed to watch the materials almost every day for a couple of hours. My Minidegree was 111 hours of video materials in total. Around 180–200 hours of time spend on anything course-related.

You are not obliged to watch the course every day but it would be wiser not to skip more than 2 days in a row.

Eventually, it catches up and you have too much to go through. You can’t concentrate and food losses its taste… (that was Corona actually)

There are some lessons that demand paying 100% attention if you want to grasp the concepts taught. Of course, there are some easier lessons which you want to watch with lightning speed.

Pro Tip: The stupider the lesson, the faster your playback speed should be. Go up to 1.75x if it’s just nonsense. I found 1.5x speed to be ideal for me. Watching each video at 2x speed regularly requires some serious amphetamines…

#2 You’ll do exams after (almost) each course

You need to do exams after you’ve watched the course and get more than 90% of the correct answers in each exam. You can repeat the same exam for each course after six hours if you fail.

There are in total 33 courses in the Mini degree, so you’ll do 25–30 exams (some courses don’t have exams). Actually, here is how the Mini degree is organized:

So, your Mini degree has 7 tracks, 33 courses, and more than 200 lessons (I don’t even want to try counting lessons).

Each track consists of several courses, and each course consists of several lessons.

After each completed exam you’ll get a certificate for that course. Which means you’ll get a lot of certificates.

Pro Tip: Screenshot the exam results regardless if you fail or pass. If you fail, screenshot can help you to pass the next time. If you pass, you’ll still need screenshots for final exam which is way harder than the regular exam.

Bonus Pro Tip: When you are doing the exam you can take as much time as needed. Copy/paste a word from the question you don’t know the answer to and CTRL+F it in the lesson where the answer lies. You’ll most likely find the correct answer.

#3 Publish a Review Article (mandatory for scholarship students)

It’s mandatory to write about what you’ve learned, publish it, and repeat it.

Each week.

This is a requirement for every student that got free access with a scholarship. You have to write at least a thousand words for each article you publish. And… you have to publish 12 articles in total.

You have to publish an article on the last day of your week cycle (which is Sunday). This is what they send in a welcome email to each “scholar”:

“You will be allowed one late entry grace period in 12 weeks that will be due by EOD on Wednesday. If you receive a warning email, this is your grace period and if posts are not received by then, your scholarship is revoked.” — CXL

NOT TRUE 😈

They are late with checking on your review articles.

I missed a deadline twice. My friend missed it three or four times. We didn’t get any warning. But please, don’t skip to publish, this will get you expelled.

I don’t recommend experimenting though… just saying.

Pro Tip: These are obvious, still… Take notes. Save the slide decks on your drive or locally. These will help you push those articles out faster and pass exams.

#4 Pass the Final Exam

It all comes down to this final exam. It consists of around 80 questions and you can retake it six hours after you’ve failed. It will take you an hour or so to complete the exam.

Questions are harder here and it seemed to me as if some mighty algorithm was placing questions I didn’t know the answers to throughout the courses.

It’s probably not that, but my lack of knowledge.

But still, the final exam is harder and you better be prepared for it. Get the materials ready, pull out your notes and slides, and relax. It gets tiring at one point.

Oh, and there is a way to bypass the 6 hours wait on each exam. A guy I found on LinkedIn shared it a bit too late. If it’s your last week, you can’t figure it out, and you’re all stressed up — hit me up in DM. (you’ll need proof that it’s your last week)

Pro Tip: Get those exam screenshots ready from earlier courses. This is where those come in handy.

Is This Course For You?

I saw some reviews stating that this will be the most important decision of your business career.

It won’t.

If it is, it’s not a good sign. You should be worried. 😝

Still…

Finishing the Mini degree brings tremendous value.

• You will most definitely understand growth marketing better overall.
• You will understand what the future holds. There are changes coming that will shift cookie policies, pixels, and privacy.
• It’s especially interesting to see what the role of artificial intelligence is in marketing automation and cross-channel attribution.

This mini degree teaches you the most relevant skills necessary to work as a growth marketing specialist.

That is the primary purpose of the course.

Which doesn’t mean you won’t benefit from the course if you work in any online marketing field. It’s especially beneficial for agency founders, T-shaped marketers, startup marketing managers, or business developers.

Here is one review that is an average of most reviews and testimonials I found online:

“It’s phenomenal! I highly recommend taking the Growth Marketing course for actionable a-z Growth lessons. Additionally, the annual price tag is well worth it. Last year I paid $5500 for a course (never again) that didn’t even teach 10% of what I’ve learned through @CXLdotcom.”

I’ve peaked into the CXL alumni network on LinkedIn. I found that most of the people who finished the mini degree were technically sound marketers or business developers:

This course is not for you if…

#1 You don’t have a will to invest time in a deliberate effort

#2 You just want a certificate

#3 You expect a job will appear by itself

#4 You have no experience in marketing

#5 You want to stick to only one marketing channel in your entire career

Top 5 Teachers & Courses I Loved The Most

#1 Momoko Price: Product Messaging

About the Teacher: A conversion copywriting expert. She specializes in product messaging for SaaS & eCommerce and has cooperated with many large brands such as At&T and Intuit.

About the Course: Shows how to create high-converting value propositions and sales pages. It gives an overview of the message mining process, creating messaging hierarchies, and writing persuasive copy.

What I loved about it:

The course is incredibly compact, easy to follow, well structured, and still dense with the most important information.

The best thing is that Momoko shares action-ready frameworks, checklists, and processes that will help your copywriting in general.

Since the course ending, I’ve created 5 landing pages and 7 web pages with her framework. I’ve done one copy teardown with the sheet document she shared.

It absolutely rocked. One client even stated that there is a noticeable improvement in my work based solely on this.

If you are a copywriter or even a content writer, I suggest you sign up for the 1$ free 1-week trial on CXL and watch her course. It takes only 5 hours and it brings a ton of value.

#2 Peep Laja: Research and Testing & Conversion Research

About the Teacher: Peep is a conversion rate optimization expert and successful entrepreneur. He is CEO and Founder of Wynter and CXL Institute.

About the Course: This mostly covers parts of the Research XL model and how to perform each step of the process. It covers conversion research, Google Analytics, technical analysis, surveys, user testing, A/B testing.

What I loved about it:

Anyone who wants to do conversion research, this course is 85% of what you need to do the job.

It’s perfect for understanding Conversion Rate Optimization and the research process needed to do high-quality CRO.

Peep is as sharp as a tack. Everything he says is straight to the point, no bs.

What you expect, you’ll get. He will constantly attack your misconceptions of marketing (if you have any) while teaching you things that matter.

#3 Dan Shure: Content Editorial Calendar

About the Teacher: Dan is an SEO consultant and owner of Evolving SEO. He’s helped many big companies while his work was published in Drift, MOZ, Entrepreneurs on Fire.

About the Course: The course is about creating a process for an SEO editorial calendar. This includes everything from keyword research, topic, and competitor research to knowing how, what, and when to publish.

What I (absolutely) loved about it:

This is the best course in the entire mini degree program. Of course, that is my subjective opinion.

I have some experience working as a content editor and SEO research specialist. If I was to sum it all up in the most brilliant way, I wouldn’t have done it as well as Dan did. The best thing, Dan managed to do it in 2 hours and 42 minutes.

It’s just precisely what you need if you work as a content strategist, content creator, content editor, or content manager. If you are or work in a business that publishes content and puts hope in SEO, you need to watch this course.

Every worksheet and document Dan works in throughout the course, he shares. So you’ll find it easy to follow the process by yourself.

#4 Curt Maly: Facebook Ads

About the Teacher: Curt is a Facebook Ads expert and owner of Black Box Social Media. He owns multiple online marketing businesses, consults, and speaks all over the US.

About the Course: The course teaches you to properly create an SMM funnel based on the customer journey and how to advertise what matters to those who it matters to.

What I loved about it:

If you’ve ever done Facebook Ads, this is good for you.

If you’ve never done Facebook Ads, this is good for you.

If you want to understand what works on Facebook and what doesn’t, again… this is good for you.

If you want to know what the future of Facebook Pixel is and if it even exists, guess what…

What I loved the most is that Curt teaches you technicalities but always explains the big picture. There are many good reasons you should be doing exactly what he says.

Digression… You know how your head falls down sometimes when you listen to something for way too long. That doesn't happen when Curt teaches.

Curt is by far the most interesting teacher in the program.

#5 Chris Mercer: Google Analytics & Google Tag Manager

About the Teacher: Mercer is a co-founder of Measurement Marketing and GA & GTM Expert. He helps marketers and agencies unlock the power of these Google tools.

About the Course: Google Analytics is covered for beginners and intermediate users separately. Google Tag Manager course explains the best practices and functionalities.

What I loved about it:

The best thing about the course is that it’s detailed.

If you are already using Google Analytics for some time skip some parts of a beginner's course or listen on 2x speed. It’s really, really detailed.

One of Mercer’s best qualities is the ability to explain everything in the easiest way possible.

I think he could teach a 3 year old how to measure attribution in GA.

And that is a quality my friends. I think one of Einstein’s fake quotes would confirm my statement.

OK. It was a grandmother, not the kid…

Teachers and courses you should check out as well

Most of the teachers and courses are top-notch. But still, there are those I think should get extra attention as well.

Ton Wesseling — A/B Testing Mastery

Dan McGaw — Martech Stack

Andy Crestodina — Content strategy & SEO

What You Get From CXL After Finishing Mini Degree

The value of the course is not gone with the access to the course after a 12-week scholarship.

#1 Value-rich resources

If you are diligent, you can open a sheet document and save all the resources there. Each course has many articles and worksheets you can use.

Those resources are extremely valuable for your future work. You will have an idea which ones will be your go-to right when you see them.

Here are a few of my favorite resources that I use regularly:

• SEO Editorial Calendar (Content Marketing)
• Copy Teardown Framework (Copywriting)
• UVP Based Framework (Copywriting)
• Lead Scoring Worksheet (Market Research, ABM)
• Sample Conversion Research (Conversion Optimization)

If you want all the resources, please dm me on LinkedIn. I would gladly share everything I collected with you. (so you don’t have to while watching the course).

#2 Access to CXL’s job board

CXL has its own job board to which you and all partner companies can access. These companies use the board to post job offerings.

Jobs seem to be posted on daily basis. It’s legit.

You can find internships, full and part-time roles, and contract jobs. All seniority levels and in different fields of marketing.

#3 Access to Facebook CXL community

You will get access to this group probably instantly when you sign up. You can even request access even now as you read. It’s called “CXL Conversion Optimization, Analytics & Growth”

It is rich with 15k members and there are approximately 7–8 posts a day. Discussions vary but are almost always solution-oriented.

I think you’ll get a sense of how competitive the market really is. The guys in the group are dropping some serious answers in the comments. You can learn a lot from it actually.

As an addition to the Facebook group, CXL has a closed community on its own platform. To be honest, it’s really not that useful. I haven’t seen much relevant activity since I joined.

#4 You get a certificate for each course you finish

Well, I didn’t want to bite my tongue. I said earlier this course is not for certificate collectors. But actually, looking at certificates I got…

The course is perfect for collectors.

I got 25 credentials in total.

That is more than I got in life before watching this course.

Well anyways…

That shouldn’t be your goal. Still, CXL is an authorized education provider on LinkedIn. You share your accomplishment and it stays glued to your profile.

#5 You get invited to the LinkedIn alumni network

If you are looking for like-minded people with who you can connect, this is a nice plus.

#6 A social proof

I see people writing “A CXL Certified Conversion Optimizer” in their headlines on LinkedIn. (or smth similar)

I, as an attendee, understand “CXL certified” stands for something. All peers probably do. And it most likely is a “peer thing”.

But I’m not sure if clients, experts, and agencies know how valuable CXL is. If it is well-recognized, you’ll see me as a “CXL certified wannabe solopreneur (or with-few-of-right-people-preneur).

What About Pricing?

There are a couple of options here.

#1 You can sign up for the CXL Foundations course for free

#2 You can sign up for CXL Scholarship and get 12-week free access to one of Mini Degrees.

• Technical content marketing
• Technical marketing
• Brand marketing
• Conversion optimization
• Customer acquisition
• Digital analytics
• Digital psychology and persuasion
• Growth marketing

#3 You can buy one course for $1 for one-week access

Remember mini degree consists of smaller courses. The courses can be one of the following:

• Conversion research
• Google Analytics for beginners
• A/B testing mastery

#4 You can buy each Mini degree for monthly, quarterly, and annual access

#5 You can buy an all-access plan for you or your team

Personal plans pricing options:

The team plans pricing options for 5 members:

(If you add a member, just add up a price per user and you’ll get a total)

Any Final Words?

Everything written in this article is just a representation of my personal experience.

The 12 weeks of doing the course was an intense learning experience.

If you are willing to spend around 2 hours a day. Sacrifice some time you usually spend with friends, idiots, and family. And do it for 12 weeks, the Mini degree is worth it.

And remember…

The pleasure is temporary. The knowledge stays there for couple of weeks!

So, pursue both in moderation. :D

Farewell. 👋