I learned it the hard way.
This might help you as well, especially If you're a newbie.
If you'll see the course structure of digital marketing courses,
You'll find it very fascinating as a newbie)
Yay! I'm going to learn this and this and this surely.
These courses start with a bang, let's learn web development.
We'll learn how to make our very first site live.
And then we will learn SEO, Mobile Ads, Twitter growth hacking and all damn cloud 9 things.
This is where we all start to miss the train.
After course completion, we are left with a thought.
I have completed the course, but I don't know what to do.
The solution to this problem is:
Start with content creation; It could be anything.
Create content, then make your website, do some SEO, promote it on social media, drive traffic, do paid ads, and everything else.
This works for me, and I learned it the hard way.
I'm eager to know your way of learning; It could add value to both of us.
Edited: And yeah, I can't miss this point Digital Marketing has "marketing" attached to it, and it is not just about blabbing anything, or just about tools, tricks, and platforms; it is about doing marketing using digital mediums.
The better you understand, and study how humans work, their minds, and behavior, the more results you're gonna drive as a digital marketer.