This research aims to address the gap in the literature about instructor's role in increasing students' affective engagement (with their peers and instructor) in an online class. Since marketing students will eventually fulfill roles that engage consumers with the firm's communication mediums, it is important to understand the impact of student engagement and peer-to-peer communication in marketing classes in building this skill. Additionally, because of the pandemic, majority of higher education was migrated to online and virtual formats, investigating techniques that can improve the quality of online teaching is more important than ever. The impact of instructor competence in designing and facilitating online classes has been studied before; yet we establish that instructor online competence has an indirect positive effect on students' impression of the quality of their online learning experience. Further, this relationship is mediated by how students are engaged in class through communication with peers and instructors. This research clarifies the effect of instructor affective engagement skills as a contributor to marketing student perceptions of quality and offers several recommendations that act as guidelines for instructors delivering online courses.