Become a Digital Marketing Course Management Master

1. Introduction

Simbound provides quality-focused teachers and instructors with a sophisticated and time-tested course management system that is linked to a capable generative simulation platform in which participants can learn and experiment following up on the consequences of making their own marketing decisions. Hosting an increasing number of digital marketing simulations the single platform houses various content types that meet modern accessibility standards and allows flexibility in teaching the latest in simulation campaign management across: Website Analytics, Email, SEA, Affiliate, and Social media marketing simulation — thus mirroring the conditions of today’s high-paced digital work medium. With data analysis tools encouraging refinement of both learning and teaching in real time the platform is constantly reviewed as an ideal learning companion for learners going through a multi-week course.

2. Planning the Course: Choosing the right Structure and Selecting Learning Goals

Before deploying a Simbound supported course, instructors should start by reviewing the learning outcomes and aligning these to the objectives as set out within the course. Here are some examples:

⁃            understand specific methods and performance metrics in online advertising

⁃            practice data-driven decision making

⁃            develop and implement multichannel strategies taking into account the latest in practice and industry

⁃            steer and adapt to market dynamics

Instructors can demo each digital marketing simulation module  before deciding whether to include this as part of the course. 

The course planning stage is crucial and determines how the simulation rounds and content fit around lectures, workshops, and debrief sessions. Typically, instructors begin with one or two orientation (practice) rounds for familiarization, followed by progressively complex decision phases where the initial setup operations are setting the ground up for more complex data analysis and assessment.

The Simbound Calendar allows full control of course progress.

Simbound’s powerful modular design allows educators to activate or deactivate simulation content modules at any point in time, such as the email campaigns or social channels and to change how different customer segments respond to decisions and strategies carried out by the learners in their courses. This allows the perfect match to a class’s maturity and level of learning achievement. For example, early rounds can include activities on basic website setup and content creation within a SEO simulation, while later rounds integrate decisions and reporting on multiple types of paid advertising and high-stakes affiliate decisions where conditions fluctuate setting up the right learning environment for a total, cumulative skill development exercise.

While the system is built for complete personalization of the content and will allow adaption to all of the course formats on the marketplace today it will guide course setup to ensure smooth progression and will prompt instructors to review settings whenever it detects a less-than-optimal setup, in essence trying to protect against conditions for a sub-optimal learning environment.

Adding several simulations to the same round prompted the system to suggest adjusting the workload.

3. Operating the Platform: Managing the Learning Progress

Once the online marketing game opens up, instructors act as facilitators and advisors rather than lecturers. Simbound’s instructor dashboard provides a comprehensive overview of team performance—covering KPIs such as traffic growth, CTR, conversions, and profitability. This is backed by multiple analysis of decisions and results and also sending of personalized recommendations on how to improve.

Round Deadlines and Launch Dates are configured for each round of activity to maintain consistent engagement and accountability. Some instructors will prefer to schedule shorter “decision windows” e.g. on certain days of the week followed by a longer period of time set aside for analytics reviews, preparing for iteration and journaling. For instance, after a longer campaign cycle, teams/individuals compare outcomes and discuss broad optimization tactics during class and will stir up debate and draw upon real-world expertise. Simbound’s highly praised reporting array of tools ensures that both students and teachers are able to observe how strategic shifts—like changes in product preferences, keyword search trends or social network dynamics—directly influence outcomes and will encourage thinking around how to place these into a wider strategic context.

Short video featuring the initial Simbound results of students at a school in Australia.

4. Collaboration/Competition and Assessment

The Simbound proposal is of either a team-based or an individual learning mode. Whilst team simulations encourage collaboration and highlight agency environments in which students negotiate roles—media buyer, analyst, strategist—and make collective decisions. This setup works well for mid-to-large classes aiming to build communication and leadership skills.  

The individual learning mode is designed to track each participant’s progress and fully personalize the learning experience. It is most often used with smaller groups or advanced learners who prefer independent control of the entire marketing mix. Instructors can alternate between modes—starting with team rounds to build confidence, then moving to individual rounds for assessment. Performance can be evaluated through both quantitative KPIs and qualitative reflection reports, which explain the participant’s digital marketing strategy, rationale, and the improvement insights automatically generated by the system.

Simbound enables co-opetition within a simulation which combines characteristics of both collaboration and competition as drivers of engagement and learning, aiding instructors in creating an enhanced and new type of environment for learning. Instructors can enable or disable result rankings to motivate learners or reduce pressure on those falling behind.

5. Connecting Simulation Content to Additional Learning Activities

Savvy simulation instructors should enhance the learning experience through discrete, connected activities like simple tasks or recommendations. They can also include incentives—such as the SEA module’s bonus advertising budget for meeting predefined goals—and test participants’ knowledge at key milestones to assess their understanding of key performance drivers.

Instructors can monitor whether participants meet predefined goals and tasks 

6. Adapting and Iterating a Course

Flexibility and adaptation is key to successful simulation teaching. Instructors can always pause or restart rounds, adjust budgets or set custom traffic amounts for various markets and extend deadlines based on student feedback or observed engagement.

 Simbound’s reporting tools such as the recently revised Presenter tool make it easy to identify underperforming areas—such as a lacking website or poor landing page design or weak email conversion —and use those items as live, actionable teaching items.

The Presenter tool lets instructors project course status so learners can compare performance and get tailored recommendations.

Reflection sessions can help students link simulation concepts and results back to theoretical frameworks discussed in lectures so it is recommended to disseminate results periodically.

Once the optimum course format is reached, Simbound will let you duplicate it by simply cloning it entirely for future use and/or importing just some of the course components so that you can launch a new session in minutes—saving time while keeping to a proven learning experience that can be scaled up or down as the need arises.

Cloning a course recreates the entire conditions for a new identical simulation that can be further edited and adapted

7. Final remarks

Integrating Simbound transforms a digital marketing education experience into a dynamic laboratory fit for experimentation and strategy simulation of the dynamic realm of digital marketing.

The process consists of planning, monitoring, and adapting the simulation to stimulate analytical thinking and agility in learning. For more information please refer to our live demo on the website with no sign-up needed or request a free demonstration account to experience the extended capabilities of our platform.

A successful design process for a new course should focus on the needs of the learners themselves and incorporate the latest technology in order to provide the upmost value in pedagogy and career progress opportunities.

Did you know that the majority of professors will regard Marketing education as one of the most suitable topics for the use of educational simulation?

The Simbound suite of simulations has up to six different digital marketing simulation activities—all made accessible under a single entry point. Simbound allows every graduate of our simulation program to publish their very own skill passport containing results and creative portfolio online with the role to enhance career accession and progress.

Do not pass up on the opportunity to bring the latest in digital marketing education technology to your class. Start by asking for free instructor credentials today