How to Bring AI Marketing Into Your 2025/26 Syllabus - Powered by Novela’s Simulations

In the space of two years, “Can you use AI?” has changed from an interview ice‑breaker to a graduate‑level job requirement. Econsultancy’s 2025 talent survey reports that 40% of marketing leaders now place “AI‑driven campaign experience” at the top of their wish‑list when hiring.

Accreditation bodies have taken note. AACSB’s revised Standard 4 explicitly asks programmes to demonstrate how they cultivate “ethical AI literacy and data‑driven creativity” across learning goals. Meanwhile, student demand is surging; MOOC enrolments in AI‑marketing electives trebled between 2023 and 2025.

Yet most undergraduate and MBA syllabi still teach marketing through lectures and outdated simulations. That gap poses two risks: graduates feel under‑prepared, and programmes start to look dated. The good news is that you don’t need a new building, a data science lab, or six months of curriculum committee wrangling to fix the gap.

You need a realistic, risk‑free way for students to experience algorithm‑driven marketing platforms. That’s where the Novela AI Marketing Simulation comes in.

1 – What Novela adds that slide decks can’t

Novela’s browser‑based environment walks students through the same decisions they will face in a modern, AI‑infused ad platform, but without the cost or compliance headaches of a live account. The simulation is built around four stages that mirror the phases of an actual campaign:

Stage	What students do	Skill gained
1. Audience Targeting	Adjust industries, company sizes, and job titles; watch reach and CPM projections update live.	Evaluate reach‑vs‑precision trade‑offs, apply the 5 components of the B2B buying cycle
2. Budget Allocation	Distribute a fixed $50 000 across awareness, engagement, and conversion phases.	Practise the 95–5 Rule and funnel weighting ​
3. AI‑Assisted Creative	Prompt the built‑in AI tool to draft headlines and body copy, then test variants.	Prompt‑engineering, creative evaluation ​
4. Performance Analysis	Read a KPI dashboard and trace results back to earlier choices.	Data‑driven storytelling & optimisation ​

Guidance comes from Ela, Novela’s on‑screen AI assistant, who offers contextual tips that resemble the generative copilots students will meet in industry tools. Because the simulator is sandboxed, learners can experiment freely—overspend, mis‑target, or over‑optimise—and see consequences instantly, without risking a penny of real budget.

2 – Learning outcomes mapped to Bloom and AACSB

A simulation adds value only if it aligns with the verbs and values your programme is measured on, so let’s map Novela’s affordances to both Bloom’s taxonomy and AACSB’s updated technology literacy expectations.

Bloom tier	Outcome phrasing	Evidence inside Novela
Understand	Define core AI‑marketing metrics (e.g., reach, CPM, ROAS).	Glossary tool‑tips in the KPI dashboard.
Apply	Run a $50 k AI‑optimised campaign end‑to‑end.	Four sequential stages.
Analyse	Explain how targeting and budgeting choices affected ROAS.	Reflection memo after Stage 4, drawing on dashboard data.
Evaluate	Critique AI‑generated versus human‑edited copy.	Comparative A/B testing in Stage 3.
Create	Design a multi‑channel campaign that balances brand and performance goals.	Custom channel mix in Stage 2 & Stage 3.
Ethics	Identify bias risks and data‑privacy concerns in AI‑targeted ads.	Built‑in prompts on responsible AI usage.

Because Novela logs every decision and outcome, it provides artefacts—screenshots, CSV exports, leaderboard ranks—that students can attach to reflective assessments or digital portfolios, closing the loop between activity and evidence.

3 – A ten‑week integration blueprint

Below is a ready‑to‑copy module plan that drops the simulation into a conventional twelve‑week semester while respecting contact‑hour constraints and accreditation paperwork. (If you teach on a quarter system, run Weeks 2‑3 and 5‑7 as a concentrated “AI Marketing Sprint.”)

Weeks 1–2 : Foundations and first contact

• Week 1 lecture: Debunk AI hype with concrete platform examples. End with a five‑question diagnostic quiz to benchmark prior knowledge.

• Week 2 lab: Students log into Novela, open Stage 1, and tweak industries and job titles. Ask them to record how performance projections change as targeting narrows. Quiz your cohort on which audience parameter drove the biggest shift; they’ll remember the trade‑off because they saw it.

Week 3 : Funnel budgeting with $50k

Allocate a real budget—$50,000—that feels consequential but manageable. In Stage 2, each student distributes the pot across awareness, engagement, and conversion. Have them run two scenarios: one heavily skewed to top‑funnel, the other to bottom‑funnel. Novela’s real‑time graphs reveal why the 95–5 Rule still matters in an AI era. Capture leaderboard ROAS to reward experimentation.

Week 4 : From dollars to data stories

Students convert raw KPIs into executive‑style narratives: “By shifting 10 % of spend to awareness, ROAS rose 18 % because higher brand recognition lifted click‑through rates on our performance ads.” Collect a 200‑word reflection memo; grade it for insight and clarity, not prose flair.

Week 5 : Prompt‑engineering creative

Move to Stage 3 and hand out a one‑page prompt sheet. Students generate three ad variants, then use Novela’s test environment to see which headline wins. Class discussion: Why did the “generic” AI copy sometimes beat the “clever” human version? The point is to demystify generative AI, not glorify or vilify it.

Week 6 : Multi‑channel expansion

Novela lets students add LinkedIn, display banners, or event sponsorship to their mix. Ask each learner to activate one new channel, then rerun their campaign. They will see cost per acquisition swing wildly and begin to articulate why a channel matters, not just how to click the UI.

Week 7 : Performance analysis deep dive

Open Stage 4 and spend 20 minutes on KPI deconstruction—impressions, reach, CTR, conversion rate, CAC, ROAS. Students must annotate which early choice (audience, budget, creative, or channel) had the biggest downstream effect. That evidence feeds directly into your Week‑7 reflection memo.

Week 8 : Ethical AI usage

Switch gears and use the same simulation data to surface bias questions: Did your narrow job‑title targeting exclude under‑represented groups? Would local privacy laws allow your data use? Have students draft a one‑page ethics memo, citing at least two concrete risks and one mitigation.

Weeks 9–10 : Capstone race and debrief

Give students unlimited practice runs inside Novela; the sandbox lets them iterate fast. On the final lab day, freeze the leaderboard and let them submit their best attempt. Grade the numerical score for 40% and the accompanying 300‑word debrief for 60%. No slide deck, no team presentations—just performance plus reflection.

Frequently asked questions

Do students need coding skills? None. Every task is point‑and‑click inside the browser.

Can I compress the plan for executive education? Yes. Run the labs for Audience Targeting, Budget Allocation, and Performance Analysis back‑to‑back in a single three‑hour block; reflection memo can be overnight homework.

Ready to see the simulation in action?

Request Your Preview Demo

The Novela AI Marketing Simulation is available for instructor previews from April 2025. A 15‑minute live walkthrough will show you exactly how each stage maps to the syllabus above.

Bring AI marketing to life for your 2025/26 cohort—without reinventing your course from scratch.