Dr Ying Wu presents

Learning Lab

Live games, toolkits and career-ready ideas I build for business and marketing classes. Made for real lectures. Free for yours.

1 live game 3 shelves brewing 0 logins needed
Play Ad Auction Live → How it works
Now running

Experiments

Each game turns a lecture idea into a decision students make in teams, against the clock. Open it on the classroom screen and play.

Live game Ad Auction Live game screen with four shops, Ad Rank bars and the sponsored search results
Experiment 001 · Search marketing

Ad Auction Live

Every Google ad you see has just won an auction. Four teams run four shops bidding for the top ad on "trainers sale". The biggest wallet rarely wins.

10 min4 teams3 roundsprojector + paper
  • Why quality can beat a bigger budget
  • How a second-price auction sets what you pay
  • Why the top ad is not always the most profitable
  • How AI Overviews change what a click is worth
Play the game →
How to run it in your class
  1. Open the game on the classroom screen. Split the room into four teams, one shop each.
  2. Start the timer. Each team agrees one secret bid per click and writes it down.
  3. Type the bids in and press Bang the gavel to reveal Ad Rank, positions, prices and profit.
  4. Play three rounds: trainers sale, fix the landing page, then an AI Overview halves the clicks. Finish with the podium and debrief.

A simplified classroom model of a generalised second-price auction (Edelman, Ostrovsky and Schwarz, 2007; Varian, 2007), informed by Google Ads Help on Ad Rank and Pew Research Center (2025) data on AI summaries.

On the shelf

Still brewing

New experiments go up here as I build them. Pop back, or follow me to hear when the next one is out.

Brewing

Toolkits

Templates and frameworks from my modules, ready for a client project or a placement.

Brewing

Career-ready

Short posts on employability: what marketing and business employers ask for, and how to show it.

Brewing

Subject bites

Quick, shareable explainers on search, AI and digital marketing, with the latest data and sources.

Lab notes

Use it in your class

Everything here runs in a browser. No sign-ups, no apps, no student data collected.

Open

Load the game on the classroom screen. It works offline once loaded.

Team up

Split the room into teams. Paper and pens are all they need.

Play

Type in their choices and let the reveal do the teaching.

Debrief

Use the built-in questions to link the game back to theory.

Want a game for your module?

If you use something from the Lab, I'd love to hear how it went. Please credit and link back. And if you'd like a session, or a game built for your topic, let's talk.

Get in touch →