Economic Consulting Perspective (by Alexa Larson)

Brian Paravola, Zach Baily, and Dan Hunt present Cartebella

This semester I participated in the Economic Consulting course in the Business Economics and Public Policy department (BEPP) at the Kelley School of Business.  This course is structured to give students the hands-on experience of analyzing and consulting by putting their knowledge and skills gained in the BEPP department to work. The goal was to develop, propose, and implement an online marketing campaign for a client.  My team and I partnered with the local non-profit organization Bradford Woods. We were able to form a solid relationship with our client, which benefited the effectiveness of our campaign.

The Business Economics and Public Policy department focuses its efforts on developing top-of-the-line business leaders.  By emphasizing important skills and knowledge on topics such as non-market risk consulting, managerial economics, game theory, and data analysis using economic modeling, BEPP educates students beyond the textbook.  Students are then able to apply these concepts to a multitude of simulations and in this case an actual project with a client.

The object of the Economic Consulting course taught by Professor Robert Ridlon is to apply tools students have learned in previous business classes particularly from Business Economics.  In-class lectures are used to bridge the gap between previous lessons taught in the BEPP department and actual tasks in the consulting and marketing industries. Lessons focused on consumer search, bidding auctions, and performance measures.     

The course revolves around the Google Online Marketing Challenge, which calls for teams to develop an online advertising campaign for a client of their choice using Google Ad Words credited with a $250 budget.  Not only are teams participating in this challenge, critical thinking plays a much larger role behind the scenes.  Teams must make strategic decisions while monitoring their campaign, analyze their data and results, and finally form optimal recommendations for the client.

When my team and I were deciding on a client, we found that Bradford Woods had a unique business structure compared to most local businesses.  Bradford Woods is Indiana University’s outdoor education center. This organization specializes in several areas including Recreation Therapy, Adventure Education, Environmental Education, Retreats, and Camps. We decided to take on the challenge of analyzing how effective online marketing for a non-profit organization actually is.  We targeted the organization’s group clientele such as other organizations, schools, churches, and corporations by advertising for their Retreats, Adventure Education, and Camps divisions. 

Google AdWords allowed us to observe key success metrics of our campaign such as the number of impressions, clicks, and the cost of our keywords and Ads. We were fortunate enough to work with the Director of Marketing, Tim Street, who then linked us to Google Analytics where we could examine more specific results of our campaign such as the average duration of a visit, the number of pages the visitor visited, whether or not it was a new visitor, and many more.

The project prompted us to be resourceful in how we monitored our campaign and analyzed our data, and also to be innovative in our recommendations.  We were able to put our past experiences and skills we’ve gained to work.  Communication was key throughout the project, whether it being with the client or the team as a whole.  It was important to remain professional and respectful while enjoying the connections we were fortunate enough to make. 

While running the campaign our team developed a bidding strategy for our keywords in order for our Ad Text to return in the top search positions. With a background in managerial economics we were able to understand auctions and bidding strategies, and we could compete in this second price auction against unknown competitors on keywords, while managing our budget as well.  After finishing our campaign we examined our observations using our previously learned data analysis skills.  Some teams ran regressions on the effects of their costs per clicks, while we looked at differences in seasonality and the effects our campaign had on visitors’ interactions on the website. In the end, we were able to act as consultants and form solid conclusions and recommendations in which our client can use as an advantage for future decisions of the organization.

Although not all team recommendations were to pursue an AdWords campaign for their client, students have benefited from the valuable lessons and experience of taking this course. Working with ambiguity and having the control to make decisions allows teams to be innovative and use the critical thinking skills we have developed to overcome unexpected challenges. Economic Consulting gives students the opportunity to practice what they’ve studied, and being able to apply what we have learned throughout the course of our college career has been very beneficial.