Hi there, I manage digital media for a living and have for some time. I don't do astroturfing or anything like that. Primarily paid search/social/display. S

Hi there, I manage digital media for a living and have for some time. I don't do astroturfing or anything like that. Primarily paid search/social/display. Short answer is it works, and any advertiser with decent analytics should be able to see that plain as day. Longer answer is that as more data becomes available around cross-channel attribution, the question of incremental effectiveness, and which channel/placement/ad gets what % of credit becomes the murkier, more difficult question to answer. For a glimpse of what I mean, do some googling on cross-channel attribution. Google Analytics has some great free tools they make available, but it is by far a perfect solution. The further out from the purchase step a given touch point is (like a display ad that is driving awareness), the harder it is to attribute revenue to and determine the incremental lift of. Certain channels like display and social typically play a heavier role at the top of the funnel vs. search and email that are more prevalent at the middle and bottom of the funnel. Historically digital media focused on last-click attribution, but that view is fast changing since it discounts top of funnel efforts more than it should, and you need those to fill the lower parts of the funnel. Happy to answer other questions you might have. Not all of us in the space are scammy/shady people looking to fleece everyone we can online.