Associate Professor at Boston University Questrom School of Business
Garrett Johnson is known for rigorous empirical research on digital advertising measurement, incrementality, and platform economics, producing findings that challenge industry assumptions about ad effectiveness and market structure.
Last updated Mar 28, 2026 by AI Enrichment
Garrett Johnson is one of the most influential academic voices in digital advertising economics, known for producing empirical research that directly challenges and informs how the industry measures ad effectiveness. His work sits at the intersection of industrial organization economics and digital marketing, tackling questions that practitioners struggle to answer rigorously — such as whether online ads actually cause purchases or merely correlate with them, and how advertising markets are structured in ways that may distort competition and measurement. Johnson's research has examined topics including the incrementality of digital advertising, the economics of ad fraud, the role of tracking and identity in advertising markets, and the structural dynamics of programmatic platforms. His studies have been published in top-tier academic journals and are frequently cited by industry researchers, policymakers, and practitioners seeking credible empirical grounding for debates around attribution, privacy, and platform power. He has collaborated with major industry data sources to produce findings that bridge academic rigor with real-world advertising data. Before joining Boston University's Questrom School of Business, Johnson built his expertise through doctoral training in economics and early-career research focused on digital markets. His academic position has not kept him siloed — he is a recognized voice at industry conferences and in policy discussions, particularly as regulators and platforms grapple with the implications of cookie deprecation, identity resolution, and the measurement challenges that define modern AdTech.
Boston University Questrom School of Business (2015-2021)
University of Rochester Simon Business School (2010-2015)