Garrett Johnson

Prof. Johnson researches digital marketing: measuring its effectiveness and examining its privacy issues. His ad effectiveness research uses large-scale experiments to measure how and how much ads work. His privacy research both examines the impact of Europe’s GDPR and studies the economics of identity in online advertising.

For his work, Prof. Johnson has been awarded the Paul Green Award, the Weitz-Winer-O’Dell Award, and the John D. C. Little Award, and has been a finalist for the John D. C. Little Award and Gary Lilien Marketing Science Practice Prize.

Selected Research

Samuel G. Goldberg, Garrett A. Johnson, and Scott K. Shriver (forthcoming) Regulating Privacy Online: An Economic Evaluation of the GDPR American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.

Garrett A. Johnson, Scott K. Shriver, and Samuel G. Goldberg (forthcoming) Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR Management Science.

Garrett A. Johnson (2023) Inferno: A guide to field experiments in online display advertising. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 32(3): 469-490 (requested & peer-reviewed submission).

Garrett A. Johnson, Scott K. Shriver, and Shaoyin Du (2020) Consumer privacy choice in online advertising: Who opts out and at what cost to industry? Marketing Science (special issue on “Consumer Protection”), 39(1): 33-51

Garrett A. Johnson, Randall A. Lewis, and Elmar I. Nubbemeyer (2017) Ghost Ads: A Revolution in Measuring Ad Effectiveness Journal of Marketing Research, 54(6): 867-884.

Garrett A. Johnson, Randall A. Lewis, and David H. Reiley (2017) When Less is More: Data and Power in Advertising Experiments Marketing Science, 36(1): 43-53.

Education

• Northwestern University, Ph.D., Economics (Advisor: Robert Porter) 2013
• University of British Columbia, B.A., Economics (Honors) 2007

Selected Publications

• Johnson, G., Runge, J., Seufert, E. (2022). "Privacy-Centric Digital Advertising: Implications for Research", Customer Needs and Solutions, 9 (1), 49-49

Selected Research Presentations

• Johnson, G. The advent of privacy-centric digital advertising: Tracing privacy-enhancing technology adoption, George Mason U PEP Research Roundtable for Privacy Fellows, George Mason U, 2022
• Johnson, G. Inferno: A guide to field experiments in online display advertising, MIT Conference on Digital Experimentation (CODE), 2022
• Johnson, G. Economic research on privacy regulation: Lessons from the GDPR and beyond, NBER Tutorial on the Economics of Privacy, 2022
• Johnson, G. Privacy-Centric Digital Advertising: Implications for Research, Google PARADE 2022: PrivAcy pReserving ADvertising Ecosystem Workshop, 2022
• Johnson, G. COPPAcalypse? The YouTube settlement’s impact on kids content creation, U Penn Economics and Digital Services Research Symposium, 2022
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business, 2022
• Johnson, G. Award talk, Weitz-Winer-O’Dell Award ("Ghost Ads"), AMA Summer Academic Conference, Chicago, 2022
• Johnson, G. Privacy-Centric Digital Advertising: Implications for Research, Roku, 2022
• Johnson, G. General research talk, MSI Junior Scholars Conference, Boulder, 2022
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, Dartmouth U Annual Tuck Marketing Camp, 2022
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, International Industrial Organization Conference, Boston, 2022
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, U Michigan Ross School of Business, 2022
• Johnson, G. Privacy-Centric Digital Advertising: Implications for Research, IAB Europe Post Third Party Cookie Taskforce, 2022
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, European Commission Joint Research Centre, 2021
• Johnson, G. Insights@Questrom Live: The Cookies are crumbling, what’s next for Digital Advertising?, Questrom Digital Business Institute “Insights @ Questrom Live”, 2021
• Johnson, G. Regulating Privacy Online: An Economic Evaluation of the GDPR, Annual Federal Trade Commission Microeconomics Conference, 2021
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, Rotterdam School of Management & Erasmus School of Economics, 2021
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, EMAC SIG Digital Marketing Online Speaker Series, 2021
• Johnson, G. The Online Display Ad Effectiveness Funnel & Carryover: Lessons from 432 Field Experiments, Amazon, 2021
• Johnson, G. Regulating Privacy Online: An Economic Evaluation of the GDPR, Joint Digital Economics Seminars (Padova, Paris, & Louvain-la-Neuve), 2021
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, Virtual Quant Marketing Seminar, 2021
• Johnson, G. The Online Display Ad Effectiveness Funnel & Carryover: Lessons from 432 Field Experiments, Twitter, 2021
• Johnson, G. “DSA ads rules what EU business impacts?”, Panelist, “DSA ads rules what EU business impacts?”, Copenhagen Economics, 2021
• Johnson, G. Regulating Privacy Online: An Economic Evaluation of the GDPR, Indeed.com, 2021
• Johnson, G. Regulating Privacy Online: An Economic Evaluation of the GDPR, ZEW Economics of Information and Communication Technologies Conference, 2021
• Johnson, G. Regulating Privacy Online: An Economic Evaluation of the GDPR, George Mason U School of Business, 2021
• Johnson, G. Consumer privacy choice in online advertising: Who opts out and at what cost to industry?, Facebook Ad Crypto Summit, 2021
• Johnson, G. Regulating Privacy Online: An Economic Evaluation of the GDPR, Cornell Johnson School Marketing Department, 2021
• Johnson, G. Context vs. Behavior and Content Subsidization: Evidence from the YouTube Settlement, George Mason U PEP Research Roundtable for Privacy Fellows, 2021
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, ASSA Virtual Annual Meeting, 2021
• Johnson, G. “SymposiumX: MAdTech Back to the Future”, Panelist, W3C NY Metro Chapter “SymposiumX: MAdTech Back to the Future”, 2020
• Johnson, G. Advertising after the cookie-pocalypse, MSI Analytics Symposium “Use of Analytics and AI in the Post-Pandemic World”, 2020
• Johnson, G. The Online Display Ad Effectiveness Funnel & Carryover: Lessons from 432 Field Experiments, NABE Tech Economics Conference, 2020
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, MaCCI/EPoS Virtual IO Seminar, 2020
• Johnson, G. Economics of Digital Ad Identity, W3C Improving Web Advertising BG Virtual Face-to-face, 2020
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, George Mason U Symposium on the Law & Economics of Privacy and Data Security, 2020
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, Carnegie Mellon U MSIT-Privacy Engineering Seminar, 2020
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, Boston U School of Law Conference on Technology and Declining Economic Dynamism, 2020
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, Boston U Cyber Alliance Speaker Series, 2020
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, NBER Economics of Digitization Conference, 2020
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, FTC PrivacyCon, 2020
• Johnson, G. Boston University Data Science (BUDS) Day, Boston University Data Science (BUDS) Day, 2020
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, 2020 Next Generation of Antitrust, Data Privacy and Data Protection Scholars Conference, NYU, 2020
• Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, George Mason U PEP Research Roundtable for Privacy Fellows (Tucson), Tucson, AZ, 2020
• Johnson, G. Economics of Digital Advertising, George Mason U Attorney General Education Program (AGEP) “Workshop on the Economics of Information, Advertising, & Privacy”

Awards And Honors

• 2022, Winner, Weitz-Winer-O’Dell Award, American Marketing Association
• 2021, John D.C. Little Award, INFORMS Society for Marketing Science (ISMS)
• 2021, Boston University Hariri Institute Junior Faculty Fellow, Boston University
• 2021, Fellow, Program on Economics & Privacy, George Mason University
• 2020, 2021 Young Scholar, Marketing Science Institute
• 2020, Marketing Science Institute 2021 Young Scholar, Marketing Science Institute
• 2020, Fellow, Program on Economics & Privacy, George Mason University
• 2019, Marketing Science Institute Research Support, Marketing Science Institute