Garrett Johnson
Dean’s Research Scholar
Associate Professor, Marketing
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 examines the impact of Europe’s GDPR, the policy tradeoffs of user identifiers like cookies, as well as novel, privacy-centric approaches to online advertising.
For his work, Prof. Johnson has been awarded the Paul Green Award, the John D. C. Little Award and the Weitz-Winer-O’Dell Award, and has been a finalist for the John D. C. Little Award and Gary Lilien Marketing Science Practice Prize. He has appeared in outlets including Bloomberg, New York Times, Boston Globe, Fortune, Marketplace, & the HBR Ideacast.
Personal site: garjoh.com. Follow on Twitter, LinkedIn, Threads, bluesky, & Google Scholar.
Selected Research
– Samuel G. Goldberg, Garrett A. Johnson, and Scott K. Shriver (2024) Regulating Privacy Online: An Economic Evaluation of the GDPR American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 16(1): 325-58.
– Garrett A. Johnson, Scott K. Shriver, and Samuel G. Goldberg (2023) Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR Management Science, 69(10): 5695-5721.
– 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, 39(1): 33-51.
– Garrett A. Johnson, Randall A. Lewis, and Elmar I. Nubbemeyer (2017) Ghost Ads: Improving the Economics of Measuring Online 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
PhD, Northwestern University, 2013
Selected Research Presentations
Johnson, G. Privacy and the data economy: does technology offer a way forward?, MSI & Brookings Institution “Intended and Unintended Effects of Privacy Regulations on Marketing”, Washington, DC, 2023
Johnson, G. COPPAcalypse? The YouTube settlement’s impact on kids content, U Rochester Simon Business School, 2023
Johnson, G. The advent of privacy-centric digital advertising: Tracing privacy-enhancing technology adoption, J Marketing Virtual Workshop: Marketing Impact with Research-Driven Apps, 2023
Johnson, G. Economic research on privacy regulation: Lessons from the GDPR and beyond, Paris Dauphine U Digital Activities Seminar (online), 2023
Johnson, G. COPPAcalypse? The YouTube settlement’s impact on kids content, Marketing Science, Miami, FL, 2023
Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, UK Competition & Markets Authority Economics Seminar Series, 2023
Johnson, G. The Cookies are Crumbling: What’s Next for Digital Advertising?, Shasha Seminar “A Roadmap for Internet Privacy”, Wesleyan University, 2023
Johnson, G. Economic research on privacy regulation: Lessons from the GDPR and beyond, Federal Communications Commission Virtual Economics Seminar, 2023
Johnson, G. COPPAcalypse? The YouTube settlement’s impact on kids content, Columbia Business School, 2023
Johnson, G. Privacy & market concentration: Intended & unintended consequences of the GDPR, Northeastern U, 2023
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. Economics of Digital Advertising, George Mason U Attorney General Education Program (AGEP) “Workshop on the Economics of Information, Advertising, & Privacy”