Funny story about this actually - back when I was fresh meat out of high school and trying to BS my way into business studies I started an e-commerce site. Of course we were incorporated and everything. We sold bicycle parts, which was really just some convoluted drop-shipping scheme to make me look like an entrepreneur. I discovered apparently there are plenty of illegal e-bikes you can import from China. I spent days trying to figure out how to import these things and sell them at an obscene markup to make profit. That was my second business idea, after importing meditation cushions and other Eastern paraphernalia.

Surely enough I ran a brief AdSense campaign that was half-assed after finally fixing site issues and people started to call me with questions. My site looked like hot garbage with a logo I had made myself and yet google ads were somehow bringing me customers. It was bizarre. I had a business phone of sorts but some were initially directed to my personal line. My site was hardly well-designed. It was essentially a bad front for a Shopify store. But I had leads fam!

I don't think we'll ever know if advertising works. It's impossible to authoritatively connect cause to effect, even in the internet age. That's what bugged my about doing business cases, sure, mayyybe Facebook ads will bring us more traffic? The best any marketer can do is do a cost-benefit analysis and that's flakey at best. But advertising makes us feel good. It's absolutely more of an art than a science. Super bowl ads might not bring equivalent profits but companies and individuals still yearn for them for some reason. Maybe we just like putting on a show.