I understand that impact calculation for ads is, at best, an inexact science. But I refuse to believe that businesses spend hundreds of billions of dollars on ads every year for absolutely no gain. That's chips in the vaccine level conspiratorial thinking.
Go talk to any small business owner of your choosing. When they have a slow day and nothing to do they like to chip in a few hundred dollars into the Meta casino. Since you can tweak endless parameters on which people will see the ads, you can always spend more until you find your winning number, like on the horse race track or in the lottery.
