Digital Marketing Expert Witness
I am Bill Hartzer. I have worked in digital marketing since 1996, and I am retained by counsel on both sides to work out what the advertising, analytics and platform records actually show — and, just as often, what they cannot show. 13 channels, 10 kinds of dispute, and 10 guides on how the evidence is found before a retention window closes on it.
- Working in digital marketing since
- 1996
- Expert reports
- 36
- Depositions
- 8
- Trials
- 5
- Arbitrations
- 1
Most of these disputes turn on data nobody on the file can read
Digital marketing covers the channels a business uses to reach people online — paid search, social, display and programmatic, email, affiliate programs, e-commerce, and the analytics and attribution systems that claim to measure them. When one of those becomes the subject of a dispute, the question is rarely what the strategy should have been. It is what the record shows, who holds it, and how long it will still exist.
A digital marketing expert witness answers that in a form a judge or a jury can follow, and concedes the limits of it before opposing counsel does.
Disciplines
13 channels, each labelled with where the decisive record actually lives — held by the platform, held by the parties, or modeled and therefore not a record at all. Every page names something the evidence cannot settle.
Matters
10 kinds of dispute, each labelled with what actually has to be proven: the standard of care, causation, or quantum. Agency and consultant claims, click fraud, false advertising, trademark use in ads, and loss.
The channels counsel asks about first
Three things worth settling in the first week
These are written to be useful to counsel who never contacts me. That is deliberate: almost every record in one of these matters sits with a third party on a rolling retention window that no litigation hold can freeze, and the expensive mistake is made before anyone is retained.
How the evidence is actually handled
Procedural, in order, with the record named and the clock on it stated at each step.
The eight groupings everything sits in
Paid Media
4 pagesWhere money was spent, and what the record says it bought.
Organic and Owned
4 pagesChannels a party controls rather than buys, and the records they leave.
Commerce and Retail
3 pagesWhere the transaction happens, and who holds the transaction record.
Measurement
2 pagesThe systems that claim to say what worked, and what they actually observe.
Performance and Contract
3 pagesWhat was promised, what was delivered, and what the record shows.
Fraud and Abuse
3 pagesTraffic, clicks and conduct that were not what they appeared to be.
Claims and Conduct
2 pagesWhat was said publicly, to whom, and how it was targeted.
Loss and Quantification
2 pagesWhat the conduct cost, and how that number is built.
Tell me what the dispute is about
The parties in general terms, what happened and when, which platforms are involved, and what has already been produced. A conflict check comes first, so send nothing privileged or case-specific in a first message.