I worked for a print ad business many years ago. They were basically running the same business model with the paper. Ads were placed in glossy and cheap/free pos magazines (cheap traffic) that mostly landed in the trash after collecting dust on the shelf. The bots consisted of distributors claiming high quality distribution while throwing the paper right into the trash. Everyone knew and hardly anyone cared because incentives were mostly aligned (mostly big brands).

I was hired to help with the transition to digital. Guess how that worked out. Next I tried running my own online marketing business. I thought not deceiving customers and actually providing real value was something clients would pay for. Some did, but competing with all the fraud became to tiresome eventually. Not going to work in this industry every again unless there are alternatives (includes scrubbing toilets)