The Trust Deficit Index (TDI): A Practitioner Framework for Measuring Structural Trust Erosion in Digital Marketing

Abstract

This paper introduces the Trust Deficit Index (TDI), a practitioner framework for measuring structural trust erosion in digital marketing systems. Current marketing standards focus almost exclusively on short-term performance metrics (CTR, CVR, ROAS), often ignoring the long-term damage to user trust caused by artificial urgency, synthetic content, and experience mismatches. The TDI provides a quantifiable ratio that balances manipulation signals against system integrity (clarity, transparency, and outcome consistency). This diagnostic tool is designed for marketers, systems architects, and platform operators to identify hidden trust erosion before it degrades brand equity.

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DOI

10.5281/zenodo.19636577

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