> I'm not convinced that targeted advertising even works.
Yes, your intuition derived from a single anomalous data point (yourself) is definitely more accurate than the companies which have seen demonstrable success from targeted advertising.
If you wanted to argue that brand advertising doesn't work, I might agree. Brand advertisers tend not to have high standards of data analysis.
Your publisher experience seems to actually be a case of wanting the former (targeted advertising) but getting the latter (brand advertisers), which can be a real problem because brand advertisers often overspend and undertarget.
Yes, your intuition derived from a single anomalous data point (yourself) is definitely more accurate than the companies which have seen demonstrable success from targeted advertising.
If you wanted to argue that brand advertising doesn't work, I might agree. Brand advertisers tend not to have high standards of data analysis.
Your publisher experience seems to actually be a case of wanting the former (targeted advertising) but getting the latter (brand advertisers), which can be a real problem because brand advertisers often overspend and undertarget.