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I am reminded of that old line that 50% of advertising dollars are wasted, but nobody knows which 50%. Frankly, I think advertisers are now wasting closer to 90% of their ad dollars based on the ads I see that are of no interest to me. Yes, if I research toilets I then see ads for toilets for weeks and months afterwards, but there are only so many toilets I want to purchase. But, a lot of the time I just don't understand what surveillance of me is telling them. For example, I frequently see ads for restaurants that aren't around where I live or travel. In one case, I never heard of the restaurant chain and looked it up and there were none in the entire region of the country where I live. Similarly, I get constant ads for Internet and broadband providers that don't exist where I live. Or lawn care services that don't service where I live. Once after ordering some presents for my wife and daughter I kept seeing ads for women's clothing for months afterwards even though I am a man. Is that effective? It seems to me the surveillance advertising mechanism must be incredibly inefficient. I wonder if anyone has studied the effectiveness of surveillance-based advertising vs. context-based advertising?
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