We know from Betteridge’s Law that the answer must be no. Elaine Moore writing for The Finanical Times comes to the same conclusion and says that there’s plenty of evidence that the whole thing is a scam and that targeted advertising probably doesn’t work. Her article, If Big Tech has our data, why are targeted ads so terrible?, says that based on her Facebook profile, the data adtech collects is worthless. She’s not interested in anything her profile says she is except for family and, as she says, who isn’t interested in their family.
The article also has stories about companies that suspended their targeted advertising and saw no discernible change in sales or customer engagement. At least one Facebook employee agrees according to an internal memo revealed in court. None of this is new, of course. Irreal has be reporting similar stories for a long time.
And yet the adtech juggernaut keeps rumbling along. It is, you must admit, a compelling story: we’ll find out all about people so we can show your ads only to the people who are interested. More bang for your buck. But there doesn’t appear to be any cogent evidence backing up the claim. Certainly Moore’s profile doesn’t speak to adtech’s efficacy. It could hardly be more wrong.