Bombs Away! Web Ads Miss Their Target, All the Time

Posted: 4/24/2012  |  By: Peter Kafka | allthingsD.com

Everyone knows that half of all advertising dollars are wasted. And everyone knows that the Internet fixes that, because digital advertisers can spend money getting their messages to the people they want to reach.

Except that’s not true at all: The Web offers advertisers a slew of creepily effective targeting mechanisms, but they only work for some stuff, some of the time. An ad on the Web may do a better job of reaching its audience than, say, a magazine ad. But that doesn’t mean it does a good job.