The money could have been eaten up by the advertiser. If the untargeted ads lead to less valuable placements, then it will hurt the revenue of the advertiser.

The money could have been eaten up by the advertiser. If the untargeted ads lead to less valuable placements, then it will hurt the revenue of the advertiser. Short term, both the ad network and publisher can get away with bad placement and make the same amount of money. It will take longer for the advertiser to see the loss in conversion and reduce their spend accordingly.