For context, most internet ad spending is very poorly measured, and is money 'thrown into the system' with very little direct oversight in terms of ROI on part

For context, most internet ad spending is very poorly measured, and is money 'thrown into the system' with very little direct oversight in terms of ROI on part of the advertiser. Either they can't measure the real ROI (brand advertising) or it's hard to, or they are kind of lazy. When big companies spend on ads, they often 'allocate' and the money just gets spent. The efficiency of those ads is going to be very low. The world of actionable ads is narrow. Google search ads are generally very specific and actionable, and are fairly well measurable. FB ads similarly (if you want them to be). In those contexts, the 'targeting' will definitely pop out at you and will make or break a campaign, so long as the advertiser is watching the numbers. A lot of what one would think of as 'actually targeted advertising' gets lost in a wash of arbitrary ad spend.