Having worked on the spend side of things and at high stakes (9 figure budgets), targeting and how to improve it is extremely intellectually stimulating. More than anything else I've done in my career, even. This is especially true when you have constraints, like being in a regulated industry such as legal marketing.
The only problem is that it's hard to command a salary commensurate with how good you are at it unless you're in business for yourself AND the one spending the money.
I thought that I made it clear that I don't work on this anymore.
Advertising isn't an inherent evil. You find your mechanic, doctor, lawyer, etc because they advertise.
I advertised for one specific company. I worked in an industry that was pretty grey. Some parts of the business were vaguely predatory and others served a great public social need. More importantly, you had to have an actual reason to fill out our forms and follow through with us. We weren't just desperately trying to get any eyeballs. The work that I did very much did help people.
Also you're not going to get much mileage shaming people for what they do for a living. You being reductive doesn't really reflect reality either. I was much more than some marketer and yes, the problems were extremely intellectually stimulating, otherwise I wouldn't have been there.
That's better than I can say for most of the quants I worked with -- they were almost all just in it for the money.
> You find your mechanic, doctor, lawyer, etc because they advertise.
It’s funny you say that, because I found all three literally by looking at reviews and not advertisements. Those 3 categories are perfect examples of industries where referrals are far more reliable than choosing which one had the best ad budget.
The only problem is that it's hard to command a salary commensurate with how good you are at it unless you're in business for yourself AND the one spending the money.