[SteveGerencser]

While it may be less creepy, it's nearly impossible to break even running advertising this way. And until there is a way to promote a business, especially a new business, without some form of marketing, it's a necessary step in the online ecosystem. In the old days it was possible to fire blind ads and do okay. But as the costs continued to climb it became more important to be able to target your audience in a more accurate way. Retargeting/remarketing has become a very powerful tool in this process.

The last thing in the world I want to do is pay real money to put ads in front of someone that has no intention of buying and no interest in becoming a customer.

It's bad enough that the primary platforms are making the process more and more of a black box where they control every aspect of the marketing process.