[random5634]

I'm not sure that's true. I'm on spend side and the on platform performance of instagram, facebook newsfeed and google adwords marketing seems undeniable. You can (and many have) gone direct to consumer on whatever brand / product your pushing very successfully with clear ROI.

Another niche. If you do anything highly variable / custom - think music concerts - you can target very specifically towards demos for that artist and get amazing ROI. Run the campaigns for one artist, take a similar artist, no digital promo - FAR fewer folks showing up.

Now in terms of third party stuff - total trash. There is a reason google wants to track you on the web. My guess is as the privacy push gets stronger, that third party network stuff, which is already weak, will fall through the floor, because the tracking is not only for ad targeting but some is designed to help (a bit) with fraud prevention - which is a massive issue on third party networks (and I include Facebook's non direct advertising etc here).