Save 50% on a 3-month Digiday+ membership. Ends Dec 5.
They are still voices in the wilderness, but a few people are starting to question the digital ad industry’s obsessiveness when it comes to ever more granular targeting. In Digiday recently, Simulmedia CEO and behavioral targeting pioneer Dave Morgan estimated 90 percent of targeting isn’t worth it. Upstream Group CEO Doug Weaver, writing on his company blog The Drift, picks up on the theme with the argument that the online industry has grown up with a problem: it has long been in the service of direct marketers, crafting systems that cater to them, rather than to the big brands.
For years we’ve been driven by the principle that more targeting is always better. It’s just not. It’s just always smaller, more complex, harder to predict and ultimately less scalable. No matter how thinly we slice the bean, there’s always someone standing by with a sharper blade, always a few pennies more for an even leaner slice. Morgan is right: We’ve painted ourselves into a marvelously complex corner and only the truth can set us free — and only if we accept it.
More in Media
European publishers say the Digital Omnibus ‘cookie fix’ leaves them worse off
The European Union’s attempt at a legislative spring clean for Europe’s web of data privacy rules, has landed flat with publishers.
Digiday+ Research Subscription Index 2025: Subscription strategies from Bloomberg, The New York Times, Vox and others
Digiday’s third annual Subscription Index examines and measures publishers’ subscription strategies to identify common approaches and key tactics among Bloomberg, The New York Times, Vox and others.
From lawsuits to lobbying: How publishers are fighting AI
We may be closing out 2025, but publishers aren’t retreating from the battle of AI search — some are escalating it, and they expect the fight to stretch deep into 2026.