THE PROBLEM 

Personalized ads
Businesses love targeted website advertising because it allows them to deliver more relevant ads, and with a comprehensive integrated marketing strategy, might get better than average results.

A Google AI Summary however says this: "Targeted advertising, while effective, faces several pain points. These include difficulties in accurately identifying and reaching the ideal audience, challenges in creating engaging and effective ad creatives, issues with measuring campaign performance and ROI, and growing concerns about data privacy and potential misuse of personal information. Additionally, the increasing complexity of advertising platforms and the need for constant adaptation to changing trends and algorithms can also pose significant challenges..."

Meta's Advantage+ and Google's PMAX have proved formidable tools, but according to warc.com testing of Meta's automated targeting at Haus, suggests that good results in the shorter term may differ from long term results.
https://www.warc.com/content/feed/metas-advantage-drives-strong-short-term-incrementality-but-weakens-in-thelonger- term/en-GB/10833

Additionally, we live in a society with an information overload problem, and much is being tuned out. In a Nielsen study, they found people ignored ads when searching a webpage. Heatmaps tracked the eye movements of participants for three levels of attention: scanning, partial reading, and thorough reading. During all three tasks, the banners and ads were completely ignored, sometimes referred to as "ad blindness."
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/banner-blindness-old-and-new-findings/

Tech's move to AI
Many tech companies are selling TADS (targeted advertising delivery systems) to fund their empires - but are starting to see TADS as their achilles heel based on events like the advertiser walk-out at Twitter/X, the potential fallout from the rise of scam ads and ads containing malware, and see a lot more security in AI subscription models like Chat GPT. Platforms are using TADS revenues to fund their development! Savvy advertising customers are understandably concerned tech's commitment to them might become less attractive as a business model.

"A Pew Research Center report published this spring analyzed data from 900 U.S. adults who agreed to share their online browsing activity." 26% of the time they closed their browser after reading the Google AI summary, to the dismay of advertisers trying to sell their wares.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/

Malware/Scam Ads
Google alone disabled 400,000+ ads from as many sites hiding malware during the course of a year over a decade ago (WSJ, Feb 2014). Malware is a lot more sophisticated today and can cause widespread damage to networks, costing vast sums of money to remedy or pay ransomware attacks, causing many to be cautious of clicking on your ads. Scam ads are an ever increasing problem. Reuters said of Meta (Nov 2025): "And the social media giant internally estimates that its platforms show users 15 billion scam ads a day."
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortune-deluge-fraudulent-ads-documents-show-2025-11-06/

Association with toxic content
I made the point in LinkedIn posts over several years that your ads being lumped with toxic materials on social media will damage your brand. But AI has it problems too. TADS time is limited and marketing will start moving to personal recommendation as content, ads and their delivery created by AI may struggle to pass the 'trust' test. "Trust in AI is not automatic; it needs to be earned through transparency, fairness, and accountability." (Google AI Summary).

The pivot to product-focused ads
"I think the era of brand is over," according to Scott Galloway. A proof point, he argued, is that a lot of "most trusted brands in the world" are cutting back on ads seeking to build up these intangible assets. He cited Apple as a case in point, as the tech giant once relied on "brand-based advertising" with a minimal emphasis on product specifications and features. Today, by contrast, it has made a 180-degree shift, according to Galloway, and its ads are nearly "all product-based".
https://www.warc.com/content/feed/scott-galloway-tells-cannes-lions-the-era-of-brand-is-over/en-GB/8332

So savvy advertiser, beware!

IS THERE A BETTER WAY?

Nurture personal recommendation, face-to-face or through social media. And rather than presume it will bend to your marketing framework, conforming to social media's communication dynamic maybe a friendlier, far more effective way to market your product/service, taking full advantage of its ability to spread your word virally. Some of the most enjoyable buying experiences relate to finding a unique product/service and passing on your "discovery" by word of mouth or virally over web-based avenues including social media at a rate that simply was not possible years ago. I believe the viral capability is that much more enhanced if the product/service isn't seen as an effort by advertisers to shove it down our throats. By de-structuring traditional marketing elements, reducing or hiding your logo altogether, downplaying advertising and experiential marketing and focusing marketing efforts instead on the new, more subtle task of enhancing a "discovery" process, certain brands may better conform to, and find acceptance in, a jaded consumer market! Not an AI solution or capability at this point.

Many companies have succeeded with eye-popping success:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/avoiding-advertising-money-pit-tristan-slothouber/

I think these examples make it evident that the current advertising/marketing model has long been bested, the question is, when will you get on board to move your organization's income potential forward?