Does using data to target specific audiences make advertising more effective?

I've been saying this for years.

"Personalized" advertising is based on flawed logic and is just plain dumb --- dumb advertising for dumb people who don't actively block it.

Just because I visited an automobile web site last month doesn't mean I'm still interested in buying a car today. So why are advertisers wasting their money to show me auto ads on totally unrelated web sites?

Wouldn't it be cheaper, more logical and much more effective to only show me auto ads when I express an interest --- like when I visit a related web site or search for a related topic? This is called "context sensitive" advertising --- and privacy invasion is not required to do it.

The stats I've seen say that more than half of internet users are now taking active steps to block this "personalized" stupidity. I block it in the browser I normally use and I avoid anything associated with companies that promote it.