---
id: "quote-wasted-exposures"
type: "quote"
source_timestamps: ["¶3"]
tags: ["roi", "ad-spend"]
related: ["concept-relative-proximity", "concept-absolute-proximity"]
speaker: "Bowen Luo and Bhoomija Ranjan"
speakers: ["Bowen Luo", "Bhoomija Ranjan"]
sources: ["tail1"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-tail1"
originDay: 1
articleStem: "hbr-tail-115-location-based-advertising"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/03/a-better-strategy-for-location-based-advertising"
sourceTitle: "A Better Strategy for Location-Based Advertising"
---
# The cost of bad targeting

> "Targeting customers who would visit you anyway or who were never going to visit your store could cost millions of dollars in wasted exposures."

— [[entity-bowen-luo]] and [[entity-bhoomija-ranjan]] (¶3)

The ROI stakes of the argument. "Would visit you anyway" = the [[concept-billboard-effect]] segment; "never going to visit" = customers closer to a rival. Both are eliminated by switching to [[concept-relative-proximity]]. The "millions of dollars" figure is a reasonable inference from spend scale, not an independently quantified number.