Does this sound familiar? You’re on a phone call. You tell the person on the other end that you're really craving barbecue for dinner, and within minutes, one of the apps you use serves you an ad for brisket. Or worse yet, you're not even on your phone when you say this, but the ad still finds you.

By some estimates, more than half of Americans believe their smartphones are spying on them, recording every word they say. To be clear, there’s no evidence that this is true, but the suspicion persists. Digital advertising can feel creepy.

Jeremy Hlavacek feels your pain. He’s run programmatic advertising operations for big companies like The Weather Channel, IBM’s Watson division, and Experian. An industry veteran, Jeremy has advice for entrepreneurs thinking about how to get their companies noticed, and he believes there’s a big differen ...