I think this is a good point about how the campaigns do have virtually of the resources to put together a sophisticated emailing system...but it may not be a question of pure resources, but of logistics and ingenuity.
Here are two things that I think we can assume:
1) The campaigns have enough data to draw a good guess of who/what you are like, even without you giving anything more than your location, gender and age. This was true at least a decade ago when campaigns (and other third-parties) had access to databases such as subscriber data.
2) The campaigns have the resources to tie this data to individual identities, even if you haven't explicitly done it yourself when signing up for a newsletter. The matching won't be 100% accurate, but the campaigns can be reasonably sure that you are this particular Jane Doe at this address who is 28-32 years old, who subscribes to Rolling Stone and Harper's, and who drives a 2-door sedan.
Then what?
There has to be a middleman who can use this granular data to write a coherent message that leverages the insights from the data...using a model that makes many permutations across the most common combinations of characteristics.
This is similar to how Google can tailor search results for "what's a good movie" for a near infinite combination of user characteristics...but producing discrete databits (search results) is a different problem than producing a coherent fundraising letter.
And while money/resources/desire may not be an obstacle, the question is logistics and other practical concerns that divide the data from the content producers. There are many industries (such as the medical community) in which money and brains are no factor and yet have unsophisticated ways of dealing with information.
Here are two things that I think we can assume:
1) The campaigns have enough data to draw a good guess of who/what you are like, even without you giving anything more than your location, gender and age. This was true at least a decade ago when campaigns (and other third-parties) had access to databases such as subscriber data.
2) The campaigns have the resources to tie this data to individual identities, even if you haven't explicitly done it yourself when signing up for a newsletter. The matching won't be 100% accurate, but the campaigns can be reasonably sure that you are this particular Jane Doe at this address who is 28-32 years old, who subscribes to Rolling Stone and Harper's, and who drives a 2-door sedan.
Then what?
There has to be a middleman who can use this granular data to write a coherent message that leverages the insights from the data...using a model that makes many permutations across the most common combinations of characteristics.
This is similar to how Google can tailor search results for "what's a good movie" for a near infinite combination of user characteristics...but producing discrete databits (search results) is a different problem than producing a coherent fundraising letter.
And while money/resources/desire may not be an obstacle, the question is logistics and other practical concerns that divide the data from the content producers. There are many industries (such as the medical community) in which money and brains are no factor and yet have unsophisticated ways of dealing with information.