The example given in the article of the planner ads isn't a good one. The author is trying to make the argument that performance marketing mostly unfairly takes credit for sales that would have happened away, but this particular sale, even if it had happened, would have been unlikely to have gone to the specific brand that was advertising. If they hadn't placed that ad, they wouldn't have made that revenue. Some other planner company would have.

(If you have a near-monopoly on planners, of course, such an ad would indeed have been a waste. The author would have come to you by default once he decided to get a planner. )