Yes, there were earlier ads, largely of the classified variety, selling one-offs (often real estate).
People were not literate.
Printing and publishing were expensive.
There were very few mass products.
Wikipedia: "The history of advertising can be traced to ancient civilizations. It became a major force in capitalist economies in the mid-19th century, based primarily on newspapers and magazines."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_advertising
The point is scale and pervasiveness.
Barkers, criers, the odd promotional papyrus or clay tablet, a shop signboard, are not the mass advertising of the latter 19th, 20th, and early 21st centuries.
Mass advertising, such as it might be thought to exist, was largely propagandistic, in that word's original sense.
Even if we only take the age of the printing press in Europe, it's still over 500 years of advertisement without tracking.
Even if we only take the age of mass-produced media, it's almost 200 years without tracking.