Rethinking ROAS: Why Advertisers Should Pay More Attention to MER

2025 will likely be remembered as the year when all the predictions, noise, and media shifts became too big to ignore. For years, advertisers heard about looming disruption – AI, streaming, creator economies, consolidation – but this past year is when those forces fully materialized. We’ve seen the integration of AI into virtually every workflow, dramatic shifts in how consumers discover and relate to brands, and the early warning signs of potential issues as mega-corporations continue to grow and consolidate their power.

Netflix Closes a Deal to Buy WBD; Paramount Steps Up On December 5th, 2025, Netflix announced a deal to purchase Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), including all the IP rights, studios, and streaming audience of about 128 million subscribers. The announced $83 billion buyout equates to about $27.75 per share, but does not include Warner-owned cable channels like CNN and TNT. The questions and discussions were ongoing when, on December 8th, Paramount complicated matters with a hostile takeover offer of $30 per share, coming out to an all-cash deal of $108 billion.

Connected television (CTV) advertising has quickly become one of the most dynamic and competitive segments in digital advertising. As the medium matures, leaders in the space are emerging and beginning to consolidate, signaling a possible end to the “wild west” era of CTV advertising. In this week’s blog from Genius Monkey, join us as we take a close look at the biggest moves the CTV giants are making and what advertisers should know about them.

Winter is coming, and now is the time to prepare for the biggest consumer spending season of the year. There are many factors that go into creating a successful holiday campaign, and Genius Monkey is here to discuss three high-level strategies that will prepare your business to thrive throughout the next year! Let’s dive in: Prepare Your Fuel Early As the temperature goes down, competition for ad space and attention heats up.

As tools and technologies evolve, so too do the methods of bad actors looking to make a buck off advertiser’s honest work. Enter SIVT, or Sophisticated Invalid Traffic. This term describes the next generation of MFA and – as the name suggests – they can be complicated to detect and avoid. Let’s take a look at some examples of SIVT and discuss how Genius Monkey advertisers can beat the new Bots.

In a world where seemingly everything has to fit on a phone screen, digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertisements stand out in a way that banner ads can’t. In fact, 91% of advertisers believe DOOH can deliver both upper- and lower-funnel metrics. DOOH ads are big, noticeable, and they’re getting better every day with improvements to audience reach and adaptability. Let’s take a closer look at the details and see what Genius Monkey users can expect from this growing channel.

For a small business, marketing isn’t just about growing profits, it’s about survival. One of the biggest challenges small businesses face is getting the most out of a limited advertising budget. Luckily, there’s a smart solution. Programmatic advertising helps stretch every ad dollar for maximum impact. By using data and automation, it helps small businesses compete with much larger ones. Let’s take a look at how programmatic can help small businesses grow:

What separates a good programmatic platform from an excellent one? Price, support, ease-of-use, and metric reports are all important, but none are more important than optimization. A platform built for results will help advertisers refine, tweak, and adjust ongoing campaigns for the most efficiency. In this week’s blog from Genius Monkey, we’re taking a look at real-time campaign optimization through predictive analytics. Let’s dive in: A Crash Course in Predictive Analytics Predictive analytics is the science of knowing when a consumer is ready to take an action.

One of the many draws of programmatic advertising is the promise of efficiency, but there are plenty of examples of businesses taking “efficiency” too far. In this week’s blog from Genius Monkey, we’re taking a look at another way some advertisers cut out too many steps with the issue of programmatic “black boxes.” Let’s dive in! What is a Programmatic Black Box? A black box is a system where advertisers spend ad money with little control as to how, when, and where ads are placed.

The first of two lawsuits against Google has finally reached its conclusion; found guilty of antitrust behaviors, it’s now time for the tech giant to face the music with a ruling on the Search case. Did the DOJ get its wish to have Chrome sold? How will this actually help Genius Monkey’s programmatic targeting, and what can users expect to come from the government’s required remedies? Let’s dig in and find out what advertisers need to know about this landmark ruling: