Too many marketers forget that the ad is only the first impression—known as the “pre-click experience.” Everything that happens after a prospect clicks your ad, or when they visit your website a day, week, or month later is part of the post-click experience, and it’s this stage in the customer journey that has the greatest impact on whether your customer will convert. Understanding how to properly optimize the post-click experience for your customers can be tricky, but don’t worry.

The most important factor when working to improve your return on ad spend is relevance. Brand relevance must be prioritized to succeed in any marketplace, but it’s even more crucial to maintain your pertinence in a market currently experiencing significant swings due to unforeseen events, such as ours. So how can advertisers stay relevant in today’s world? And who determines what is (or is not) relevant anyway? Both questions have the same answer: the consumer.

You’ve probably heard by now that by the year 2022, those of us in the digital ad industry must say “adiós” to the third-party cookie. The third-party phase-out was first announced in February 2020, but Google stirred the pot a little over the last month when they announced that they won’t be building alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web. Some companies fear that this will negatively affect their abilities to target the right consumers, but we at Genius Monkey say, “Lighten up, it just ain’t that big of a deal!

In 2020, not only did consumers change, but marketing tactics evolved as well. Video took off last year, virtual and remote customer experiences replaced more traditional shopping processes and new digital platforms emerged and swiftly grew in popularity––as did consumer expectations. All these alterations to the marketplace have kept advertisers on their toes, particularly when it comes to changes in consumer behavior. So what can marketers expect for the rest of 2021, and how can they adjust their ad strategies in order to better suit these new consumer behaviors and expectations?

Over the last several decades, we’ve seen huge advances in technology that have raised the bar for global markets faster than most businesses have been able to keep up with. Thanks to social distancing measures, these jumps in technology are occurring more rapidly today than ever before, and more and more brands are turning to such advances in order to keep their businesses viable and relevant during this time of drastic change for industries throughout the world.

Now that we’ve safely landed in the new year (still recovering from a helluva rough 2020, though), take a moment to reflect. Visualize a snapshot of your life in 2019. Now compare that snapshot to your life in 2020. Do you see some major differences? If you don’t, then you’re not looking! A myriad of things has changed from 2019 to 2020. The biggest of which is evident in the new WFH (Work From Home) initiatives that have been implemented around the world.

In the world of marketing, data is king. Marketers use an abundance of user data to gather leads, increase sales, and personalize the customer experience. These data-first strategies have proven highly successful at converting customers, which is exactly why data is king. Data-driven personalized marketing allows brands to target their campaigns at precise individuals rather than splash their messaging to random mass audiences. But with increasing awareness around data privacy recently, ad personalization has encountered a few road blocks, forcing marketers to change how they collect and/or personalize consumer data in the age of digital privacy.

It’s a new year with a whole new–and bright–outlook on fraud prevention in the programmatic landscape. The pandemic of 2020 dramatically accelerated digital business efforts, and while some have speculated this could potentially make the digital supply chain more vulnerable to fraud, new research has shown that a good portion of fraud is already being effectively prevented. The Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) is a global program composed of several digital supply chain contributors and ad tech companies–including Genius Monkey–that have banded together in a combined effort to fight fraudulent activity and promote brand safety within digital advertising.

Over the top TV (OTT) or Connected TV (CTV) have pretty much made their mark on the advertising landscape — enough to stake their claim as a mainstay in the advertiser’s official bag of tricks! Currently, there are more than 130 CTV applications1 available to viewers, and that number is growing rapidly; like a new city popping up in the middle of the desert. But, with any new city comes new bad guys.

We’re excited to announce our latest article published on Forbes! Genius Monkey’s CRO, Jeremy Hudgens, is a proud member of Forbes Business Council, and as such, we have the privilege of publishing articles through Forbes every month or so. Our previously-featured Forbes article, titled Don’t Be a Statistic: Preparing for Ad Life After Lockdown, we covered the significant effect COVID-19 lockdowns have had on the ad industry. In our featured Forbes article this month, titled 2020: A Rough Year for Pay TV we discuss with recent pandemic uncertainty, people have looked at alternatives to traditional cable TV more than ever, and that trend is continuing as more and more consumers are cutting back on costs where they can.