
Rethinking ROAS: Why Advertisers Should Pay More Attention to MER
Return-on-ad-spend – or ROAS – has solidified itself as an industry standard for measuring campaign effectiveness. There’s no doubt that ROAS is useful, but an ultra-heavy focus on the metric can be deceptive when determining the overall health of your campaigns. Is the Marketing Efficiency Ratio, or MER, the solution to the problems ROAS creates? Let’s dive into the details:
MER vs. ROAS: What’s the Difference? ROAS is calculated by dividing the cost of ads from the revenue those ads produced: (Revenue from ads) / (Cost of ads).
Read More >
January 14, 2026

The Problems with Programmatic Black Boxes
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.
Read More >
October 1, 2025

Four Common Pain Points and Remedies of Digital Marketing
Like any career, digital marketing has its highs and lows with meaningful payoffs and its fair share of annoyances. This week, Genius Monkey is taking a look at some of the most common complaints that marketers have shared about the process of creating and running digital marketing campaigns. We’re not just looking to commiserate; there are steps you can take alleviate or outright solve some of these issues, so let’s jump in:
Read More >
May 20, 2025

Genius Monkey’s Ideas and Tips for Better Brand Optimization
It’s April, and that means it’s Brand Optimization Month! There’s always room for improvement and opportunities to grow your brand, even for the seasoned programmatic veteran. Whether your company is new to the Genius Monkey platform or looking to expand its services, here are some key principles that will help you make April a great month for brand growth!
Make Split-Testing a Part of Your DNA Many advertisers look at split-testing as finding THE singular method for advertising to an audience, but that’s just not realistic; tastes and expectations are always changing, and individual members of any audience will react differently to different messaging.
Read More >
April 22, 2025

What Makes MFA Hard for the Industry to Avoid?
MFA, or “Made For Advertising”, is the boogeyman of digital advertising, scooping up some $20 billion of wasted ad spend on bot sites, unviewable ads, or ad farms. The Association of National Advertisers reports that buyers have been spending less on MFA overall in the last few years, but it’s been on the rise in recent months.
We all know MFA sites when we see them; so why are they so hard to circumvent?
Read More >
November 6, 2024

2023 Programmatic Data Analysis From the Genius Monkey Platform
Wow, what a year; 2023 was one for the books for digital media buyers. We saw the introduction of Netflix OTT placements, the last of lingering Cookies going away, the new growth of DOOH, and the ever expanding reach of display ads. Staying true to form, Genius Monkey is here to dive deep into platform user’s data to give you a quick overview of some interesting trends observed throughout the year.
Read More >
February 14, 2024

Press Release: Lessons Learned From Users With the Best ROAS in Their Vertical
Digital marketing often feels like a guessing game, but it doesn’t have to. The promise of programmatic marketing is turning a broad announcement into a hand-delivered letter straight to those who could use it most – no guesswork needed. That personal approach is achieved through gathering copious amounts of industry data and, most importantly, knowing what to do with it.
In our latest article published on AP News, Yahoo! Finance and MarketWatch, we recently pulled statistics from 30 of our top performing users, focusing specifically on the ones that yielded the highest return on ad spend (ROAS) for their digital efforts.
Read More >
May 17, 2023

Supply Chain Shortage? Don’t Stop Marketing Because You Can’t Keep Inventory
Supply-chain shortages can really frustrate the flow of business. In the past year, we’ve seen more shortages than ever. According to CNBC, the supply-chain blockages in the production system, “have affected a variety of sectors . . . ranging from shortages of electronics and autos to difficulties in the supplies of meat, medicines and household products.” But shortages in the supply chain don’t mean you have to sit and twiddle your thumbs.
Read More >
January 26, 2022

What's New in Q2 @ Genius Monkey
Introducing ROAS Dashboard Reporting and S3 Bucket API Integration! At Genius Monkey, we’re committed to excellence–not just in the service we provide but in our industry knowledge, product offerings and overall platform performance. And it just keeps getting better and better! To better serve our users, we’ve recently added a few new features to the Genius Monkey platform. Check out what’s new!
ROAS reporting in the dashboard ROAS, or return on ad spend, is one of the most important metrics in every ad campaign.
Read More >
May 5, 2021

The 2-Second Rule for Engagement
How long do advertisers have to make an impression when they engage an audience online? Not as long as you might think. Marketers typically assume people will watch all of their 15 or 30 second spots or all of their rotating banner ads. But when looking at the data, it seems that’s not always the case. In fact, it rarely ever is.
The IAB Digital Video Glossary says a video ad is considered “viewable” if at least 50% of the ad is viewed for two consecutive seconds.
Read More >
December 2, 2020

