#Impression Tracking

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?

If you live in the U.S. and have been on the internet this month, there’s a good chance you’ve been on YouTube. The video platform hosts more than 2.7 billion active users, and no platform can get that popular without seeing its fair share of controversies. Lately, YouTube has been making some not-so-great headlines that demonstrate the importance of knowing the entire customer journey in your programmatic campaigns. Let’s take a closer look at impression tracking and what we can learn about it from YouTube.

Getting clicks on your ad can be exciting, but a savvy marketer knows that a click isn’t too impressive on its own – it’s conversions that really count. That said, it is a necessary stepping stone: the moment a customer enters or moves along the sales funnel. A click is a good thing because it represents a consumer willing to take action… or at least it can. Some are better than others, and if you want to get conversions, you need to make sure you’re getting the right kind of clicks.

We’ve worked with thousands of clients, from almost every industry—real estate, legal, e-commerce, education, medical, political, and more. Which means we’ve seen a LOT of different business marketing strategies. We know what works best and what will eventually flop. In this blog, we’ve put together the most common advertising questions we receive from clients, including their biggest hurdles, challenges, and errors. We quickly take their problems and turn them into challenges to solve.

Why are so many marketers talking about the cookie? Didn’t Google wipe out cookies this year? Well, not quite. There’s a lot of talk in the digital advertising world related to cookies, privacy, and restrictions, and we’re here to give you all the updates and info you need. Goodbye Cookies The word “cookie” usually refers to the data saved online that can store and remember information about you. When you visit a website, cookies could track your online activity.

A great marketing campaign is nothing without the ability to track and visualize it through a full stack of reporting and attribution readily available at the advertiser’s hands. You can have the best visuals and messaging in the world, but if you can’t track performance, the campaign is virtually useless. At Genius Monkey, every client receives access to their very own personalized client dashboard. This is their one-stop spot to track and view all campaign data.

Do you understand the difference between data and insights? Are you really understanding your data, or do you have surface-level knowledge that can be improved? In an Adweek article by Anastasia Leng, she warns against doing the same thing multiple times without ever “validating if it’s having the intended result.” Leng says many have easy access to metrics without the right tools to differentiate them. Simply put, just because something can be measured doesn’t mean that data should make the decisions for you.

You’re sitting at home, having a conversation with someone about a restaurant or a new piece of clothing you want to buy. Two minutes later, you see an advertisement on your phone for that same exact restaurant or clothing store. How does your phone know what you’re saying? Is there a microphone, constantly listening for buzzwords and then rapidly bringing you ads for those things you talk about? Advertising these days can be pretty advanced, but when you look at life in general, everything is very interconnected.

Did you know the story of The Tortoise and the Hare is actually an amazing marketing analogy? Most businesses want to be the Hare—speedy and instantaneous. But in the marketing world, where the race is a conversion cycle, the Tortoise wins every time. Why? Because the tortoise is patient, steady, and smart. We’re sharing our best tips for understanding the conversion cycle, what a typical conversion looks like, and how you can feel more confident in your marketing efforts, from first impressions to final clicks.

In 2017, 76% of marketers reported that they currently had or planned to have marketing attribution. Fast forward to today, where that number has only increased, as marketing attribution is a crucial part of any marketing strategy. With attribution being so widely used in one form or another, marketers must use an attribution model that is the right fit for them. A minuscule 22% of marketers believe they’re using the right attribution model, leaving 78% wondering what they should be doing.