#Marketing Trends

AI continues to expand into every facet of the tech industry and life in general, but could the expansion eventually hurt some of its biggest proponents? A report detailed on Adweek suggests that Google’s Search Ad business has slipped slightly in the wake of AI barrelling its way into the search business and – incredibly – Google might be okay with it.

Performance indicators are a vital tool in the digital marketing process, allowing advertisers to gauge the success of their advertising efforts through a variety of metrics. As consumer attention becomes more fragmented and ad blindness rises, traditional metrics such as CTR, impressions, or ad frequency are increasingly falling short of telling the whole story. Views, impressions, and clicks are important, but are often touted as the end-goal or evidence of ultimate advertising effectiveness. Times and audiences are changing, and advertisers will need more advanced means of measuring success if they want to keep up. Let’s take a look at some alternate metrics that advertisers can use to better understand the big picture of their marketing efforts.

We at Genius Monkey have been riding this horse for some time, shouting “CTV is coming, CTV is coming!” For the last few years, audiences have been flocking to the cheaper versions of streaming services that include advertisements, propelling OTT/CTV to the fastest-growing programmatic medium. The best time to get a CTV strategy was 5 years ago, but the second-best time is right now. Join Genius Monkey as we dive into how to build a killer CTV campaign and jump on the wave of ad-supported streaming.

The tech industry is barreling toward a future powered by AI, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it at this point. What advertisers CAN do is make sure they’re using new technologies correctly and avoiding the pitfalls that can come with rapid adoption. Artificial intelligence has a lot of potential for good and ill, and Genius Monkey is here to explore a few of the possibilities the future is now offering.

The Google Antitrust Case Probably Shut Down AppNexus They say time ravages all; well, time and AI have now caught up with one of the first big programmatic institutions. AppNexus wasn’t the first to engage in real-time bidding, but it was perhaps the first major platform that basically created and popularized the concept of a DSP. In 2018, AT&T bought AppNexus and renamed it to Xandr, before selling it once again to Microsoft in 2021. The company served ads as Microsoft Invest for a few years, but the tech giant has announced that the DSP will be shutting down for good next year.

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:

As reported by AdWeek on May 8th, 2025 – just a week after emailing publishers asking them to adopt the new product – Amazon has killed their privacy program that would allow advertisers to better integrate with Google’s new Privacy Sandbox. This would have allowed advertisers using Amazon’s DSP to target users based on Google’s retargeting data. What does this mean for the future of cookie-less advertising and user data? Genius Monkey is here with the details and what advertisers need to know about user privacy going forward.

Google Found Guilty of Antitrust Behavior… Again! In September 2024, the Department of Justice won their lawsuit against Google, alleging that the tech giant was exhibiting antitrust behaviors in their search advertising business. Google was declared a monopoly, but the punches didn’t stop there. The DOJ later took Google to court again over monopolistic actions in their adtech enterprises, and we now have a ruling on the side of the DOJ for this case.

The Super Bowl is a uniquely American tradition, placing a massive spotlight on not only American football, but current music, celebrity culture, and of course, advertisements. Now that the dust has settled on Super Bowl LIX, Genius Monkey is here with the juicy stats and lessons advertisers should learn from the big game. Super Bowl Viewership Stats First and foremost, this year drew the largest Super Bowl audience of all time; an estimated 127.7 million people tuned in, an approximate 3% increase from last year.

Pew research reports that around 86% of Americans consume news on smart devices like phones and tablets at least some of the time, while 57% do so “often.” Though television, radio, and print media still have their audiences, they are significantly outpaced by digital platforms, which are typically ad-supported. Simply put, the advertising audience for news is huge. Many advertisers are concerned about placing ads next to news reports, fearing that contentious topics or other bad news will cast a poor light on any ads surrounding the content. As always, we should look to the data for the truth: context does matter, but advertisers have nothing to fear about placing ads on news sites.