ROAS Optimization: Best Practices For How To Increase ROAS

Are your campaigns draining the budget without delivering results? You’re not alone. Learning how to increase ROAS is one of the most pressing challenges for advertisers today. This blog explores proven strategies to improve efficiency, optimize ad spend, and drive higher returns.

In fact, a recent ANA report revealed that programmatic waste surged 34% in just two years, climbing to $26.8 billion in lost spend. That’s billions of dollars in budget that could be fueling performance instead of being lost to inefficiencies (MediaPost). For advertisers, the path to higher ROAS starts with understanding where waste occurs and how to prevent it.

Digital ROAS vs. ROI

Many advertisers confuse Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) with Return on Investment (ROI), but they measure different aspects of performance. ROAS focuses specifically on revenue generated per dollar of ad spend, while ROI looks at the overall profitability of your campaign, including costs beyond ad spend.

For example, if you spend $1,000 on ads and generate $5,000 in revenue, your ROAS is 5:1. However, ROI factors in expenses like creative production or agency fees. Tracking both provides a complete picture: ROAS ensures media efficiency, while ROI reflects true profitability. Together, they guide smarter ad spend decisions and sustainable growth.

What Can Negatively Impact ROAS?

Several pitfalls drag down ROAS, often without advertisers realizing it:

• Poor Targeting: Reaching the wrong audience wastes impressions and budget.
• Irrelevant Creative: Ads that don’t resonate with user intent fail to convert.
• Programmatic Waste: Low-quality inventory, fraud, and redundant intermediaries can drain spend.
• Ad Fatigue: Overexposure causes users to ignore or even resent your ads.

The ANA report found that while fraud has been reduced, supply path inefficiencies and poor transparency remain key contributors to wasted spend. That means advertisers aren’t just losing dollars, they’re missing opportunities for growth.

A Real-World Case: How We Boosted ROAS

One of Next Millennium’s publisher partners, The Daily Hodl, provides a standout example of our work in action. Originally plagued by high commissions on programmatic platforms and underperforming AMP pages, the publisher needed a better ROI path.

Here’s what we delivered:

• Optimized AMP user experience to reduce latency
  
• Introduced targeted, brand-relevant advertisers
  
• Revamped ad load strategy for improved viewability and interaction
  

Results? Over 322% increase in net ad revenue within a year.
This wasn’t luck, it was strategic optimization combined with performance-based targeting.

How to Improve ROAS - The 4 Pillars

Improving ROAS isn’t about one magic tactic, it’s about a disciplined approach to creative, spend allocation, targeting, and continuous optimization. By focusing on these four pillars, advertisers can reduce waste and unlock higher returns.

Use High-Impact Creative

Great creative drives attention, engagement, and conversions. High-impact formats, like interactive banners, video, poptop, scroll, and native ads help brands break through the noise. Pairing these with strong copy and clear CTAs encourages users to take action.

Creative should never be static. Continuous testing of headlines, visuals, and calls-to-action helps identify what resonates most with each audience segment. Advertisers that consistently test and adapt see significantly higher ROAS because they’re matching creative to user behavior.

Optimize Ad Spend

Not all channels and campaigns perform equally. Ad spend optimization is about reallocating budget to what works and cutting spend from what doesn’t. By monitoring performance, advertisers can double down on campaigns delivering conversions and scale back underperformers.

The ANA’s report highlights how billions are lost to inefficiencies. Avoiding this requires precise budget allocation, transparent supply paths, and active monitoring. By aligning spend with high-performing inventory and partners, advertisers maximize their media dollars.

Optimize Ad Spend with Next Millennium

Leverage Audience Segmentation And Targeting

Blanket targeting leads to wasted impressions. Breaking audiences into smaller, intent-driven segments increases relevance and efficiency. Segmentation can be based on demographics, behavior, interests, or even stage of the buyer journey.

Data-driven targeting powered by first-party data ensures your ads reach high-intent audiences most likely to convert. Beyond that, leveraging deep publisher integrations and partnerships also unlocks richer audience data, optimizing campaigns for greater accuracy and higher returns. This not only boosts ROAS but also builds stronger customer connections over time.

Continuously Test And Refine Campaigns

Ad performance is never “done.” Advertisers must continuously test, monitor, and refine. A/B testing different creatives, experimenting with placements, and adjusting bids based on performance ensures campaigns stay optimized.

This iterative process reduces waste while scaling what works. As ANA findings emphasize, too much spend is lost to inefficiency. Proactive testing flips that script, turning inefficiency into incremental gains.

Why This Case Matters

This real-world example drives the point home: when programmatic campaigns go unoptimized, ROAS suffers, even amidst rapidly rising ad budgets. Fixing the issues behind that wasted spend (like supply path inefficiency and weak UX) yields not just better revenue, but meaningful, scalable ROAS growth.

Summary Table

Next Millennium Drives Advertising Success Through Programmatic Advertising

The surge in programmatic waste proves one thing: advertisers can’t afford inefficiency. To increase ROAS, brands must adopt smarter strategies, creative testing, budget optimization, segmentation, and continuous refinement. Each tactic builds toward higher returns and greater transparency.

At Next Millennium, we deliver more than impressions. We help advertisers:

• Cut waste through premium publisher partnerships
• Unlock performance with identity-driven targeting
• Scale campaigns with high-impact creative and real-time optimization
• Achieve higher ROAS while aligning with long-term ROI goals

Billions in ad dollars are wasted in programmatic complexity. But every dollar reclaimed through ROAS optimization becomes a performance driver. Identity, creative, spend-optimized smartly, delivers not just impressions, but real, measurable growth. Don’t let inefficiency swallow your ad dollars. Partner with Next Millennium to transform wasted spend into measurable growth.