This post discusses how to optimize Memcached performance by calculating hit ratios and timing individual requests using DogStatsD. The integration dashboard provides general Memcached performance metrics, but custom metrics can be reported using the client-side instrumentation library. By calculating hit ratios for specific requests, developers can evaluate cache effectiveness and ensure that Memcached is beneficial. Timing requests helps verify that Memcached is working as intended by comparing response times when the cache hits or misses. Overall, this approach provides valuable insights into Memcached performance within a web application.