For those who’re studying this, you’ll doubtless have seen no less than among the newest monetary outcomes posted by the advert tech sector’s coterie of publicly listed firms, with AppLovin and The Commerce Desk main the pack in earnings (see beneath).
Each firms, talismans of impartial advert tech, noticed their inventory costs dip in early hours after issuing Q2 earnings — regardless of reporting a 77% and 19% annual improve in revenues, respectively.
In The Commerce Desk’s case, this included a right away 30% plunge. The declines had been tied to “the narrative,” with analysts deeming steering remarks underwhelming.
AppLovin retained its lead as prime earner, with The Commerce Desk, now within the S&P 500, nearing $700 million in income for the interval.
Indies eye features from Google’s troubles and walled backyard retreat
A standard thread throughout a number of earnings was the potential to learn from Google’s mounting authorized troubles with the Justice Division.
The week started with information that OpenX is in search of compensation for Google’s anticompetitive actions as a part of an ongoing advert tech antitrust case. In the meantime, Magnite management expressed related considerations throughout their Q2 earnings name (see above).
In a Q&A after The Commerce Desk’s August 7 earnings name, CEO Jeff Inexperienced mentioned these trials are creating alternative for impartial advert tech as entrepreneurs develop cautious of Google and different Large Tech platforms.
Inexperienced famous “the supply-side demand imbalance” favoring “the open web” over walled gardens like Amazon, Google, and Meta. “Customers spend extra of their time within the premium open web than they do within walled gardens,” he mentioned, including that walled gardens have an inherent battle of curiosity.
“I imagine TTD and the open web have a much bigger TAM than Fb has… Our aim is to purchase the complete open Web objectively for consumers.”
He additionally claimed, “As Google and Fb have largely deserted the open web, The Commerce Desk is the biggest supply of third-party demand for a lot of publishers all over the world.”
Revenue trumps transparency in adland and finance
Whereas buyers punished perceived weak progress forecasts, they appeared forgiving of structural flaws within the ecosystem. A number of high-profile criticisms of the cohort barely registered in analyst questioning throughout calls.
The final 12 months have been turbulent for the sector, with short-sellers focusing on a number of firms, together with AppLovin and Zeta World, inflicting inventory worth volatility. But Q2 outcomes recommend advertisers largely ignored these claims.
Most of the AI options don’t embody loads of transparency… that’s a part of our position.
Mark Zagorski, DoubleVerify
In Q1, AppLovin’s inventory fell 20% after Muddy Waters alleged unethical knowledge use, prompting a uncommon off-calendar protection from management. In Q2 disclosures, executives emphasised plans to drive advertiser progress by way of AI and larger adoption of its self-serve platform, lowering reliance on gross sales or product groups. It additionally goals to broaden internationally so its buyer base is evenly break up between the U.S. and world markets.
With a This fall rollout, AppLovin is focusing on SMBs, increasing past in-app into broader net and e-commerce. CEO Adam Foroughi mentioned testing has introduced in a whole bunch of advertisers, “The brand new kind of platform that involves our platform is extraordinarily incremental to our enterprise… We anticipate that can improve the advertiser depend fairly rapidly, and in addition permit us to undergo stay examples of advertisers coming in self-service [and then] all the way in which to scale on our product.”
Regardless of revenues of $1.2 billion, up 77% year-over-year and beating expectations, AppLovin’s inventory nonetheless fell 7% after the announcement — an indication of buyers’ counterintuitive strikes.
Earlier within the week, Zeta World, which confronted short-seller reviews late final yr, posted equally robust outcomes. Earnings rose 35% year-over-year to exceed $300 million, signaling consumer confidence regardless of prior allegations. Analysts centered extra on Zeta’s aggressive positioning, notably with businesses underneath stress to develop high-margin software program instruments.
Additionally underneath scrutiny in 2025 have been advert measurement and model security giants DoubleVerify and Integral Advert Science. Each reported Q2 progress: DoubleVerify at $198 million, up 21% year-over-year, and IAS at $149.2 million, up 16%. These features got here regardless of reviews highlighting model security shortcomings.
In March, Adalytics alleged DoubleVerify and IAS failed to dam advertisements to declared bots regardless of advertisers paying for pre-bid bot filtration, and routinely allowed common invalid visitors, implying advertisers had been misled about safety ranges. This adopted an earlier report claiming each allowed advertisements on websites with little one abuse content material, triggering a class-action swimsuit towards DoubleVerify. The corporate has responded with its personal defamation case towards Adalytics.
Regardless of the controversy, income momentum and advertiser contracts seem like sustaining each firms.
On DoubleVerify’s August 5 name, management highlighted rising exercise in social and CTV — up 14% and 45% yearly, respectively — whereas fielding questions on relevance because the open net wanes. CEO Mark Zargorski, discussing AI’s rise, mentioned, “So most of the AI options don’t embody loads of transparency on what’s happening… That’s a part of our position, to drive transparency and open up that black field a bit.” He added that worth stays robust amongst prospects on Meta and different platforms utilizing AI instruments “with out loads of transparency or readability on how we’re getting there.”
LiveRamp additionally posted outcomes for the quarter ending June 30 — “Q1 2026” in its reporting. Income rose 11% year-over-year to $195 million. Steerage for the subsequent quarter was $197 million, with a full-year forecast of as much as $818 million.
- Elsewhere, publicly listed advert tech firms PubMatic and Viant reported their earnings after the bell on August 11. This was previous the press time for this text. In the meantime, Nexxen is because of make its earnings disclosure on August 13.
- Individually, MNTN, a brand new addition to this cohort following its NYSE debut inside the final 90 days, reported Q2 income of $67.8 million, representing a 35% year-over-year improve. The corporate expects revenues within the vary of $70 million for the next quarter, even with out the contribution of Most Effort, the company based by Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds, which it just lately bought.
What we’ve heard
“Google went from organizing the world’s info to stealing it, taking a sledgehammer to the implied contract the open net has relied on for therefore lengthy.”
–Odysseas Papadimitriou, WalletHub CEO, in a weblog submit explaining how his firm has eliminated 40,000 pages of its monetary content material from the attain of Google and different AI engines like google. As a substitute, this content material will now be completely accessible to logged-in WalletHub customers.
Numbers to know
- $465 million: Taboola’s Q2 income, which equated to an 8.7% year-on-year income progress.
- $1.9 billion: Taboola’s forecasted FY 2025 income steering.
- $343million: Teads’ Q2 income, which equated to a 60% year-on-year income progress – this quantity displays its post-merger earnings, for the corporate previously often known as Outbrain.
- $143 million: Teads’ (higher finish) forecasted Q3 gross revenue steering.
What we’ve coated
Way forward for TV Briefing: 5 causes CTV’s ROI comes up quick for advertisers
Regardless of the hype, CTV continues to be not the miracle media channel for advertisers. The rationale? It’s nonetheless unattainable to justify the prices, based on UM Worldwide chief funding officer Marcy Greenberger.
‘You may nullify the consequences of what seems like change’: OpenX CEO John Gentry on its authorized quarrel with Google
After submitting authorized papers citing Google’s alleged misdeeds to subvert and dominate the net show advert ecosystem, notably within the Jap District of Virginia, the identical jurisdiction the place the largest firm in promoting is doing battle with the Justice Division, in search of damages, and including to requires a structural treatment.
What we’re studying
Omnicom’s Samardzija To Be a part of Stagwell In The Fall
After Digiday first coated information of a pending management shakeup at Omnicom Media Group, with the pending exit of Annalect CEO Slavi Samardzija, it has subsequently been introduced that he’ll be a part of impartial media company Stagwell, with exact particulars of his position but to be confirmed.
The State of Digital, 2025, by LUMA Companions
The macroeconomic setting improved all through 2024, however uncertainty over the tariff insurance policies to be enacted by the present U.S. administration induced market instability. Regardless of this, digital advert spend has rebounded, and AI is now thought of a elementary requirement for entrepreneurs, with the quantity of mergers and acquisitions within the area experiencing a notable uptick within the opening quarter of 2025.
Extra Like No Yield: A New Ebook Explores How Google Soaked Up The Internet’s Advert Income
AdExchanger’s James Hercher sums up Ari Paparo’s e book, “Yield: how Google purchased, constructed and bullied its option to promoting dominance.” It contains a host of acquainted names resembling Stephanie Layser, Jana Meron, Brian O’Kelley, Michael Barrett, Michael Rubenstein and lots of different trade leaders play distinguished roles, all of whom assist chronicle how Google ingested DoubleClick, and later went on to cross virtually each tier of the market with a sequence of rollouts resembling Venture Poirot, Venture Bell, Venture Bernanke, Venture Jedi Blue, Venture Liberty, Venture Wolf and Venture Centillion.
This Advert Tech OG’s AI-Powered Analytics Startup Simply Raised $9M In Sequence A Funding
Newton Analysis, an organization led by ex-Knowledge Plus Math exec John Hoctor has raised $9 million two years after it was based, taking its complete funding to $14 million. Contributors to the most recent Sequence A spherical embody Greycroft and Bessemer Companions, together with S4S Ventures, Aperiam Ventures, plus LiveRamp’s funding arm.
