NASDAQ:OB Outbrain Q3 2024 Earnings Report $3.83 +0.03 (+0.79%) Closing price 04/25/2025 04:00 PM EasternExtended Trading$4.06 +0.23 (+5.98%) As of 04/25/2025 07:34 PM Eastern Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more. Earnings HistoryForecast Outbrain EPS ResultsActual EPS$0.11Consensus EPS $0.02Beat/MissBeat by +$0.09One Year Ago EPS$0.01Outbrain Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$224.18 millionExpected Revenue$60.57 millionBeat/MissBeat by +$163.61 millionYoY Revenue GrowthN/AOutbrain Announcement DetailsQuarterQ3 2024Date11/7/2024TimeBefore Market OpensConference Call DateThursday, November 7, 2024Conference Call Time8:30AM ETUpcoming EarningsOutbrain's Q1 2025 earnings is scheduled for Thursday, May 8, 2025, with a conference call scheduled at 8:30 AM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Q1 2025 Earnings ReportConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptPress Release (8-K)Quarterly Report (10-Q)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfilePowered by Outbrain Q3 2024 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrNovember 7, 2024 ShareLink copied to clipboard.There are 7 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Outbrain Incorporated Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the call over to Outbrain's Investor Relations. Operator00:00:21Please go ahead. Speaker 100:00:23Good morning and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss Outbrain's Q3 2024 results. Joining me on the call today, we have Outbrain's CEO, David Kossman and CFO, Jason Kivier. During this conference call, management will make forward looking statements based on current expectations and assumptions, including statements regarding our business outlook and prospects as well as our pending transaction with Teeth. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our forward looking statements. These risk factors are discussed in detail in our Form 10 ks filed for the year ended December 31, 2023, and in our definitive proxy statement filled with the Securities and Exchange Commission on October 31, 2024, as updated in our subsequent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Speaker 100:01:16Forward looking statements speak only as of the call's original day and we do not undertake any duty to update such statements. Today's presentation also includes references to non GAAP financial measures. You should refer to the information contained in the company's Q3 earnings release for definitional information and reconciliations of non GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP financial measures. Our earnings release can be found on our IR website, investors. Outbrain.com under News and Events. Speaker 100:01:45With that, let me turn the call over to David. Speaker 200:01:49Thank you, Sarah. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. I'd like to start with a brief update on the status of the transaction we did. We are still on track to close in Q1 2020 5x plant. We have cleared the necessary regulatory reviews in the U. Speaker 200:02:06S. And in several other countries and are progressing in the remaining geographies. We have a shareholder meeting to approve the deal set for December 5. We're very pleased to report that the integration planning process is progressing smoothly, contributing to our excitement about the opportunity and our conviction regarding the synergies. Now let me provide an update on Q3 and progress against our 2024 growth drivers. Speaker 200:02:35For Q3, I'm pleased to report that we delivered extra gross profit within our guidance range. We exceeded our adjusted EBITDA guidance and we generated positive free cash flow for the 5th consecutive quarter. I want to highlight that we do extra dollars year over year for 4 out of the last 5 quarters. The other quarter was flat. And ex TAC margin has improved year over year for 6 consecutive quarters despite the headwinds of 1 significant partner. Speaker 200:03:06We believe that these results are driven by positive trends in our core business and momentum across our growth pillars. Our first pillar refers to expanding our share of wallet with brands and agencies as well as performance advertisers. We are gaining traction with our cross sell solutions from branding to performance, delivering on our full funnel value proposition. U. S. Speaker 200:03:31Advertisers including Disney, Amazon and Betterment invested in both outbound performance solutions and Onex burning solutions showcasing the benefit of leveraging both products to drive incremental outcomes. On the performance side, the Outbrain DSP, previously known as the Manta, continues to see steady adoption. Advertisers are increasingly embracing our platform for its comprehensive tooling and ability to drive scale performance across the open Internet. This allows us to capture a larger share of wallet with a 60% year over year increase in the advertising spend on this platform year to date. Moving on to our second growth pillar for 2024, we've continued to expand beyond our traditional feed, opening new opportunities for advertisers to drive results. Speaker 200:04:25This revenue, which is generated from supply beyond our traditional feed, represented approximately 28% of total revenue in Q3 2024 compared to 26% in Q3 of last year. We have continued to grow this metric quarterly for the last 6 consecutive quarters, demonstrating our focus on expanding our inventory diversity. We believe this expanded supply is also a key enabler to power advertiser outcomes at scale across the open Internet. Our 3rd pillar refers to our continued focus on deepening our premium media owner partnerships, a key strategic asset of our business. These relationships ensure a steady base of premium exclusive inventory, while giving Outbrain unique contextual and engagement insights that fuel our performance and predictive capabilities. Speaker 200:05:20We successfully renewed agreements with some of our important publishing partners, including Huffington Post and Meteo in France. We also secured new business partnerships from competitors and launched new partners including Sportsman in Germany and Reuters and Newsweek in Japan. This again demonstrate our superior value proposition when it comes to strategic relationships with premium publishers globally. Now I'd like to give an update on some of our recent product and technology advancements. In September, we successfully launched Moments by our brand in beta. Speaker 200:05:58On a personal level, I truly believe Moments is one of the most exciting products I've seen in our space in the last few years. Moments brings the immersive experience of social media to the open Internet, transforming our feeds on traditional publishers into vertical video environments with swipeable navigation. Data publishers like Akzo Springer and Fortune use their to the open to the open Internet, training a premium full screen video experience. Moments has already shown early signs of generating high audience engagement with 40% of users watching 3 or more videos. And August 2024 study by Media Science found that vertical video ad delivered in moments and hence the performance of ads delivered on social platforms alone. Speaker 200:07:03We believe this indicates a strong opportunity for brands to compound the impact of the social strategies on the open Internet, driving higher brand recall and recognition. Now let's turn to AI. We are accelerating AI integration into our performance and creative offerings, improving efficiency and outcomes with a clear focus on the segment of our sophisticated large scale advertisers. We are doing this through our creative automation suite, which allows marketers to easily use AI to create new ad images, tailor images and adjust headlines to deliver better results. The Creative Automation Suite uses Outbrain's predictive insights to fuel the product generative AI, delivering more relevant, highly targeted creative optimized for consumer engagement. Speaker 200:07:57We have several case studies demonstrating how performance clients have been able to meaningfully increase their campaign click through rates by using AI based creative automation tools. In addition, we recently expanded our collaboration with Microsoft Azure, integrating Azure Open AI solution to a range of ongoing services. We believe that Azure solutions will allow us to continue to enhance our existing creative solutions, prioritizing ad creatives with predicted higher return on investment. We're also focused on deploying AI into our internal processes. We're proud to highlight that Alberink has been recognized as one of the 25 most innovative UiPath customers for our advancements in business efficiency with AI. Speaker 200:08:49Our team stood out among global applicants for its ability to use AI and automation to redefine the way teams work. By automating key workflows, particularly within our small medium publishers and ad operations divisions, we've reduced manual workloads by some 40%, enabling our account managers to focus on revenue generation and their clients. To wrap up, we are pleased with our continued year over year ex TAC and profit margin improvements and we are confident that our focus on innovation and our growth drivers will continue to drive success into 2025 and will be highly relevant to the success of our integration we did. Now I'll turn it over to Jason for a more detailed financial update. Speaker 300:09:38Thanks David. As David mentioned, we achieved our Q3 guidance for expec gross profit and exceeded our Q3 guidance for adjusted EBITDA, generating positive free cash flow for the 5th consecutive quarter. Overall, total ad spend on our platform grew 6% year over year, faster than the growth seen in H1. We saw solid profitability and cash generation as we started to realize benefits of the changes we've been making to our revenue mix and cost structure, which we expect to continue into the future. Revenue in Q3 was approximately $224,000,000 reflecting a decrease of 3% year over year. Speaker 300:10:14New Media Partners in the quarter contributed 7 percentage points or approximately $15,000,000 of revenue growth year over year. Net revenue retention of our publishers was 91%, which primarily reflects downward pressure of ad impressions from one key supply partner as noted in prior quarters. Consistent with recent quarters, logo retention was 98% for all partners that generated at least $10,000 We've seen CPCs remain stable to slightly positive, improving over the course of Q3 and netting to a slight increase year over year for the quarter for the first time since early 2022. This along with continued improvements in click through rates drove acceleration in RPMs or yields, which have now seen growth year over year for 4 consecutive quarters. Ex tech gross profit was 59,700,000 dollars an increase of 5% year over year outpacing revenue for the 6th quarter in a row, driven primarily by net favorable change in our revenue mix and improved performance from certain deals. Speaker 300:11:12As noted previously, the investment areas that we are focused on are largely areas that we see driving higher ex tech take rates and in turn higher profitability. While ex tech gross profit continued year over year growth in Q3 on the strength of these accelerating growth areas and positive momentum of RPMs, As noted in prior quarters, one of our key partners transitioned to new bidding technology and we completed the transition in early May. This volatility impacted our overall growth in Q3 by double digit percentage. And our overall Q3 ex tech gross profit would have grown in the mid teens percentage year over year excluding this one isolated headwind. We remain focused on rescaling and optimizing the supply. Speaker 300:11:56Moving to expenses. Operating expenses increased year over year, predominantly driven by one time costs of $5,600,000 related to our anticipated transaction with Teads. As a result, we grew our adjusted EBITDA 12% year over year to $11,500,000 Moving to liquidity. Free cash flow, which as a reminder, we define as cash from operating activities less CapEx and capitalized software costs was approximately $9,000,000 in the 3rd quarter as a result of stronger profitability and working capital. In September, we repurchased the remaining $118,000,000 aggregate principal amount of our convertible notes for approximately $109,700,000 in cash, including accrued interest, representing a discount of approximately 7.5% to the principal amount of the repurchase notes. Speaker 300:12:46As a result, we ended the quarter with $131,000,000 of cash, cash equivalents and investments in marketable securities on the balance sheet and no remaining debt outstanding. While we maintain an authorized amount of $6,600,000 under our existing share repurchase program, there were no share repurchases in Q3. Given the pending acquisition of FEEDS, we currently do not intend to resume repurchasing shares. Now turning to our outlook. In our guidance, we assume regular seasonality and as noted in the prior quarter, continued execution of our growth drivers. Speaker 300:13:19Additionally, our guidance reflects operating as a standalone business with the assumption that the announced transaction with Tees will not close before year end. With that context, we have provided the following guidance. For Q4, we expect ex TEC gross profit of $67,500,000 to $72,500,000 reflecting an annual range of approximately $235,000,000 to $240,000,000 And we expect adjusted EBITDA of $15,000,000 to $18,500,000 reflecting an increased annual range of approximately $35,000,000 to $38,000,000 Now, I'll turn it back to the operator for Q and A. Operator00:14:00Thank you. The lines are now open for questions. And our first question comes from Andrew Boone from Citizens JMP. Sorry, go ahead. Speaker 400:14:24Thank you so much for taking my questions. This is Matt on for Andrew. My first one is just wanted an update on integration with Tees and maybe what can you do today to accelerate your integration roadmap? And then my second question, we've just heard from a couple of publishers, specifically The New York Times, has called out AI as a headwind to traffic growth. And just as Google is rolling out AI overviews to more people, just any thoughts or anything that you're seeing as far as traffic to some of your publisher partners? Speaker 400:14:53Thank you so much. Speaker 500:14:56Thanks, Matt. Hi. I'll take that one. So on Teams, we are progressing what we can do at this stage is post merger integration planning, which we are doing in sort of across products, go to market and other things. We cannot really in the businesses operate individually and need to focus on each on their performance, but there's a lot of planning and operationally, structurally synergies and others. Speaker 500:15:24And we're very excited about what we see in terms of both the upside on the revenue synergies. We provided guidance when we announced the deal around $62,000,000 of synergies. We are more excited by the day by what we see as an opportunity to cross sell advertisers, brand, enterprise brands, small and medium brands and agencies with our performance products into the installed base and customer base of Teed, which has the joint business partnerships with the most premium brands of the world and we see other cross sell opportunities and we're also pretty confident around the ability to realize the synergies. On the traffic question, I mean, what we see in terms of our premium publisher base and we separate sort of the different tiers, we see paid dues relatively flat. So we haven't seen at this point any negative impact from AI on traffic. Speaker 500:16:22Thank you so much. Speaker 400:16:24Maybe just to add, I mean, Speaker 500:16:27on the timing of the deal, I said it on the prepared remarks, we're still looking at Q1 of 2025. Operator00:16:41Thank you. And our next question comes from Yigal Aronian from Citigroup. Go ahead. Speaker 600:16:48Hey, good morning guys. It's Max on for Yigal. Wondered for you to start with the 4Q FXTAC guidance. Can you just walk, I think it came in maybe a little below what we had expected? Can you just talk about maybe what you're seeing there? Speaker 600:17:02And then if there's any ongoing impacts from that large supply partner impacting? Speaker 300:17:09Sure. I'm happy to take that one. This is Jason. Thanks for the question, Max. Yes, I mean, really Q3, what we saw was strength, continued RPM gains that we've seen the prior three quarters now. Speaker 300:17:23CTR is very high and CPC was kind of the nice thing to start to see it flat to slightly up for the first time since Q1 of 2022. So good demand stability, algo improvements, mix we've been working on and driving those higher yields. And overall ad spend was up 6% for us. So I know gross revenue slightly down, but ad spend which encapsulates all the dollars we see from advertisers was actually up. So good indications there. Speaker 300:17:55Into Q4, we do expect acceleration in our year over year growth from the 5% ex tech growth we saw in Q3 to about 10% at midpoint in Q4. But we are being a bit more cautious with our outlook given we experienced a somewhat slower start to the quarter in October, particularly in the U. S. We did see some advertisers and agencies being more cautious with their budgets in October, really given uncertainties around the election and macro. We thought it was prudent to be more cautious and reflect the rest of the quarter jumping off of this kind of lower start that we saw. Speaker 300:18:33We do hope now that with more certainty around the election results coming in pretty rapidly that there will be a more normal seasonal spike that we expect for the rest of the quarter. And yes, to your point on the one key partner, I mean excluding that partner, the growth obviously was much higher than the reported 5% as reported ex tech in Q3 and it was in the mid teens percent growth year over year. So not a meaningful difference in Q4 for that partner. It is a slightly easier comp for us in Q4 and into Q1 as well before we lap completely in the middle of Q2 next year the challenges assuming we continue to see the stability that we've been seeing there. Speaker 500:19:23Nick, I want to just add on Q4 a little bit. I mean, from a lot of conversations with advertisers, I think the fact that there is a clear outcome of the election is very helpful. I think people were holding back on budgets and they were concerned about sort of if this gets dragged on, will people have the mindset of shopping and doing things? Clarity is good news in terms of their intention to spend more money. I mean, we haven't seen it yet. Speaker 500:19:52Obviously, it's 1, it's 24 hours. But I think that's what I think we were waiting in terms of the business in terms of the release of potential budget as people will get back to their normal life. Speaker 300:20:07Okay. Thanks. Yes, that's helpful. Speaker 600:20:09And then maybe just on Moments, I know you just launched some data, so it's early, but I think you can talk about how what improvements you're seeing this drive and maybe bigger picture, it seems like it'll be kind of the bottom of the feed solution, if I have that right. So how do you see this fitting in with the existing solution you have now? Do you see it as like being complementary or would this kind of replace kind of the existing solution you have? Speaker 500:20:39So again, it's a very exciting launch. I mean, we've been working on it for a long time. And I think also in anticipation of the combination, we think this is great, great inventory for premium brands that want to have sort of good canvases for video campaigns. But this is an offering that will bring social media experiences to the open Internet, will help publishers engage more with their audiences. So it's really about using the content that publishers have, that vertical content and integrating into that the opportunities for advertisers to do brand advertising. Speaker 500:21:17And we have already about almost 10 publisher partners working with it, trying it out, several brands that are working with it. And what we're going to be doing with it is going to be when the right time and the right user with the right opportunity for an advertiser, we will launch this full screen immersive experience instead of our feed. So it's going to be a decision by the algo and by the sort of our joint work with certain publishers around when to launch it and when it's the right time. Initial indications of brand lift, deep engagement of users with those videos in terms of swipe numbers with the biggest they're watching is great. And it's a better launch, and I think it's very exciting into 2025. Speaker 500:22:08Early to talk about any financial impact, of course, but from a product point, it will be a very successful launch. Speaker 300:22:16Okay, great. That's helpful. Thanks, guys. Operator00:22:38And there appear to be no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to management for any closing remarks. Speaker 500:22:47Hi. Thank you all for joining us. We are excited by the financial performance, the consecutive quarters that we see an improvement in the performance, both in terms of ex stock dollars, margin, cash flow. Innovation is critical and moments and what we're doing with AI excites me a lot. And then obviously looking at the combination we see early next year, I think we're looking into great, great opportunities ahead of us. Speaker 500:23:14Thank you. Operator00:23:16Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.Read morePowered by Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallOutbrain Q3 202400:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2x Earnings DocumentsPress Release(8-K)Quarterly report(10-Q) Outbrain Earnings HeadlinesTeads Celebrates Major Milestone as CTV HomeScreen Powers 1,500 CampaignsApril 22, 2025 | globenewswire.comIs Outbrain Inc. (OB) the Best Under-the-Radar Stock to Buy Now?April 18, 2025 | msn.comURGENT: This Altcoin Opportunity Won’t Wait – Act NowThe July 23rd Crypto Trigger Could Mark the Beginning of Bitcoin’s Next Big Move Bitcoin’s early 2024 ETF rally made headlines—but according to veteran crypto strategist Joel Peterson, the real wave of opportunity is about to start… and it hinges on one little-known event scheduled to take place on July 23rd.April 28, 2025 | Crypto Swap Profits (Ad)Is Outbrain (OB) The High Growth Low Debt Stock to Invest in Now?March 22, 2025 | msn.com5OB : A Glimpse Into The Expert Outlook On Outbrain Through 7 AnalystsMarch 21, 2025 | benzinga.comOutbrain: Decent Potential Due To Diversification From Native Display BusinessMarch 18, 2025 | seekingalpha.comSee More Outbrain Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Outbrain? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Outbrain and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About OutbrainOutbrain (NASDAQ:OB), together with its subsidiaries, operates a technology platform that connects media owners and advertisers with engaged audiences to drive business outcomes worldwide. It offers a suite of solutions for media owners that facilitates content discovery and monetization for its media partners on their own sites; Onyx by Outbrain, a branding platform; AI platform that delivers customized experiences; engaging video experiences for publisher audience development and advertiser purposes; tools and services to promote organic editorial experiences to their audiences, enhancing audience engagement, recirculation, and monetization opportunities; and Keystone by Outbrain technology that extends ad server optimization. The company also provides advertising solutions for advertisers, including ad experiences, such as standard native, carousel and app install ads, outstream video, contextual pre-roll video, and high-impact display; AI-powered prediction engines; Conversion Bid Strategy tool that uses engagement data and machine learning to optimize bid strategies to hit the advertiser's desired campaign goals; data comprising targeting offerings based on consumer interest segments, as well as complex offerings that predict audience characteristics based on contextual and interest data; Outbrain platform, which enables advertisers to optimize campaign goals, engagement, and delivering other measurable business outcomes; and full-stack buying solutions. Outbrain Inc. was incorporated in 2006 and is headquartered in New York, New York.View Outbrain ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Earnings By Country U.S. Earnings Reports Canadian Earnings Reports U.K. Earnings Reports Latest Articles Markets Think Robinhood Earnings Could Send the Stock UpIs the Floor in for Lam Research After Bullish Earnings?Texas Instruments: Earnings Beat, Upbeat Guidance Fuel RecoveryMarket Anticipation Builds: Joby Stock Climbs Ahead of EarningsIs Intuitive Surgical a Buy After Volatile Reaction to Earnings?Seismic Shift at Intel: Massive Layoffs Precede Crucial EarningsRocket Lab Lands New Contract, Builds Momentum Ahead of Earnings Upcoming Earnings Cadence Design Systems (4/28/2025)Welltower (4/28/2025)Waste Management (4/28/2025)AstraZeneca (4/29/2025)Mondelez International (4/29/2025)PayPal (4/29/2025)Starbucks (4/29/2025)DoorDash (4/29/2025)Honeywell International (4/29/2025)Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (4/29/2025) Get 30 Days of MarketBeat All Access for Free Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools. Start Your 30-Day Trial MarketBeat All Access Features Best-in-Class Portfolio Monitoring Get personalized stock ideas. Compare portfolio to indices. Check stock news, ratings, SEC filings, and more. Stock Ideas and Recommendations See daily stock ideas from top analysts. Receive short-term trading ideas from MarketBeat. Identify trending stocks on social media. Advanced Stock Screeners and Research Tools Use our seven stock screeners to find suitable stocks. Stay informed with MarketBeat's real-time news. Export data to Excel for personal analysis. Sign in to your free account to enjoy these benefits In-depth profiles and analysis for 20,000 public companies. Real-time analyst ratings, insider transactions, earnings data, and more. Our daily ratings and market update email newsletter. Sign in to your free account to enjoy all that MarketBeat has to offer. Sign In Create Account Your Email Address: Email Address Required Your Password: Password Required Log In or Sign in with Facebook Sign in with Google Forgot your password? Your Email Address: Please enter your email address. Please enter a valid email address Choose a Password: Please enter your password. Your password must be at least 8 characters long and contain at least 1 number, 1 letter, and 1 special character. Create My Account (Free) or Sign in with Facebook Sign in with Google By creating a free account, you agree to our terms of service. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
There are 7 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Outbrain Incorporated Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the call over to Outbrain's Investor Relations. Operator00:00:21Please go ahead. Speaker 100:00:23Good morning and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss Outbrain's Q3 2024 results. Joining me on the call today, we have Outbrain's CEO, David Kossman and CFO, Jason Kivier. During this conference call, management will make forward looking statements based on current expectations and assumptions, including statements regarding our business outlook and prospects as well as our pending transaction with Teeth. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our forward looking statements. These risk factors are discussed in detail in our Form 10 ks filed for the year ended December 31, 2023, and in our definitive proxy statement filled with the Securities and Exchange Commission on October 31, 2024, as updated in our subsequent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Speaker 100:01:16Forward looking statements speak only as of the call's original day and we do not undertake any duty to update such statements. Today's presentation also includes references to non GAAP financial measures. You should refer to the information contained in the company's Q3 earnings release for definitional information and reconciliations of non GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP financial measures. Our earnings release can be found on our IR website, investors. Outbrain.com under News and Events. Speaker 100:01:45With that, let me turn the call over to David. Speaker 200:01:49Thank you, Sarah. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. I'd like to start with a brief update on the status of the transaction we did. We are still on track to close in Q1 2020 5x plant. We have cleared the necessary regulatory reviews in the U. Speaker 200:02:06S. And in several other countries and are progressing in the remaining geographies. We have a shareholder meeting to approve the deal set for December 5. We're very pleased to report that the integration planning process is progressing smoothly, contributing to our excitement about the opportunity and our conviction regarding the synergies. Now let me provide an update on Q3 and progress against our 2024 growth drivers. Speaker 200:02:35For Q3, I'm pleased to report that we delivered extra gross profit within our guidance range. We exceeded our adjusted EBITDA guidance and we generated positive free cash flow for the 5th consecutive quarter. I want to highlight that we do extra dollars year over year for 4 out of the last 5 quarters. The other quarter was flat. And ex TAC margin has improved year over year for 6 consecutive quarters despite the headwinds of 1 significant partner. Speaker 200:03:06We believe that these results are driven by positive trends in our core business and momentum across our growth pillars. Our first pillar refers to expanding our share of wallet with brands and agencies as well as performance advertisers. We are gaining traction with our cross sell solutions from branding to performance, delivering on our full funnel value proposition. U. S. Speaker 200:03:31Advertisers including Disney, Amazon and Betterment invested in both outbound performance solutions and Onex burning solutions showcasing the benefit of leveraging both products to drive incremental outcomes. On the performance side, the Outbrain DSP, previously known as the Manta, continues to see steady adoption. Advertisers are increasingly embracing our platform for its comprehensive tooling and ability to drive scale performance across the open Internet. This allows us to capture a larger share of wallet with a 60% year over year increase in the advertising spend on this platform year to date. Moving on to our second growth pillar for 2024, we've continued to expand beyond our traditional feed, opening new opportunities for advertisers to drive results. Speaker 200:04:25This revenue, which is generated from supply beyond our traditional feed, represented approximately 28% of total revenue in Q3 2024 compared to 26% in Q3 of last year. We have continued to grow this metric quarterly for the last 6 consecutive quarters, demonstrating our focus on expanding our inventory diversity. We believe this expanded supply is also a key enabler to power advertiser outcomes at scale across the open Internet. Our 3rd pillar refers to our continued focus on deepening our premium media owner partnerships, a key strategic asset of our business. These relationships ensure a steady base of premium exclusive inventory, while giving Outbrain unique contextual and engagement insights that fuel our performance and predictive capabilities. Speaker 200:05:20We successfully renewed agreements with some of our important publishing partners, including Huffington Post and Meteo in France. We also secured new business partnerships from competitors and launched new partners including Sportsman in Germany and Reuters and Newsweek in Japan. This again demonstrate our superior value proposition when it comes to strategic relationships with premium publishers globally. Now I'd like to give an update on some of our recent product and technology advancements. In September, we successfully launched Moments by our brand in beta. Speaker 200:05:58On a personal level, I truly believe Moments is one of the most exciting products I've seen in our space in the last few years. Moments brings the immersive experience of social media to the open Internet, transforming our feeds on traditional publishers into vertical video environments with swipeable navigation. Data publishers like Akzo Springer and Fortune use their to the open to the open Internet, training a premium full screen video experience. Moments has already shown early signs of generating high audience engagement with 40% of users watching 3 or more videos. And August 2024 study by Media Science found that vertical video ad delivered in moments and hence the performance of ads delivered on social platforms alone. Speaker 200:07:03We believe this indicates a strong opportunity for brands to compound the impact of the social strategies on the open Internet, driving higher brand recall and recognition. Now let's turn to AI. We are accelerating AI integration into our performance and creative offerings, improving efficiency and outcomes with a clear focus on the segment of our sophisticated large scale advertisers. We are doing this through our creative automation suite, which allows marketers to easily use AI to create new ad images, tailor images and adjust headlines to deliver better results. The Creative Automation Suite uses Outbrain's predictive insights to fuel the product generative AI, delivering more relevant, highly targeted creative optimized for consumer engagement. Speaker 200:07:57We have several case studies demonstrating how performance clients have been able to meaningfully increase their campaign click through rates by using AI based creative automation tools. In addition, we recently expanded our collaboration with Microsoft Azure, integrating Azure Open AI solution to a range of ongoing services. We believe that Azure solutions will allow us to continue to enhance our existing creative solutions, prioritizing ad creatives with predicted higher return on investment. We're also focused on deploying AI into our internal processes. We're proud to highlight that Alberink has been recognized as one of the 25 most innovative UiPath customers for our advancements in business efficiency with AI. Speaker 200:08:49Our team stood out among global applicants for its ability to use AI and automation to redefine the way teams work. By automating key workflows, particularly within our small medium publishers and ad operations divisions, we've reduced manual workloads by some 40%, enabling our account managers to focus on revenue generation and their clients. To wrap up, we are pleased with our continued year over year ex TAC and profit margin improvements and we are confident that our focus on innovation and our growth drivers will continue to drive success into 2025 and will be highly relevant to the success of our integration we did. Now I'll turn it over to Jason for a more detailed financial update. Speaker 300:09:38Thanks David. As David mentioned, we achieved our Q3 guidance for expec gross profit and exceeded our Q3 guidance for adjusted EBITDA, generating positive free cash flow for the 5th consecutive quarter. Overall, total ad spend on our platform grew 6% year over year, faster than the growth seen in H1. We saw solid profitability and cash generation as we started to realize benefits of the changes we've been making to our revenue mix and cost structure, which we expect to continue into the future. Revenue in Q3 was approximately $224,000,000 reflecting a decrease of 3% year over year. Speaker 300:10:14New Media Partners in the quarter contributed 7 percentage points or approximately $15,000,000 of revenue growth year over year. Net revenue retention of our publishers was 91%, which primarily reflects downward pressure of ad impressions from one key supply partner as noted in prior quarters. Consistent with recent quarters, logo retention was 98% for all partners that generated at least $10,000 We've seen CPCs remain stable to slightly positive, improving over the course of Q3 and netting to a slight increase year over year for the quarter for the first time since early 2022. This along with continued improvements in click through rates drove acceleration in RPMs or yields, which have now seen growth year over year for 4 consecutive quarters. Ex tech gross profit was 59,700,000 dollars an increase of 5% year over year outpacing revenue for the 6th quarter in a row, driven primarily by net favorable change in our revenue mix and improved performance from certain deals. Speaker 300:11:12As noted previously, the investment areas that we are focused on are largely areas that we see driving higher ex tech take rates and in turn higher profitability. While ex tech gross profit continued year over year growth in Q3 on the strength of these accelerating growth areas and positive momentum of RPMs, As noted in prior quarters, one of our key partners transitioned to new bidding technology and we completed the transition in early May. This volatility impacted our overall growth in Q3 by double digit percentage. And our overall Q3 ex tech gross profit would have grown in the mid teens percentage year over year excluding this one isolated headwind. We remain focused on rescaling and optimizing the supply. Speaker 300:11:56Moving to expenses. Operating expenses increased year over year, predominantly driven by one time costs of $5,600,000 related to our anticipated transaction with Teads. As a result, we grew our adjusted EBITDA 12% year over year to $11,500,000 Moving to liquidity. Free cash flow, which as a reminder, we define as cash from operating activities less CapEx and capitalized software costs was approximately $9,000,000 in the 3rd quarter as a result of stronger profitability and working capital. In September, we repurchased the remaining $118,000,000 aggregate principal amount of our convertible notes for approximately $109,700,000 in cash, including accrued interest, representing a discount of approximately 7.5% to the principal amount of the repurchase notes. Speaker 300:12:46As a result, we ended the quarter with $131,000,000 of cash, cash equivalents and investments in marketable securities on the balance sheet and no remaining debt outstanding. While we maintain an authorized amount of $6,600,000 under our existing share repurchase program, there were no share repurchases in Q3. Given the pending acquisition of FEEDS, we currently do not intend to resume repurchasing shares. Now turning to our outlook. In our guidance, we assume regular seasonality and as noted in the prior quarter, continued execution of our growth drivers. Speaker 300:13:19Additionally, our guidance reflects operating as a standalone business with the assumption that the announced transaction with Tees will not close before year end. With that context, we have provided the following guidance. For Q4, we expect ex TEC gross profit of $67,500,000 to $72,500,000 reflecting an annual range of approximately $235,000,000 to $240,000,000 And we expect adjusted EBITDA of $15,000,000 to $18,500,000 reflecting an increased annual range of approximately $35,000,000 to $38,000,000 Now, I'll turn it back to the operator for Q and A. Operator00:14:00Thank you. The lines are now open for questions. And our first question comes from Andrew Boone from Citizens JMP. Sorry, go ahead. Speaker 400:14:24Thank you so much for taking my questions. This is Matt on for Andrew. My first one is just wanted an update on integration with Tees and maybe what can you do today to accelerate your integration roadmap? And then my second question, we've just heard from a couple of publishers, specifically The New York Times, has called out AI as a headwind to traffic growth. And just as Google is rolling out AI overviews to more people, just any thoughts or anything that you're seeing as far as traffic to some of your publisher partners? Speaker 400:14:53Thank you so much. Speaker 500:14:56Thanks, Matt. Hi. I'll take that one. So on Teams, we are progressing what we can do at this stage is post merger integration planning, which we are doing in sort of across products, go to market and other things. We cannot really in the businesses operate individually and need to focus on each on their performance, but there's a lot of planning and operationally, structurally synergies and others. Speaker 500:15:24And we're very excited about what we see in terms of both the upside on the revenue synergies. We provided guidance when we announced the deal around $62,000,000 of synergies. We are more excited by the day by what we see as an opportunity to cross sell advertisers, brand, enterprise brands, small and medium brands and agencies with our performance products into the installed base and customer base of Teed, which has the joint business partnerships with the most premium brands of the world and we see other cross sell opportunities and we're also pretty confident around the ability to realize the synergies. On the traffic question, I mean, what we see in terms of our premium publisher base and we separate sort of the different tiers, we see paid dues relatively flat. So we haven't seen at this point any negative impact from AI on traffic. Speaker 500:16:22Thank you so much. Speaker 400:16:24Maybe just to add, I mean, Speaker 500:16:27on the timing of the deal, I said it on the prepared remarks, we're still looking at Q1 of 2025. Operator00:16:41Thank you. And our next question comes from Yigal Aronian from Citigroup. Go ahead. Speaker 600:16:48Hey, good morning guys. It's Max on for Yigal. Wondered for you to start with the 4Q FXTAC guidance. Can you just walk, I think it came in maybe a little below what we had expected? Can you just talk about maybe what you're seeing there? Speaker 600:17:02And then if there's any ongoing impacts from that large supply partner impacting? Speaker 300:17:09Sure. I'm happy to take that one. This is Jason. Thanks for the question, Max. Yes, I mean, really Q3, what we saw was strength, continued RPM gains that we've seen the prior three quarters now. Speaker 300:17:23CTR is very high and CPC was kind of the nice thing to start to see it flat to slightly up for the first time since Q1 of 2022. So good demand stability, algo improvements, mix we've been working on and driving those higher yields. And overall ad spend was up 6% for us. So I know gross revenue slightly down, but ad spend which encapsulates all the dollars we see from advertisers was actually up. So good indications there. Speaker 300:17:55Into Q4, we do expect acceleration in our year over year growth from the 5% ex tech growth we saw in Q3 to about 10% at midpoint in Q4. But we are being a bit more cautious with our outlook given we experienced a somewhat slower start to the quarter in October, particularly in the U. S. We did see some advertisers and agencies being more cautious with their budgets in October, really given uncertainties around the election and macro. We thought it was prudent to be more cautious and reflect the rest of the quarter jumping off of this kind of lower start that we saw. Speaker 300:18:33We do hope now that with more certainty around the election results coming in pretty rapidly that there will be a more normal seasonal spike that we expect for the rest of the quarter. And yes, to your point on the one key partner, I mean excluding that partner, the growth obviously was much higher than the reported 5% as reported ex tech in Q3 and it was in the mid teens percent growth year over year. So not a meaningful difference in Q4 for that partner. It is a slightly easier comp for us in Q4 and into Q1 as well before we lap completely in the middle of Q2 next year the challenges assuming we continue to see the stability that we've been seeing there. Speaker 500:19:23Nick, I want to just add on Q4 a little bit. I mean, from a lot of conversations with advertisers, I think the fact that there is a clear outcome of the election is very helpful. I think people were holding back on budgets and they were concerned about sort of if this gets dragged on, will people have the mindset of shopping and doing things? Clarity is good news in terms of their intention to spend more money. I mean, we haven't seen it yet. Speaker 500:19:52Obviously, it's 1, it's 24 hours. But I think that's what I think we were waiting in terms of the business in terms of the release of potential budget as people will get back to their normal life. Speaker 300:20:07Okay. Thanks. Yes, that's helpful. Speaker 600:20:09And then maybe just on Moments, I know you just launched some data, so it's early, but I think you can talk about how what improvements you're seeing this drive and maybe bigger picture, it seems like it'll be kind of the bottom of the feed solution, if I have that right. So how do you see this fitting in with the existing solution you have now? Do you see it as like being complementary or would this kind of replace kind of the existing solution you have? Speaker 500:20:39So again, it's a very exciting launch. I mean, we've been working on it for a long time. And I think also in anticipation of the combination, we think this is great, great inventory for premium brands that want to have sort of good canvases for video campaigns. But this is an offering that will bring social media experiences to the open Internet, will help publishers engage more with their audiences. So it's really about using the content that publishers have, that vertical content and integrating into that the opportunities for advertisers to do brand advertising. Speaker 500:21:17And we have already about almost 10 publisher partners working with it, trying it out, several brands that are working with it. And what we're going to be doing with it is going to be when the right time and the right user with the right opportunity for an advertiser, we will launch this full screen immersive experience instead of our feed. So it's going to be a decision by the algo and by the sort of our joint work with certain publishers around when to launch it and when it's the right time. Initial indications of brand lift, deep engagement of users with those videos in terms of swipe numbers with the biggest they're watching is great. And it's a better launch, and I think it's very exciting into 2025. Speaker 500:22:08Early to talk about any financial impact, of course, but from a product point, it will be a very successful launch. Speaker 300:22:16Okay, great. That's helpful. Thanks, guys. Operator00:22:38And there appear to be no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to management for any closing remarks. Speaker 500:22:47Hi. Thank you all for joining us. We are excited by the financial performance, the consecutive quarters that we see an improvement in the performance, both in terms of ex stock dollars, margin, cash flow. Innovation is critical and moments and what we're doing with AI excites me a lot. And then obviously looking at the combination we see early next year, I think we're looking into great, great opportunities ahead of us. Speaker 500:23:14Thank you. Operator00:23:16Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.Read morePowered by