May 7th-May 13th // Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

Below is a roundup of last week’s notable industry news, with summaries and our opinions. Lots of positive Q1 earnings, headlined by The Trade Desk…

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The Last Of Q1 Earnings!

The Trade Desk (👍): Revenue was up 25% to $616 million, beating estimates. This comes after the company missed revenue expectations for the first time in its history as a public company in Q4. The leading independent demand-side platform (DSP) retained 95% of its customers despite the tariffs and economic uncertainty. Revenue guidance for the current quarter also beat expectations. Shares rose over 20%.

AppLovin (👍): Revenue was up 40% to $1.48B, beating estimates. Advertising revenue surged 71% to $1.16B. The company will sell its mobile gaming business to Tripledot (more on this below) and is vying to merge with TikTok. Q2 ad revenue guidance missed expectations. Shares rose as much as 15%.

Magnite (👍): Revenue was up 4.3% to $155.8M, missing estimates. Earnings per share, however, crushed expectations, and its CTV contribution—a key metric for Magnite—grew 15%. The supply-side platform (SSP) didn't reaffirm its full-year guidance, citing "tariff-driven economic uncertainty." Shares rose 8.3%.

Pubmatic (👍): Revenue was down 4% to $63.8M, beating estimates. CTV revenue grew over 50%, and supply-path optimization accounts for 55% of "total activity." The SSP expects 15% revenue growth in 2025, with acceleration in H2. Shares rose over 9.5%.

Taboola (👍): Revenue was up 3% to $427M, beating estimates. The native ads company cited momentum from its Realize platform. Guidance for the current quarter and year met expectations. Shares rose nearly 10% following the results.

Teads (👎): Q1 revenue was up 32% to $286.4M, meeting estimates. The newly combined Outbrain & Teads saw CTV revenue grow over 100% (pro forma), but net losses widened due to acquisition and restructuring costs. The company reiterated its full-year guidance. Shares fell as much as 15% to a 52-week low.

DoubleVerify (🤷): Revenue was up 17% to $165.1M, beating estimates, but earnings per share missed expectations. The verification vendor’s media activation revenue grew 20% and supply-side revenue was up 35%. Guidance for the current quarter beat expectations, but shares fell 3% in after-hours trading.

Integral Ad Science (👍): Revenue was up 17% to $134.1M, beating estimates. The verification vendor's media optimization revenue grew 24% and publisher revenue increased 33%. The company raised its full-year revenue outlook, beating analyst expectations. Shares rose 5%.

Perion (👍): Revenue fell 43% to $89.3M, beating estimates. Key growth engines DOOH (up 80%), CTV (up 31%), and retail media (up 33%) offset declines in search ad revenue tied to Microsoft Bing changes. Perion raised its 2024 revenue outlook, beating expectations, and announced a deal for AI platform Greenbids. Shares rose 10%.

Disney (👍): Revenue was up 7% to $23.6B, beating estimates. Disney+ subscribers grew by 1.4M compared to last quarter, beating expectations. ESPN's new streaming service will launch in the fall at $29.99 per month. Disney raised its 2024 earnings-per-share guidance. Shares rose 10%.

Uber (🤷): Revenue was up 14% to $11.53B, missing estimates, but earnings per share  beat expectations. Uber's ad business now has a $1.5B annual run rate, growing 60% YoY. Restaurant delivery advertising is strong. Trips grew 18%. Shares fell 2.5%.

Pinterest (👍): Revenue was up 16% to $855M, beating estimates, but earnings per share missed expectations. Global monthly active users grew 10% to a record 570M, beating estimates. Guidance for the current quarter also beat expectations. Shares rose 15%.

Paramount (👍): Revenue was down 6% to $7.19B, beating estimates. Paramount+ subscribers grew 11% to 79M, and the streaming service remains on track for profitability in 2025. Shares rose by single digits.

Warner Bros. Discovery (👎): Revenue was down 10% to $8.98B, missing estimates, driven by weakness in its linear TV business. Max and Discovery subscribers increased by 5.3M to 122.3M. WBD trimmed its losses to $453M. Shares opened lower but increased 5% on reports WBD may sell its cable channels.

Fox (👍): Revenue was up 27% to $4.37B, beating estimates. Advertising revenue surged 65%, driven by Super Bowl LIX and growth at Tubi. Fox will name its new subscription-based streaming service "Fox One." Share rose nearly 5%.

Stagwell (👎): Organic net revenue was up 6%. The challenger agency holding company hit $130M in net new business, a record, but posted a $5.3M loss. Stagwell reaffirmed its 2025 organic net revenue growth forecast of 8%. Shares fell by double digits.

Opinion: These earnings reports, combined with a bull market over the last few weeks, have us feeling good! The big story here is that The Trade Desk brushed off its rare miss last quarter with a solid report that bodes well for the industry. But The Trade Desk isn't alone; several companies in the last week posted healthy performance and guidance that exceeded estimates, generating greater optimism than we've seen in recent months. Of course, a lot of that improved sentiment is due to US trade deals with the UK and China in the last week, leading many to hope that tariff-related fears may be subsiding. It would be good news for our sector (and the broader economy) if that holds, potentially inspiring both consumers and advertisers to keep spending. There is also hope that antitrust will lead to a more level playing field for independent ad tech if Google, Amazon, and Apple are forced to make big changes to their practices.

Other Notable Headlines

The Trade Desk unfurls OpenSincera🔒- After acquiring Sincera in February, The Trade Desk is launching OpenSincera, a free tool to boost transparency in the digital ad supply chain. Using Sincera's tech, which crawls the internet for supply chain metadata, OpenSincera will provide macro and publisher-level data on key performance indicators such as ads-to-content ratio, page weight, ads in view, and ad refresh rates. This data will be accessible through an open API for any ad tech company and also integrated into the TTD’s Kokai platform to enhance client insights during bidding. The Trade Desk is hoping that integrating Sincera's data into Kokai will accelerate its adoption, which has been slower than expected. And by making it open, The Trade Desk hopes to lift all boats in the programmatic space. Good on them.

Tripledot Studios acquires AppLovin’s mobile game business for $800M - Get ready for a new heavyweight in mobile gaming. London's Tripledot Studios is shelling out $800M (half cash, half equity) to buy AppLovin's entire mobile games studio portfolio. This blockbuster deal transforms Tripledot, one of the world’s largest casual games developers and Europe's fastest-growing company in 2023, into a Top 5 global independent mobile game publisher. Tripledot gains immediate scale: 12 studios, 2,500-plus employees, nearly $2B in annual gross revenues, and 25M daily active users. AppLovin will take a minority stake in the company. The deal is expected to close in early summer.

What Scares TV Advertisers Most? Fears of Trump Tariffs, Sports Spending Will Drive 2025 Upfront - The 2025 TV upfront market kicked off with a heavy dose of uncertainty, as advertisers weigh fears of Trump-era tariffs and their impact on consumer demand against the need to secure valuable TV ad inventory. Demand for premium inventory like NFL games remains high, though many advertisers are reportedly in "wait-and-see mode," seeking flexibility in their commitments. Amazon is trying to entice advertisers with new AI-driven formats like pause ads and shoppable ads powered by real-time Amazon shopping signals. Meanwhile, YouTube and Meta are hoping that their creator-focused pitches at the NewFronts will attract big advertiser commitments. Samsung, already the top FAST platform with 700 channels, introduced a “Broad-FAST” TV network at its NewFront event to anchor its strategy.

Former Google, MNTN Execs Raise $5.5M to Help Brands Build TV Ads With AI🔒- Startup Upscale aims to blend brand awareness with direct sales on TV by using generative AI to create ads and machine learning to target them effectively. The platform plugs into a brand’s data from Shopify, social, and other sources to auto-generate TV-quality ads that reflect brand identity. Then, it uses machine learning to programmatically place the ads to drive results. Upscale's team sees a "Trade Desk-like opportunity" to lead in performance-based streaming advertising, offering a new way for ecommerce brands to conquer the biggest screen in the house.

Perion Acquires Advanced AI Company For About $65M - Greenbids is an AI-driven custom algorithms product that specializes in driving media efficiency, optimizing ad performance, and, notably, reducing carbon emissions in digital advertising. Greenbids will be rebranded as Perion Algo and integrated into Perion's Perion One platform, with Greenbids' CEO Guillaume Grimbert stepping in as Perion's new global CRO. This strategic move will extend Perion's addressable market into YouTube, Facebook, and other channels, while boosting its full-funnel capabilities and complementing its strengths in CTV and DOOH. 

Apple Eyes Move to AI Search, Ending Era Defined by Google🔒- Apple executive Eddy Cue said searches on Safari fell for the first time last month due to AI usage. He also said the company would add AI search options for OpenAI, Perplexity, and others in the future. Remember, Apple may be forced to end its $20B-a-year deal with Google that makes Google the default search engine on Safari. Google’s stock price took a 7%+ hit on the news. This shift has massive implications for both companies and the digital ad industry!

Google’s ‘G’ logo just got prettier - See?!

Other Notable Headlines
(that you should know about too) 🤓 

Amazon Killed a Cookieless Ad Product After Google's U-Turn - Amazon had planned to launch an API that supported the Privacy Sandbox's retargeting tool (Protected Audiences API), but the company is discontinuing the product after Google said it wouldn't deprecate third-party cookies after all.

Unity’s AI Ad Platform Is Out Of Beta After A Complete Rebuild - Unity's Vector AI is a ground-up rebuild of its predecessor, Audience Pinpointer, and is designed with self-learning models that analyze vast datasets from Unity's ecosystem covering both game development and monetization.

Reddit Targets Small Businesses With New Advertising Tools🔒- Reddit now offers an AI tool to auto-generate a business profile and another that lets businesses add Reddit posts about their companies to their profiles.

AI Startup Perplexity’s Valuation Surges to $14 Billion in New Funding Round🔒- Perplexity is trying to raise $500M. The AI-powered search company was valued at $9B in November. 

Google Agrees To Settle RTB Privacy Suit - A group of users filed a class-action lawsuit against Google alleging that its real-time bidding ad system shared their personal information with “thousands” of companies.

Goodway Group Names Paul Frampton-Calero CEO; Jay Friedman Stays on as Advisor 🔒- Frampton-Calero previously served as global CEO of Goodway Group’s consulting arm Overline Consulting, Group CEO of Havas Media Group, and CEO of startup Hi Inc.

Years After Promising to Stop Facial Recognition Work, Meta Has a Devious New Plan - Meta is back in the facial recognition business now that privacy concerns have moved to the back burner.

That’s It For This Week 👋

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