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11/13/2025
Welcome to Nexen's third quarter earnings call. At this time, participants are in a listen-only mode with a question and answer session to follow at the end of the presentation. This call is being recorded and a replay of today's call will be made available on Nexen's Investor Relations website. I will now hand the call over to Billy Eckert, Vice President of Investor Relations, for introductions and the reading of the Safe Harbor Statement. Billy, please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Nexen's third quarter earnings call. During today's call, we will discuss our financial and operating results for the three and nine months ended September 30th, 2025, as well as our forward-looking guidance. With us on today's call are Ofer Druker, Nexen's Chief Executive Officer, and Sagi Neri, the company's Chief Financial Officer. This morning, we issued a press release, which you can access on our IR website at investors.nexen.com. During today's conference call, we will make forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed as forward-looking. We advise caution and reliance on forward-looking statements. These statements include, without limitation, statements and projections regarding our anticipated future financial and operating performance, market opportunity, growth prospects, strategy, and financial outlook. These statements also include, without limitation, statements regarding our partnerships and anticipated benefits related to those partnerships, anticipated benefits related to the company's intended growth and platform investments, forward-looking views on macroeconomic and industry conditions, as well as any other statements concerning the expected development, performance, and market share or competitive performance relating to our products or services. All forward-looking statements are based on information available to us as of the date of this call. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those implied by these forward-looking statements including unexpected changes in our business or unexpected changes in macroeconomic or industry conditions. More detailed information about these risk factors and additional risk factors are set forth in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to those risks and uncertainties listed in the section entitled Risk Factors in our most recent annual report on Form 20F. Nexen does not intend to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. Additionally, the company's press release and management statements during this conference call will include discussions of certain measures and financial information in IFRS and non-IFRS terms. We refer you to the company's press release for additional details, including definitions of non-IFRS items and reconciliations of IFRS to non-IFRS results. At this time, it is my pleasure to introduce Ofer Druker, CEO of Nexen. Ofer, please go ahead.
Thanks, Billy. Nexen delivered a strong Q3, generating 10% ego barrier programmatic revenue growth of 15% ex-political, driven by omni-channel strength, rising enterprise DSP adoption, and growing data demands. Throughout 2025, we have been leveraging the combined assets we have built and acquired over the years, strengthening and better showcasing the power and interconnectivity of our full stack to drive greater enterprise demands. Q3's results show these efforts are paying off. Our LSP benefited from proprietary data assets like Nexon Discovery, delivering stronger performance and greater market recognition. Our renewed and expanded Vida partnership also adds a long-term growth engine via exclusive ACR data and CTV media, while enabling innovation like the industry's first solution for programmatic smart TV on-screen activation through the Nexon DSP and SSP. This opens a new frontier for advertisers to reach self-oriented media via high attention placement never before available programmatically. With an advanced enterprise DSP, proprietary data, and a unique and growing CTV and cross-device media footprint, Nexen is creating a very impressive value proposition that sets the stage for meaningful long-term growth. We have continued investing in our omnichannel DSP, enhancing automation, performance, and user experience, to bring more enterprise partners onto the platform and believe it can now compete directly with and win against top stand-alone DSPs. What's really differentiated is how it connects across and benefits from our full stack, combining tech, data, AI, creative, and media to deliver superior performance and efficiency for enterprise customers and independent agencies. Recent upgrades have not only enhanced the DSP itself, but also strengthened the data, AI, and media engines that power it. In the DSP, we have improved buying algorithms and automated budget optimization, lowering media costs, and increasing return of expense. Meanwhile, Next AI continues to elevate its performance and efficiency. The next AI DSP assistant is helping users gain an X on powerful real-time insight faster, enhancing results and usability with customer satisfaction scores often above 90% and some reporting efficiency gains of up to 97%. We are also leveraging our data platform to strengthen the value proposition of our enterprise DSPs. Next in discovery, our proprietary insights and audience segmentation tool is now central to agency and brand conversation and integral to pitching and winning new clients. It unifies cross-channel data sources, including exclusive ACL data, enabling advertisers to uncover, build, and activate high-performing audiences at scale while generating critical insights and reporting. We have enhanced discovery in our broader data platform through Next.ai by improving our customers' first-party data connects with Next.ins and improving usability for users of all skill levels. This has resulted in greater adoption, expanded reach, more precise targeting, and measurable performance gains. Discovery has become a true competitive advantage that we believe will grow over time. Together, these investments are driving stronger cross-channel performance across targeting, activation, optimization, media buying, and measurement. End-to-end users are achieving roughly two times higher retail expense and 30% lower costs. Key reasons we are winning more in-air-to-air DSP evaluations. Our DSP's performance connected to and driven by our full stack has brought dozens of new enterprise customers on platform in 2025, creating significant long-term growth potential. As more enterprise customers on board, we capture greater direct demand, strengthen our end-to-end revenues opportunities, and reduce reliance on third parties, which is critical as major DSPs continue to tighten SPOs within their ecosystem. and work directly with publishers. With a stronger DSP, more powerful and connected data solution, and deeper AI integration, we are now focused on capitalizing on strategic partnership and scaling platform adoption. We believe this will further our end-to-end revenue opportunities, drive increased growth potential, and create greater resilience against evolving industry dynamics. In Q3, we announced our updated partnership with BIDA, successfully renewing and expanding it through 2029, extending exclusive global access to the ACL data and securing third-party ad monetization exclusivity on the North American BIDA. This provides a durable advantage over appeals, lacking exclusive and unique assets we believe will struggle to differentiate and drive value in the future. As advertisers need alternatives to walled gardens, Nexen is well-positioned to fill that gap as an open, independent platform. Our ACR data cements us as a fundamental targeting and measurement data provider, fueling both platform spend and licensing opportunities. For example, our ACR audience segments recently became available for targeting in the YOW DSP. underscoring growing demand and paving the way for licensing growth in 2026 and beyond. Our media exclusivity also creates leverage to attract new partners and incremental spend through unique opportunities unavailable anywhere else. And as VDAL's footprint grows, so does the value of our exclusivities. The new agreement is already powering breakthrough innovation. We recently launched the industry-first solution for programmatic smart TV on-screen activation that will be available exclusively through the Nexen DSP. It provides direct access to native smart TV inventory via the Nexen SSP across ISEN CTVs and other CTVOM brands powered by VDAL's operating system. This marks a major step forward for the CTV industry, unlocking previously inaccessible scaled OEM media for programmatic activation and creating exclusive eye-attention placement that command premium pricing. Advertiser interest has been strong, and this solution differentiates us as major competitors can't offer similar capabilities. We believe this will become a powerful intermediate and long-term growth engine for Nexen, one that can accelerate DSP adoption, expand end-to-end spending, and reinforce our leadership in programmatic smart TV innovation. While we are encouraged by our momentum and strategic progress, we are disappointed to lower guidance due to new-term headwinds, including softness in select channels and a shift in how a leading DSP customer is reinforcing its SPO strategy. That said, our platform's interconnected advanced technology solutions, TV data, and robust omnichannel media footprint give us confidence we can navigate these dynamics and emerge stronger in 2026 and beyond. Our strategy is evolving, not changing. As we are doubling down on our DSP discovery and broader data platform to drive enterprise adoption, strengthen end-to-end revenue opportunities, and reduce third-party reliance. In 2026, we are releasing new DSP innovations, expanding infrastructure and capacity, and deepening new AI integration to enhance usability and performance. To insulate against disruptive open internet trends like LLM-driven traffic sheets, we are enhancing our CCTV capabilities through innovative product launches like our first-to-market programmatic Smart TV home screen activation solution. In addition, we are entering new-scale mobile in-app partnerships. Finally, we are aggressively pursuing new sizable strategic commercial partnerships leveraging our Vita exclusivities, and first-to-market programmatic Smart TV on-screen activation solution. These assets provide leverage with ecosystem partners, agencies, and data providers, and can help secure large-spend commitments, greater enterprise adoption, and scaled licensing opportunities. While Q4 presents near-term challenges, our long-term outlook and conviction in our strategy remains strong. The actions underway, combined with continued investment in our enterprise DSP, cross-device capabilities, and data and AI innovation and integration, position us for a stronger 2026 and beyond. We are on a clear path to becoming a strategic platform and partner of choice for industry leaders fueled by exclusive TV data, advanced tech, and innovative smart TV solutions, unavailable anywhere else. With a solid foundation, expanding partnerships, and critical capabilities unique to Nexen, we are confident in our positioning to drive greater enterprise adoption and outside long-term growth. With that, I will turn it over to Sagi.
Thank you, Ofer. In Q3, we delivered contribution ex-stack of $92.6 million, a Q3 record reflecting an 8% increase year-over-year or 14% ex-political. Programmatic revenue also reached a Q3 record of $89.6 million, up 10% year-over-year or 15% ex-political. Growth was driven by data product, self-service, desktop, and mobile, alongside increases across our health, business, and finance verticals. In contrast, contribution extracts from our non-programmatic business line declined roughly $1 million year-over-year. We also observed year-over-year decreases in CTV and display, as well as reduced spending within our government, retail, and education verticals. CTV revenue declined 17% year-over-year in Q3, or 13% ex-political, to $24.5 million. Results were impacted by decreased activity from select first-party DSP partners within our OMP and PMP channels, tariff-related spending reductions from certain customers, and more competitive CTV CPMs. Though these pressures have persisted in Q4, we continue to see significant CTV revenue growth opportunities in 2026 and beyond, particularly following the renewal and expansion of our strategic partnership with VIDA. In Q3, desktop revenue increased 67% year-over-year, and mobile revenue rose 3% as our targeting tools continued to help advertisers find audiences across devices, while overall video revenue represented 70% of programmatic revenue. Contribution X-tacks from PMPs declined 4% year-over-year in Q3, and contribution X-tacks from display decreased 2%. Despite edge wins across some formats and devices, we achieved record Q3 contribution X-tacks Thanks to the benefits of our diversified omnichannel approach and continued momentum across focus areas, we've invested heavily in over the past several years. In Q3, self-service contribution extract grew 11% year-over-year amid greater enterprise DSP adoption, while contribution extract from data products increased 154%. We generated adjusted EBITDA of $28 in Q3, reflecting a 30% adjusted EBITDA margin as a percentage of contribution . We remain confident in our ability to expand margins over time through contribution growth, cost discipline, and anticipated benefits from our AI initiatives. In Q3, we generated $35.8 million in net cash from operating activities, compared to $39.9 million in Q3 2024. As of September 30th, we had $116.7 million in cash and cash equivalents, no long-term debt, and $50 million undrawn on our revolving credit facility. Non-IFRS diluted earnings per share were $0.20 in Q3 compared to $0.27 in Q3 2024 on a post-reverse split basis. We repurchased roughly 1.8 million shares in Q3, investing approximately $18.1 million through our now completed $50 million program and recently launched $20 million program. From March 2022 through the end of Q3 2025, we repurchased roughly 36.6% of outstanding shares, investing approximately $247.4 million. As of October 31st, approximately $13.9 million remained under our authorization, and we intend to evaluate implementing a new repurchase program following completion of our current program. We invested $20 million in Vida and Q3, with an additional $15 million planned for Q3 2026, and are also continuing to explore M&A opportunities focused on accelerating programmatic revenue growth and enhancing our data, CTV, and mobile in-app capabilities. With that, I'll turn to our outlook. Despite meeting our expectations for both Q3 and the first nine months of 2025, we are lowering our full-year 2025 guidance, We now expect contribution X-TAC in the range of $350 to $360 million, adjusted EBITDA in the range of $113 to $117 million, and for programmatic revenue to represent roughly 95% of total revenue. Our updated guidance now reflects full-year 2025 contribution X-TAC growth of approximately 3% at the midpoint, or 6% ex-political, and programmatic revenue growth of approximately 6% at the midpoint, or 9% ex-political. Our revised guidance reflects several factors impacting Q4 performance. We have experienced lower-than-expected activity from certain third-party DSP partners in our OMP and PNP channels, which has impacted contribution extract within the NEX and SSP. That said, demand generated directly through the Nexen DSP to the Nexen SSP has remained in line with expectations. The majority of softness within our OMP channel has been attributable to changes in spending behavior from one DSP customer. While the customer remains active on our platform, its activity to this point in Q4 has decreased significantly year over year following a sizable increase in spending during Q4 2024, partly driven by the 2024 U.S. election cycle. We expect contribution extract impact related to this customer, reduced spending to be isolated to Q4 2025, and to not have a material impact on XM performance in full year 2026. In Q4, we've also observed more competitive CTV CPM, as well as reduce spending from certain customers, reflecting some macro softness which we believe has been driven largely by tariffs. Additionally, we've experienced continued weakness in our non-core, non-programmatic business line, for which we are actively evaluating all options. As Ofer mentioned, while we are disappointed with our reduced guidance, we are confident in the swift actions we've taken to address near-term headwinds and in our long-term strategy and positioning. Our strategic shift towards revenue generators from our omnichannel self-service DSP and data products continues to gain momentum, supported by our unique data and media assets, fueling greater enterprise adoption and growing end-to-end opportunities. Over time, we believe this combination will continue to attract new partners and increase spending, create larger growth opportunities, and drive more predictable and resilient contribution X-TACs. We expect contribution X-TACs from our Vida partnership to increase in 2026, supported by ACL data licensing revenue, exclusive third-party ad monetization opportunities, and the launch of our programmatic Smart TV home screen activation solution. Adoption of Next.ai is strong and growing, and as usage increases, we expect it to be a driver of operational efficiency, adjusted EBITDA growth, and margin expansion over time. We will continue investing in AI, data, and technology to reinforce our platform advantages and depreciation. Through the actions we've taken to address Q4 challenges and continued execution on our long-term strategy, we are confident we will become a stronger, more resilient leading platform, well aligned with where the industry is heading, and better positioned for sustainable long-term growth and margin expansion. As always, thank you to our shareholders, employees, and partners for your support.
Operator will now take questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. If you are called upon to ask your question and are listening via speakerphone on your device, please pick up your handset to ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your questions. We do request for today's session that you please limit to one question and one follow-up question. Our first question comes from Matt Swanson from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Great. Yeah, thank you for taking my question. When thinking about this DSP headwind, Siggy, I think you mentioned that you don't expect it to be a material impact of 2026. Could you talk a little bit about the steps that you're taking in Q4 to kind of help rectify some of these headwinds? One thing I know we've seen from some of your SSP peers is leaning heavier into more DSP diversity, especially DSPs that maybe sit in the mid-market. I'm just curious if that goes into your strategy as well.
Hi, Matt, first of all, and thank you for your question. We have a very clear path that we are taking, but we are going, of course, to accelerate according to what we are feeling in the market. The first thing is about CTV Media. So not far, like the last month or so, we announced that we basically launched a new product that enabled us to run programmatically TV ads on the platform of the OS platform. of the operating system of Vida and others. And this is very meaningful because the amount of media that you have on the CTV is massive. And basically users are spending about 10 to 11 minutes a day on a TV in front of the operating system and we will have the opportunity to engage with them in a programmatic manner for the first time in the industry. So this is like something that we believe that also is resilient for the AI changes in the world and is supporting us. The second thing is, of course, when you mentioned about the DSP, so what we feel is that we see that our sales team this year and in Q3 and also what we're seeing going forward is reaching their targets, reaching their targets, which means that our offering is very compelling, and we are able to satisfy the needs of the clients with our technology and capabilities, and we are going, of course, to continue doing that. And our self-serve solution, we are going to enhance what we did until now. We already see very good traction to that. It grew 14% in the first nine months of the year compared to last year, and it grew about 30% in Q3. compared to last year, which is very nice numbers, and I think that with the push in resources and capabilities, we will be able to achieve even more. So we are going to do that in order to lower the reliance on third-party DSPs in the market. That's the reason that we made this investment a few years ago. We built the capabilities, and we believe that this is a unique capability that we got, and if we enhance it, we will enjoy from that in the future. On top of that, we are also adding one of the key things that we are doing all the time, which is like a differentiator also, is the way that we are dealing with data, and the discovery tool that we basically acquired in the acquisition of Amobi, and we made it like a a standalone platform that is attracting a lot of advertisers and partners, we are going to also add to this platform now mobile data that is coming from partners that we are talking to or already got agreements with. And this will enable us to put it side by side with our strong and exclusive data sets that we have from the agreement that we got with VIDA, which is super important, ACL data globally, and especially in the U.S. and Canada, which is more related to us because more than 90% of our revenue is coming from the U.S. The last point that we feel that is important to mention is also to add in-app mobile media to the mix because we tried in the middle of the year to understand what basically channels of media will be less affected by AI. We got into a a resolution that basically also in-app mobile is less affected by AI, and we are investing in that. We already signed a few agreements around that, and we start moving resources into this channel of media, and we believe that everything that I just said, like CTV, the TV ads, native ads in the operating system, in-app mobile, media, and data that we are adding, moving resources to the self-serve solutions that we are basically already showing and demonstrating growth year over year. All of that, including the fact that our sales teams are able to reach their targets with our offering, give us optimism and the belief that we can continue next year with full power.
That's really helpful. You mentioned AI a couple of times. One of the big points of emphasis at your investor day earlier this year was talking about the power of your AI platform once you've got all three pieces, right? Working kind of the interoperability of being full stack with AI. I know we have a couple of products launched. Can you just talk about how close we are to getting that kind of full stack vision completed?
Yeah. First of all, we keep, of course, the investment in AI. For us, it's already like part of everything that we are doing. And basically what we see is that if we are looking at, for example, the discovery tool, and we mentioned it also in the script, basically what we see is that sellers that are using the discovery plus AI, because in the past it took you like a few hours to issue a report. You need like an expert to do that. And People were like, I will not say, they were not tempted to use it so much. But now we see that people are using the AI with our discovery tool and data segments. They are getting in a few minutes like a very good speech that basically doubled the revenues that the seller that is using our tools is generating compared to a seller that is not. So of course, it's encouraging us and we are keep pushing for this development. The second thing is that we release and we are getting really good feedback is from the usage of AI on our ADSP in order to buy media, and it's helping buyers not just to buy smartly, but also more efficiently, and we see very good engagement around that. We now, as we mentioned before, we are moving to the SSP side. I feel that early next year we'll have news also around that because this is the third element, as we mentioned, and you are It's a good memory match because this is the third piece that we are building, which will be around the SSP side. Building this capability is improving the way that publishers can interact with our media, with our data, and understand also their needs. And I think that then in the middle of next year, we will add the layer that will help us manage the full platform, meaning connected to all these three elements of the DSP, BMP, and SSP, and enable us to work much more fluently. much more effectively, and generate better results to our clients.
Our next question comes from Jason Cryer from Craig Hill.
Please go ahead.
All right, thank you, guys. So I just wanted to ask about the current trend line in CTV. We've seen a decel there over the last few quarters that culminated into a bigger decline in Q3. So just wondering if you could unpack that a little bit. My understanding is that the changes with this DSP partner are less attributed on the CTV side, but maybe you can talk about kind of what that trend line looks like and what's ahead for CTV. Thanks.
Of course. Thank you. Thank you, Jason. I think that our CTV strategy is solid, as I mentioned before, but in Q4 and also earlier this year, we felt softness in some of the categories that are basically usually supported by CTV in order to advertise their product, and it's, of course, affected us. The second thing is basically competition in the market that is very fierce in the last six months. between the, some of the big companies in the market that basically lowering their prices in order to attract advertisers. So the CPM in general, what we feel again at least is, is went down so people can deliver their results with less budgets, which was of course affecting companies like us because if a company used to spend $1 million in order to achieve certain results, maybe today they can do that with a, a few dozens of percentage less in order to do that, and it's affecting the revenues of a company like us. And the last point that I feel is also the political element that last year in Q3 and Q4 was meaningful for us, and of course is not existing almost totally in this year. So all these things together I think basically affected us in the second half of the year. But when we are looking on 2026 and going forward, I think that what I mentioned before when I spoke to Matt, when I'm looking at these TV ads, native ads that we are running, and the agreement with Vida, the investment that we did in order to kick in more TVs in the U.S., will give us more ground because we have also full exclusivity on that media, which is growing. iSense and Vida is becoming a very big player in the market. They are currently number two globally. in pushing new TVs to the market according to the last professional reports that we see. And when we are looking at the TV ads and our ability to tell them it's programmatically are getting a lot of interest in the market from other publishers like Vida, which is OEMs, which are, they need this solution in order to simplify the sale process and make it more competitive. And the second thing is of course to advertisers, that it will be more like a commodity for them to buy this media than today, that they need to deliver the campaign to the OEM in order to run it on this platform. And of course, it's heavier and more difficult to run and to maintain. So I feel that the CTV part, we feel that in 2026 onwards, we'll start seeing the effect of that, and we will be able to return to growth on that piece of media.
Appreciate that.
Just one follow-up. Recently, one of your competitors announced a win with an advertiser you've worked with in the past. Just wondering if you could talk to that at all and maybe help us understand why that's perhaps a more isolated event.
Thanks. These specific clients used to work with us for many, many years. Sometimes people want needs or want to change, which makes sense. We did it in good terms and All good. We are winning other accounts in the market. As I just mentioned, our self-serve grew in the first nine months by 14%. And I think that our offering, we have a lot of advantages in our offering that we are even going to enhance now, which is about data platform that we are connected to our DSP, including exclusive TV targeting, TV data for targeting and measurement. That is very important. We see now, as we mentioned, Yao also integrated some of these data elements, but it's giving us a clear advantage in the market around data and whatever is related to TV. The second thing is the fact that we are end-to-end solution, and we can also generate revenues from them by media that can turn our offering to much more attractive. We are going to use this, of course, in the near future. I think that overall you win some, you lose some. You are trying to win more than you lose. And I think that we have a strategy that can support our growth. And we see the growth already in 2025, even that it was not an easy year because some of our clients are already using the platform. Even some of them lower a little bit their spend. But I see that we are winning like 14% in the last nine months growth compared to last year, 11% in Q3. And I'm I'm optimistic that with more resources that we are shifting there and with the capabilities that I just mentioned, we will see much more growth in 2026 and going forward.
Our next question comes from Laura Martin from Needham. Please go ahead.
Yes, my first question is on, can you remind us how much of your total traffic is from a desktop browser? And you mentioned that you're seeing traffic down. How much was traffic down in Q3 for you? So that's my first question. And then my second question is on the DSP. So your three-quarter numbers were great, which means this DSP loss for the fourth quarter was a surprise. And I get presumably you didn't really have visibility until this quarter started. If you don't have visibility, so I don't understand why this DSP spending less money doesn't affect next year at all. But even if that's true, if you didn't have visibility for this, how can you have confidence that 2026 is going to be okay? Since I don't think you're anticipating this DSP disappearing in 4Q. Those are my two questions.
It didn't disappear. No problem. First of all, this DSP didn't disappear. It's there. It's buying media. We didn't lost a DSP, a major one on our platform. They keep buying from us. There is a few issues with the big DSPs right now. Some of them change the way that they are buying media and they prefer more media that is basically related to their algorithm and to their SPO processes, and it's affecting the market. The second thing, what I mentioned, is that we are trying to lower the reliance on third-party DSPs, and we are increasing the resources and pushing forward our plans to enhance our self-capabilities, which we see that is growing and is making a very good effect on our revenues because it's not just the tech fees that we are winning, but also the clients are shifting some of their budgets to our SSP. So this is a solution that basically helps us to mitigate risk that is coming from third-party DSPs. The second thing is that the fact that we are now adding really important pillars of CTV Media, we already started discussions with big DSPs and partners in order to enhance their spend with us. mainly on CTV because of this unique technology and unique capabilities, and we believe that it will compensate and even generate growth next year. We didn't mention in my conversation drop. What I said is that when we look at the market for the future, sometimes you need to plan ahead, of course, and what we understood, the display that we invested in that in 2024, in the beginning of 2025, we see that it's like a we don't feel it so much in our revenues. We see very, very small drop in revenues of DSP, but we feel that it can be a challenge in the future because of AI and people are surfing some sites and so on and even mobile browsing. So we shifted more attention also to in-app mobile that is basically will grow our revenues and lower our dependency on media that can be affected by AI.
Our next question comes from Andrew Barrow from Raymond James.
Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. Another theme we've heard across some of your peers has been kind of leaning into performance objectives in kind of what are considered maybe traditional brand formats. I guess, can you talk a bit about how you're positioned for that trend and maybe any advantages provided by things like the Nexon data platform and to the extent that you're able to capitalize on those types of trends, the type of, potentially insulating impact it could have on 26? Thank you.
Amazing question. Thank you, Andrew. I think that performance now is the right time to basically push for that, and we are doing it in the last 12 months. Our DSP is built for performance and generating amazing results when it's being compared to other DSP around measurement of performance. And that's also one of the key things that is helping us to win new accounts, because when they run us head-to-head with another DSP or a couple of DSPs, we are generating, in most cases, better results. So it's helping us, of course. I think that also the combination with CTV, which was until now more challenging, and my background is performance for many, many years, was the price of the CTV. Because when the price was, the average price was a note of $15 to $20, it was very difficult to generate results of performance on CTV. But now when the prices is basically dropping and the volumes are growing, we can see that there is a bigger opportunity to combine basically performance with CTV and we are putting a lot of efforts on that. And we have also additional advantage with that because when we mentioned the TV ads, this is basically TV ads are getting a lot of attention from the clients because they can be alone on the screen for a certain time and we can basically achieve additional impact by using that. So I think that the near future, which is giving us a opportunity because the lowest CPM that I mentioned that also reduced our revenues will help us to basically enable us to do more things around performance and our DSP is basically built for that. We build a lot of algorithms that is helping the buyers to generate better results. And I think that in the past few years, we basically moved it to the level that now is one of the top DSPs that is related to performance in the market.
Great. Thank you. And maybe a quick follow-up, if I could. On your non-programmatic business, you called that out as one of the potential headwinds to 4Q. Just wondering, to the extent that it provides any benefit to the programmatic business, is it kind of completely in its own little silo, or are there some benefits that the programmatic business can realize from it, maybe in terms of data sharing or something like that? That's all. Thank you.
Thank you. No, there is totally silos. There is no relationship between these performance elements and our core business. Basically, it's business units that we acquired in one of the major acquisitions that we've done in the past with RhythmOne, that we basically inherited two business units that were not related to what we are doing today. They are in silos. We are not getting from them any benefit of data, as you mentioned, or around that. And it will not affect us when we will take these steps. And we kept them basically running as long as they were generating data. value for us but now as I mentioned we as we mentioned we are basically evaluating what we should do with them and because they are not eating their targets and of course cause us a a loss of revenues in our forecast which is meaningful so not so meaningful but still meaningful and but there is no relationship to any of the other business that we are doing and it will not affect us at all when we will basically take action with them
Our next question comes from Matt Condon from Citizens.
Please, go ahead. Thank you so much for taking my questions. My first one is just on, you guys announced in the press release a new data licensing partnership with Yahoo DSP. Can you maybe just refresh us on how the Trade Desk partnership is going and then how big Yahoo can be and then maybe overall just how big data licensing can be for you guys?
Okay. Very good question also. So, Basically, there are a few elements for us to cooperate with partners around our data. The easiest way for us is basically to create segments and to send them to the DSP that basically want to utilize them in order to conduct targeting. That's what we are doing mostly with the Trade Desk and now with YOW. And it's growing. I cannot reveal numbers, but it's growing. And it's showing good signs. And we have a list of new DSPs that are showing interest in order to grow basically with us and embrace this technology and these capabilities. And we need to remember that basically the profit or the net revenues of this initiative are 100% because it's coming to utilizing our data that we own. And when we are looking at more advanced solution, is basically licensing this data for measurement, integrating raw data into DSPs or other DMPs. This is even a bigger opportunity, and we tie it with basically the ability to utilize our discovery tool, which is the platform that enables clients to utilize the data, but also enrich their data, meaning they can upload their first-party data into the platform, enrich it with our TV data, and get unique, rich data. which change sometimes their perspective about their audiences. And this is also something that we start selling and generating revenues. And I believe that in the near 24 months, we'll see these segments grow in our revenues, the licensing and the licensing of data and segments, like I mentioned, but also even AVL platform, like the discovery plus data that we are licensing to companies in order to utilize them on their platforms and in favor of their activity and their clients.
That's very helpful. And then maybe just a follow-up. You mentioned also in the press release just the potential to do more M&A transactions that's smaller than what you did with Amobi. Just what are the key areas when you look at your business today that you think that you need to round out or different functionalities that you need to add on to via M&A?
Okay. So I think that from technology perspective, we have everything that we need. We have a very strong DSP. We have a very advanced and robust DMP, very powerful SSP. But I think that there are supposed to be now more opportunities to buy sometimes clients or verticals, activity in verticals that you are less exposed to or less working in these verticals and can enrich your technology. I think that also from integration point of view, We are not interested right now to buy another DSP or another SSP or DSP or DMP because we have this platform, but also from integration process, we did an heavy lifting in the last two or three years that we got to the point that we are really happy with the technology stack that we got. So what we are looking more is to buy activities or clients, as I mentioned, or knowledge or client-based or activity base that we are not familiar with that we can integrate into our platform and generate additional revenues from them.
Our next question comes from Barton Crockett from Rosenblatt.
Please go ahead.
Okay, great. Thanks for taking the question. I'd like to try and understand a little bit better the DSP impact being just a one-quarter phenomena in your guide. I guess the first thing I just want to understand around that, are you saying that that's because whatever revenue you lose in the fourth quarter will come back to you in the first quarter, or is it because you see other revenue sources offsetting whatever the negative impact is that you see this quarter and next quarter being offset by new revenue sources starting by next year?
Hey Barton, thanks for the question. I think that what we are trying to say, you know, I think you answered your question by yourself. So it's like, first of all, Ofer mentioned a couple of times, like all the actions we are doing in order to have our usual growth in 2026, you know, the in-app focus, the self-serve focus, the data focus, the visa deal focus, which are our main growth engines going forward. The one DSP that's like, you know, is part of the gap in Q4, it's something that we expected this DSP to do with us or to spend with us in Q4 because this is what it did last year, which some of it, of course, connected to the political spend. And this year it's spending much less. It's not going with us into 2026 because we're already acknowledging that this is the new base and this is its level of spend and we are not like, taking into consideration that for some reason he may spend with us more in 2026. Yeah, that's what he said. So I think this answers your question, I hope.
Okay, and so when you say your normal level of growth, I mean, you guys think of normal growth being double digit?
Yeah, I think that, yes, the lower double digit, I think that according to the you know, to the growth engine in front of us. And, of course, we are already working very extensively on 2026 budget. I think that we can achieve this growth of 10% in programmatic activity.
Our next question comes from Tyler DiMatteo from VTIG.
Please go ahead. Great. Thank you. Appreciate the time. I wanted to start on the double growth comments right there. When you think about the different product solutions and how you're trying to go to market, what physically needs to happen with the different business and product solutions to get you back to double digit growth? What's the real needle mover to get you there? And can you just kind of unpack that for us? And then my second question here is I want to talk about the VITA partnership. How much of a contribution, I think you kind of quoted this on an ex-tech basis, how much of a contribution do you actually expect next year and how is that going to flow through? Thank you.
First of all, Tyler, I think that the main thing that will bring us growth next year will be the CTV part. Because generally speaking, this is something that we put emphasis on it for a long time. We suffer for weakness in the last quarter. And also last quarter was not a great one for CTV, as I mentioned. But I think that by integrating this solution, building relationship with a lot of buyers that are interested in this type of media, we see a growth in that section from the feedback that we are getting in the market and from even additional publishers that are interested to integrate with big volume of media and so on that can be very helpful. The second thing is, again, in order to reduce the reliance on third-party DSP, in 2022, we acquired Amobis for that reason. We saw it coming. We knew that basically the big DSPs in the future will have to build their own end-to-end solution in order to increase their margins and so on. That's why we looked for a DSP that can add to us enterprise capabilities and can help us to grow in dependency. That's why we acquired Amobi and we invested a lot of money and time in order to build and improve the technology, grow the talent, build the models, integrate them with data, not in silos but as one piece. And we believe that the growth that we are seeing from the beginning of the year will continue and even emerge more next year and will support our growth in the future. And the in-app that we are testing now, showing really good results. From the middle of the year, we are testing and running media on in-app. And we see that by utilizing our capabilities in the ecosystem of the programmatic world, we are able to drive meaningful revenue. into the in-app and we feel that also next year with the agreement that we already signed and we will announce some of them soon, we will see that basically we believe that this sort of media will generate for us growth also in 2026 and going forward. And the last point is about data. It was tough in the beginning to educate the market and to also to build the models for ourselves as I mentioned before in the call, selling segments, selling raw data or selling it as part of the discovery tool and now we feel that the market is getting to the notion of how to work with us because we need to remember this ACR data and TV data is not common in the market. Most of the companies that we are looking at or other OEMs are keeping it in their gates for obvious reasons and we are one of the only ones that is basically willing to to use it in order to build partnership and to enhance cooperation between us and other partners. And this is, of course, with the full support of VIDA. And we feel that this is unique and getting more and more attention from the market, as we indicated, the traders, Yao, and other DSPs that are basically looking to work with us. To give you an exact number of the net revenues of VIDA, I think It's too early to say, but it will be much more meaningful, of course, than today because today it's very, very small.
Our next question comes from Maria Rips from Catechogenety.
Please go ahead.
Hi, this is Matt from Maria. Thanks for squeezing me in here. We just wanted to ask about the increasing focus on mobile in-apps. As we think about next in scaling this channel further, how much of that is a function of building supply versus adding specific in-app targeting and measurement capabilities? And then just on supply specifically, based on an earlier response, it doesn't sound like M&A is in the works here in terms of scaling supply. So just Could you just talk to me why you feel ostensibly, I don't want to put words in your mouth, that a partnership approach is more appropriate here? Thanks so much.
I didn't understand the last question, what you said about latitude? Latitude is a corporation...
Yeah, I'm just trying to think through the puts and takes in terms of, say, acquiring another SSP to sort of build out mobile in-app supply versus partnering with other SSPs, just trying to understand how you're thinking about those two options.
Okay. So I will touch first to the last question because I think that it's easier to give a quick answer, but basically... today with all the SPO laws, if you want to regulations and practices, if you want to utilize your programmatic capabilities and footprint, you cannot basically jump between yourself and another SSP in order to drive media. So you need to be connected directly to the in-app and we are doing it by working with the SDK companies that basically We are connected to them and then we can basically bring the app into the market and pay them directly and maintain the SPO rules and get like a more of a traction by the buyers, which is you cannot do that by pulling this media from another SSP. It will not work anymore in the current market conditions. I hope that it's understood. If not, I can explain more. The second thing, your first question was about in-app and acquisition. Basically, you don't need to buy an SSP in order to get connected to more SDK inventory. Basically, what we are doing is we are, as you mentioned, we are signing agreements, cooperation agreements and partnership agreements with SDK companies that allow us to monetize and introduce us to their clients in order for us to generate additional revenues from the apps that they own. And this is, until now, we found it very successful and promising, and we believe that it could grow even further, of course.
That concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to Alfred Drueger, CEO, for closing remarks.
Thank you. I think that, as we mentioned, we deliver a good Q3 numbers record in many fields, maybe not in CTV, but in revenues and in growth year-over-year and so on. But when we're looking at the full year, of course, it's disappointing to reduce guidance. But even after reducing guidance, we need to remember that we are growing year-over-year around 3% to 6% in general, but 6% to 9% programmatically if we are looking at that. And I think that the fact that we are more heavier in the U.S. is showing that the U.S. lately was more of a challenge to grow the business than other markets. And we are like more than 90% in that market. So it's affected us maybe a little bit more than others. But again, when we are looking at growth, we didn't shrink. We grew still even when disappointing a Q4 and what we saw until the end of October was until the end of September was a good result. In October, usually from year to year, we see like a increase in demand coming from not just one DSP or other DSP, but from the market as well. And mostly, and now this year we didn't saw this wave of growth coming into the system. So we basically, felt that we need to announce this guidance reduction because we didn't see this wave of growth coming and supporting our growth that usually from Q3 to Q4 statistically is meaningful. So that's the issue, but we believe strongly in our strategy, in our platform, in our technology, in our talent, and we are willing to work hard in order, of course, to improve our performance in 2026 and going forward. So thank you very much, all of you, for your support. Thank you to our employees, our shareholders, stakeholders, and we are obligated to work hard in order to, of course, to have a better 2026.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.
