Integral Ad Science Holding Corp. (IAS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. Thanks, and welcome to our next session. I'm really happy to have the team from IAS on. Lisa, Joe, great to see you again.

Since this is the first time that you're at our conference like post the IPO, could we start relatively broad-based and try to talk a little bit about the underlying problem that IAS is trying to solve to kind of get us all on the same page basically?

Sure. Thanks for having us, Raimo. And thanks, everyone. I'm Lisa Utzschneider, CEO of IAS. It's a pleasure to be here today and to share a bit about our story. In terms of -- I'll give the quick, Raimo, what we do and what we're trying to solve for.

Yes.

So we are a leading global high-quality media company. We have 2 core products, verification solutions and contextual targeting. Think of verification solutions, there's a video ad running on YouTube, a Nestlé ad, we verify that the ad was viewed. It was viewed by human and not a bot. There wasn't any fraudulent activity and that Nestlé ad ran adjacent to brand-safe and brand-suitable content. More recently, we launched a contextual targeting solution, helping the Nestlés of the world avoid content that they want to avoid and be adjacent to content that they want to run adjacent to in programmatic. In terms of what we're solving for, marketers, they really care about media wastage. They want to make sure that every single dollar that they invest in digital advertising anywhere in the ecosystem that they get the best ROI for their investment. And because our solutions help them find those high-quality areas within the ecosystem, we help marketers avoid media wastage. And we help them know if the ad wasn't view, ran adjacent to anything fraudulent or next to inappropriate content. So it's all about media wastage.

Okay. Perfect. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. And if it's okay with you, I do it this year and then next year, we just kind of go only like deeper in. But I have a couple of kind of misconception or like kind of where investors are not 100% sure we can do it quickly. But first thing I have here is like if you think about why are the big platforms like they're selling you page -- like a page space, et cetera, like YouTube, et cetera, why are they not sorting that out?

Well, if you were Coke, think about if you were Coke and let's say, hypothetically, you were investing $100 million in YouTube every year in digital advertising. Would you feel comfortable with Google grading their own homework? And that's the feedback we get consistently from marketers is they like having what I call a Switzerland, an independent third-party player like IAS holding the major tech platforms accountable that they are delivering high-quality media. They don't want the tech platforms grading their own homework.

Okay. Perfect. The next one is then if you think about like all the increased regulation about data privacy, customer privacy and that sort of stuff, that's something Google, Facebook are facing. Are you involved in that at all? Or is that something that you're actually kind of helping to solve as a problem?

So IAS, our solutions are cookieless solutions, right? So in many ways, all of this focus on privacy regulation shifting away from cookie-based to cookieless, it's a tailwind for our business. It's actually accelerated our contextual targeting revenue over the last 1.5 years as marketers seek out more and more sophisticated contextual targeting solutions.

Yes. Okay. Perfect. And that was the next question I actually had. So contextual seems to be the future. Talk a little bit about how you do it there and what you're doing there and the growth that you see there.

Sure. So I'll speak for a minute about the product, and then Joe will take you through the revenue. So we launched our context control product March of 2020, in the height of COVID when marketers were looking for sophisticated solutions to help them navigate the world of contextual content they want to avoid, content that they want to pursue programmatically. We have a differentiated technology, our contextual intelligence tech that our tech reads the page of the web like a human. We can classify content based on semantic or motion. The fact that we can classify content based on motion love hate or hate speech really matters for marketers. So we launched the product. The adoption rate has been through the roof, especially on the avoidance side over the last 20 months. And the other thing to call out is that our Context Control, we run it across all of the major DSPs, including Google DV360, The Trade Desk in over 30 languages. Joe, you want to take everyone through the revenue?

Yes. Hi, everyone. I'm Joe Pergola, IAS' CFO. And as Lisa called out, our programmatic channel has continued to accelerate. Overall for Q3, it was 49% period-over-period. 36% of that is attributed to Context Control. That's also a prior quarter for Q2, up 30%. So you can see that we continue to accelerate the business, and that investment is coming through our premium products on Context Control through that programmatic channel.

Yes. Okay. Perfect. And then the next question I have, like if you think about the growth of the business in terms of new customers, et cetera, like where are they coming -- do -- does everyone have something already, and there's a replacement market? Or is it a lot of greenfield? Like speak to that a little bit because since the new product just kind of had so much traction there, it feels like there's a lot of greenfield or like very fast, first-generation stuff out there.

Sure. I'd love to take a crack at that. So our revenue buckets, it's a couple of revenue customers, it's a couple of buckets. The first is the Fortune 500 global accounts. That's a trend that we've seen during the pandemic is more and more of these iconic global marketers like Coke, Nestlé, adidas, GSK, they're signing one contract, multiyear contract with IAS. And they want us to verify all of their digital inventory wherever it runs. The opportunity to grow those Fortune 500 accounts is both cross-sell and upsell. So when we roll out additional new products like a Context Control, we're able to upsell a Coke saying, "Okay, here's the incremental CPM on top of your current contract." And in addition to that, the global marketers, they really care about international expansion. A big differentiator for IAS is we have such a strong international footprint. Revenue split is roughly 60-40. 40% of our revenue, a big differentiator for us, sits outside the U.S., and we're growing faster internationally. And the Cokes love it when we expand in new markets like Indonesia, India, Russia, so that they're able to both take on and adopt those new products, but also expand into the international markets that they care about. The second revenue bucket are the local brands in local markets. Because we have such a sizable global footprint, our sales team, they're putting a lot of wins on the board with new logos from local markets. And I would say the third bucket is coming through the agencies. Agencies are really important partners, and we're seeing more and more holding companies, they love working with IAS. So when they win a new account, they just hand it over to IAS and have us launch the verification solutions for those new logos.

Yes. Okay. Perfect. Okay. That's really interesting. And then if you think about it like the evolution of the market, like is -- you as a platform play. I think there's one more as a platform player, then Oracle bought Moat, I think, and then there's a lot of like point solutions. Like how do you -- what do you see there in the field? Like is it like crazy competitive or like I don't -- well, from our conversation with client, it sounded more like you were one or the upper and kind of in terms of the platform adoption.

Great question. So I joined IAS early 2019 having spent 20 years, you know this, in digital advertising, working at companies like Amazon and Microsoft. And I have to say when I joined, it was a 3-horse race, but that has quickly moved into a 2-horse race between us, and you know, you're very familiar with the other, with our main competitor. But one area that we're focusing on that is a strategic big bet for us is getting beyond verification, and creating new revenue streams for the company and also launching differentiated products. A good example of doing that is in connected TV. As you know, Raimo, I'd love to say it's first inning of a long game in CTV. And we made a strategic acquisition in August, shortly after going public, with a company called Publica, which is a leading CTV platform. And Publica brings so much to the table, unified ad action, video ad server, deep integrations with leading video platforms like Samsung, ViacomCBS, deep integrations with over 35 SSPs. And just can -- I cannot wait to launch some of the products that are on our road map to really benefit -- the benefit of both marketers and publishers in CTV.

Yes. And if you look like, how do you think this will play out for you? Are you going to leave that as a stand-alone product? Or does it get integrated to, going to make the IAS platform more powerful?

Great. Great question. So a recent -- something that we just launched hot off the press. We launched it 2 weeks ago in beta. So I personally spend a lot of time with marketers. Now I'm spending a lot of time with video publishers, with Ben Antier from Publica. And marketers, when you ask them, what's the #1 reason you won't move more budget from linear TV over to programmatic CTV? They want the same transparency of linear TV. They want to know where their ad run, which channel, which show, which creative, right? They don't get that in programmatic CTV today. All they get is device map. Well, we just launched a beta leveraging IAS' assets, Publica's assets, where we're now showing marketers here's where your ad is running in programmatic CTV device app but channel and show. I am convinced this is going to be disruptive for the CTV industry that we're able to provide this level of transparency. And I do think it will motivate marketers to shift more of their linear TV dollars into programmatic CTV.

Yes. So CTV, really nice, interesting opportunity for you and exciting to see. Like talk a little bit about the other platform expansion. So it's like TikTok, et cetera, that are all like there's just new platforms, and then they all kind of need to be monitored and worked on. Just what's the opportunity set there?

Sure. When you take a look at our core growth levers, programmatic, Context Control, we'll continue to invest there. Connected TV, sky's the limit. Right now, another is the social platforms, what I call cracking the code in live feeds of social platforms. It's another big ask for marketers that IAS launches brand safety, brand suitability solutions within the live feeds of the social platforms. And we recently launched a product. It's a brand safety prebid product within TikTok. We built the technology in-house where we're classifying image, audio, text, frame by frame so that marketers know that when they're running a Disney brand or a Nike brand adjacent to content within the live feed of TikTok that it's brand safe. We're running this product currently in the U.S., Germany and France. That's 3 languages, which technically is complicated, but we're getting it done with about 50 advertisers. And now we're looking forward to launching a postpaid solution for TikTok. Next up is Twitter after that. And then most recently, and I won't say Facebook, I'm going to say Meta. Meta announced about 2 weeks ago that they are going to open up their live news feed for brand suitability partners.

And the -- if you think about those new social platforms, like -- it does look like there's only really 2 players left in the market that are like very, very timely to kind of actually react and kind of get the work done there. Is that kind of something, and the next follow-up question here will be a little bit is like because the 2 of you kind of did your IPO like very similar, it was like then ends up like, oh, my God, they're going to fight like stupid, and now they have to kind of -- that you have to talk about one against the other. But it does feel like it's a much, much -- the market is very broad, and it's just 2 players. So you -- like both of them have like a really long runway here.

There's such a long runway. There's so much green space. There's so much opportunity in all of those areas that we've already covered. And even when you think about the live feed alone in social platforms, the massive amounts of volume, how dynamic, unpredictable user-generated content. And marketers, they only want to continue to move linear TV dollars over into the social platforms. They just want the confidence that those live feeds are brand safe and brand suitable for their brands. So I couldn't agree with you more, there's just tremendous opportunity in green space.

Yes. Okay. Perfect. And then the -- talk a little bit about the footprint you have U.S. versus international. Like where are other markets compared to the U.S. market adoption and where are you as a company in terms of kind of having exposure there.

Sure. Joe, you want to take the international question?

Please. Thank you. So as of Q3, we're about 64-36 Americas-Rest of World. Prior to our acquisition of Publica, we were about 60-40. Publica's business has been mainly focusing in the United States with a lot of opportunity to expand internationally. We've been establishing an EMEA and APAC market for 8-plus years now. And what we're seeing now is the larger global deals are being signed out of EMEA, Nestlé, Volkswagen and adidas. Those are key for us as we go into the expansion opportunities. And then overall, programmatically has been primarily U.S. adopted. And we're really starting to see an acceleration in both EMEA and APAC not only adopting programmatic investment but also our Context Control solution. And as Lisa called out in the emerging markets, we're seeing a lot of success with these regional agencies and the small brands and those divisions in these regional markets that are really opening up doors and success opportunities for us to win over the full parent account and have global exclusivity. So we've been really focused on our global footprint. It's been a very successful model for us, has been very embraced by our marketers. And I'm really excited about how Publica is going to really leverage our playbook now scaling internationally and what that's going to do for our business.

Yes. And as you think about like just switching here a little bit, like you mentioned global. And on global, we have a lot of like different pockets in terms of the pandemic like where it was like difficult and where it's not. Like what are you seeing there in terms of the pandemic, the impact on your clients but also the impact for you then?

No. Go ahead.

So I just -- the pandemic hit in waves with our business. First, APAC was late 2019 into early Q1 2020. And we saw EMEA really taking it on. For us, it was Q2 in the U.S. and North America. I know a pretty accelerated move out of it in the back half of 2020, and that's continued to drive our momentum into 2021. And you can see that in our Q3 year-to-date. So we do see some fits on the pandemic, and we still talk about it, but really no impact to date. It's really been a tailwind for our business as our advertisers have embraced our Context Control solutions and the avoidance side of it. And then on supply chain issues, I know that's a constant call out, but really haven't seen it in our business. Maybe like some onesies or twosies on some campaigns, but really no material impact.

Yes. Okay. Okay. And then the -- let's kind of move on a little bit. Like -- so Lisa, when you looked at this year, it was a very busy year in terms of like IPO, new functionalities, new integration, the Publica deal. If you look out for next year, like what's the -- what's exciting you there?

When I look out into next year, 2022, I see it as a year of execution, right? So the Publica acquisition, it's just so strategic and so game-changing. And it is very important, and we followed this success model with all of the acquisitions we've done. This is our third since joining IAS, where our winning formula is partner with the company before we acquire them so we can get under the hood, understanding the tech and product, the leadership team, everything, the quality of the engineers and then integration and making sure that the execution is flawless and it's meaningful for customers. So if I go back a bit with Context Control, that came out of our first acquisition of ADmantX, incredibly strategic, acquired the tech, the company, integrated the tech, had a viable product in market within 5 months. And it's driven so much of our programmatic growth. So 2022, I see execution. Execution, integration of Publica, that joint product road map and ensuring that we're executing in CTV flawlessly. Same thing with the live feed of social platforms, early innings there, too, get our postpaid live on TikTok, Twitter Live. Let's see what happens with Meta. My fingers are crossed there. But again, just flawless execution. And then the third area with international expansion is ensuring that especially there are -- there is a sizable number of tech platforms that are headquartered internationally that also could give us a stronger foothold in some international markets, give us greater access to inventory that could be very interesting for our marketer clients. And in addition to that, continue to hire pedal to the metal on hiring. We've really hit our stride despite what's going on in the recruiting space, but we've hit our stride in hiring the best and brightest across all functions. Q3 was our highest quarter in the last 2 years in terms of hiring, especially internationally. And we'll continue to hire into 2022.

And Lisa, the -- as you talk about hiring and throughout the day today, we talked a lot with other vendors as well about the tight labor market and attracting talent. How much has the IPO helps you there getting -- being a public company, people can see your success a lot more easily. And maybe take it a little bit broader and just hiring. Also, what have you seen in terms of customer conversations like now that you're a public company, has that changed? Has that made it easier for you? Or because the industry was so tight in it, it didn't make that much of a difference.

Yes. So I'll take the first part, the hiring. I think having the opportunity to share our story publicly for our candidates to learn more about our story, seeing our incredible growth, seeing the revenue numbers, it absolutely has been a magnet for talent. No doubt about it, especially at the senior engineering levels where we've made some a couple of really important hires to beef up our tech and product teams. So I couldn't agree more on the hiring front. And then conversations with marketers, they're excited for us. They're excited that IAS that we're a public company. I think it's a testament to the need, the broad need for digital media quality leader, ensuring and holding the tech platforms accountable to deliver media quality for marketers and publishers. And yes, our customers are just very, very excited for IAS and love joining us in this journey.

Yes. Okay. And then, Joe, if you think about like the product expansion, the new feeds coming through, et cetera, how does that kind of translate into model numbers in terms of NRR like in terms of like customer expanding with you, et cetera? Like is that -- does that become visible? And do you see that in the numbers?

Yes. Great question. And we are customer-obsessed. And it's a testament to the sales team, the customer success teams and the relationships that we've built. For top accounts, they're approaching over 7 years with us. And -- you see that lift in the NRR, 129 for Q3. And we look at anything over 120 as best-in-class. And a lot of that is being powered as we've been talking about the programmatic adoption and contextual control. And we'll definitely see that as we add and expand internationally as we -- across all of our pillars internationally deeper into programmatic, adding and targeting, going further into CTV and video, those social live news feeds and all of the innovation forefront. Our clients are consistently dialoguing with us about prioritization, road maps and products that they are looking to invest in to expand our product selection and then we jointly execute on that. And you saw that with our CTV acquisition of Publica.

And then maybe can you help us? It does seem like to translate into accelerating growth, which is great to see. Like can you talk a little bit about like the progression of revenue, revenue growth over the last few quarters?

Yes. So some of the comps were still going against the COVID-impacted quarters. But when you start to look at it, our business continues to perform double-digit growth across all of our revenue lines. Advertiser direct, that includes our open web and social platform business. More importantly, you see how the programmatic business, our revenue segment continues to scale and the percent attribution that we're seeing, calling out and defining the Context Control continues to climb quarter-over-quarter. For Q2, it was 30%; Q3, 36%. And that's really translating into high topline revenue growth you saw as well as a very efficient adjusted EBITDA margin.

Yes, yes. I mean, that's the one thing that's interesting is like the -- you're growing at a very strong clip, but you're also kind of very profitable like -- and on my math, I think I have you on the rule of 63 for this year, if I include guidance. Like I mean, how do you think about that growth versus margin dynamic?

Yes. Definitely some COVID effect, right, of mode and a lot of our marketing opportunities, our ability to service our clients being virtual, not physical. But we continue to call out. We have a very agile and scalable business model, and we're focused on that top line revenue growth and continued investment in product and technology driving that innovation for our advertisers. We're efficient and that rule of 63 definitely includes those COVID efficiencies. As we look to go back to office as we say, and really move into more of a normalized workforce, we definitely will factor that into our margin performance. And you saw we're really focused on hiring in Q3. We were very successful with our campaign bringing in 100 global hires, a significant amount internationally. And that's in addition to the Publica heads that joined us in the acquisition in August.

Yes, yes, yes. And then as you think about it, Lisa, you certainly sound very, very excited about like the opportunity ahead. Your job as a management team is to kind of scale and keep scaling the business and make sure you can kind of capture the opportunities there. Like if you think about next year and Joe, don't listen on -- we don't want guidance, but like what's the -- from your perspective, like what will be your main kind of focus point for next year as a management team?

Again, it goes back to execution. So we have a clearly defined strategic plan. I'm a big believer in identifying a few core priorities and going hard after those priorities and focusing on the stuff that is meaningful for our customers, in high demand for our customers and also are scalable and repeatable. And those areas I mentioned before: programmatic, social platforms, connected TV, international expansion, those are our 4 growth accelerators as a company. And we'll continue to double down in those areas.

And when you -- if you think about it and you have customer conversations like how are they reacting from an ROI perspective? Like the measurable kind of contribution you bring to them, like, can you help them kind of get even more comfortable with what you do? What initiatives do you have there?

Yes, great question. So a very popular product is our Total Visibility product. And what Total Visibility is, it provides supply path optimization, transparency within Google's DSP, Google DV360. So if I'm Nestlé, I invest $100,000 in DV360, we're able to provide visibility to Nestlé. Here's where your $100,000 is running, which SSPs, which are performing well, which are underperforming. And Nestlé is able to dial down the SSPs that are underperforming, dial-up the ones that are performing well. Again, it's a great example of how focused we are on avoiding media wastage, helping the Nestlés of the world drive up their ROI and giving them greater transparency into their investments.

Yes. I mean that kind of closes the circle from when we started the conversation earlier. So I kind of -- I think our time is up, so I kind of need to let you go now as well. But like, yes, it sounds really, really exciting. And I think I have the message CTV to pay attention here, and Publica will be really great. Okay. Lisa, Joe, great to have you on. Thanks and congratulations again to your successful IPO and great 2, first quarters as a public company.

Yes. Thank you so much, Raimo.

Thanks so much.

Thank you again for your time.

Thank you.

You bet. Bye.

Bye.