Q1 2025 Fluent Inc Earnings Call

In This Article:

Participants

Donald Patrick; Chief Executive Officer; Fluent Inc

Ryan Perfit; Interim Chief Financial Officer; Fluent Inc

Maria Ripps; Analyst; Canaccord

Patrick Sholl; Analyst; Barrington Research

Bill Dezellem; Analyst; Tieton Capital Management

Presentation

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome. Thank you for joining us to discuss Fluent's first quarter 2025 earnings results. With me today are Fluent's Chief Executive Officer, Don Patrick; and Chief Financial Officer, Ryan Perfit. Our call today will begin with comments from Don and Ryan Perfit, followed by a question-and-answer session.
I would like to remind you that this call is being webcast live and recorded. A replay of the event will be available following the call on Fluent's website. To access the website -- webcast, please visit the Investor Relations page at www.fluentco.com.
Before we begin, I would like to advise listeners that certain information discussed by management during this conference call will contain forward-looking statements covered under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any forward-looking statements made during this call speak only as of the date hereof. Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by such forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with the company's business. These statements may be identified by words such as expects, plans, projects, could, will, estimates and other words of similar meaning. The company undertakes no obligation to update the information provided on this call.
For a discussion of the risks and uncertainties associated with Fluent's business, we encourage you to review the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q.
During the call, management will also present certain non-GAAP financial information relating to media margin, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income. Management evaluates the financial performance of the company's business on a variety of indicators, including these non-GAAP metrics. The definitions of these metrics and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure are provided in the earnings press release issued earlier today.
With that, I'm pleased to introduce Fluent's CEO, Don Patrick.

Donald Patrick

Good afternoon. Thank you all for joining our call today. I'm here together with Ryan Schulke, our Chief Strategy Officer and Company Co-Founder; and Ryan Perfit, our Chief Financial Officer. I'm going to make some brief comments about our first quarter results that reflects our enthusiasm for the strategic pivot we are successfully orchestrating as we continue to shift our mix and influence long-term, higher gross margin growth strategies.
On the strategic front, our pivot to focus on growth opportunities around our Commerce Media Solutions is well underway. By leveraging our leadership position and competitive advantages of our owned and operated marketplaces as a springboard into new, high-volume, high-growth commerce media marketplaces, we are driving strong year-over-year growth in this segment. As of March 31, 2025, our Commerce Media business has surpassed an annual revenue run rate of over $65 million as we continue to expand our model and grow market share.
The effectiveness of our Commerce Media Solutions offering is further validated by the major brands that continue to join our roster of partners and advertisers. Last week, we announced a new strategic partnership with Rebuy Engine, a leading e-commerce personalization platform for Shopify brands. Rebuy is growing rapidly and provides unparalleled scale and insights for Shopify merchants, generating over $1 billion in revenue for 12,000-plus active e-commerce brands each year. Their expansive partner network and merchant-first approach aligns seamlessly with Fluent's mission to deliver high-impact commerce media solutions at scale. We view this as a win-win partnership that provides Fluent with access to a large and growing Shopify ecosystem as a new sales channel and represents another big step forward as we continue to lean into our growth strategy.
While our foundational owned and operating businesses represent strong brand equity we've built in the marketplace over the last decade, the strategic and financial role of these businesses have meaningfully evolved. Put simply, owned and operated provides the essential operational and capability platform that acts as a springboard for our marketplace expansion, and the cash flow in these businesses fuels our long-term growth strategies. However, our overall revenue mix continues to shift towards our rapidly growing Commerce Media Solutions, where our gross profit margins are accretive to the core. Going forward, our goal is to stabilize our owned and operated business as it becomes a lesser share of the total enterprise.
This quarter, owned and operated revenue was impacted by tightened supply in the social media channels, and we're working diligently to counter any longer-term impacts. Importantly, the owned and operated business remains a productive driver for our Commerce Media Solutions growth strategy and is foundationally linked to our momentum. Our owned and operated proprietary first-party data and embedded AI-powered technology is leveraged by our Commerce Media Solutions to create a competitive moat that allows us to establish mutually beneficial revenue share agreements and longer-term contracts with our commerce media partners.
As we scale Commerce Media Solutions, we're beginning to see the positive financial impact across the entire Fluent enterprise. And as we continue to enhance our market position and move beyond the seasonality-driven lower volume in the first half, we are confident that Fluent will return to year-over-year consolidated revenue growth and positive adjusted EBITDA.
In keeping with our long-term strategic growth plan, we expect this accelerating mix shift in our business will begin expanding our margins across the entire Fluent enterprise. Let me crystallize this for you. We are approaching 2025 with strategic clarity and momentum that is building in a transformative commerce media marketplace. We are confident that Fluent is well positioned with our Commerce Media Solutions strategy, where over the last 2 years, we have successfully proven that we can indefinitely enable and empower our commerce brand partners to participate in this large and rapidly growing marketplace that is still in its embryonic stage as the advertising channel.
According to Boston Consulting Group, the commerce media market is expected to grow to $100 billion in total size over the next 5 years and account for more than 25% of digital media spend by 2026. This is a very encouraging projection for the commerce media industry. And with our annual run rate currently exceeding $65 million, we are poised for significant additional growth.
As I mentioned earlier, following the close of the first quarter, we announced a strategic partnership with Rebuy Engine to launch Rebuy Ads powered by Fluent to offer post-purchase ads to merchants on the Shopify platform. To reiterate, Rebuy Engine generated $1 billion in revenue in 2024 for 12,000-plus active e-commerce brands. By combining post-transaction ads with Rebuy's e-commerce solutions for Shopify brands, we're significantly enhancing revenue precession for merchants on the Rebuy platform and gaining access to new audiences to Rebuy's extensive merchant network.
Rebuy Ads powered by Fluent will leverage Fluent's AI-powered advertising marketplace, extensive industry experience, and first-party customer database built over 14 years as the leader in customer acquisition to serve highly targeted ads to these merchant customers at the optimal post-purchase moment, creating additional buying opportunities and revenue. This partnership is a big step forward in our growth strategy as we prioritize commerce media in the Fluent ecosystem. Shopify is the most huge e-commerce platform in the United States, and thousands of merchants and brands are currently leveraging Rebuy Engine to optimize their revenue and operations. With the combined expertise of both companies, Rebuy Ads powered by Fluent is set to redefine how Shopify merchants engage with performance-driven advertising.
Overall, we're pleased with the progress that we have achieved in Q1. As you can see, Commerce Media Solutions revenue continues to become a larger portion of our overall revenue mix, growing to 23% of consolidated revenue in the first quarter of 2025 from 10% just a year ago. With our visibility today, we anticipate consolidated second quarter revenue will be consistent with first quarter of 2025, mainly due to reductions in owned and operated revenue related to reduced supply from the social media channels.
Additionally, we're currently navigating a market that's absorbing new cost pressure from international tariffs and broader retail inflation. These dynamics are creating industry uncertainty for many of our brand and retail partnerships. That said, we expect accelerated growth in the back half of the year, supported by triple-digit growth in Commerce Media Solutions. Fortunately, our owned and operated and commerce media marketplaces are built to drive results for partners and advertisers in these challenging macroeconomic environments.
Historically, our owned and operating marketplaces tend to improve margin and economic headwinds, as any potential pullback in advertisers' return on ad spend are usually more than offset by lower media costs, and our commerce media platform delivers attributable revenue in a margin-conscious environment. For many partners, we're the only upside revenue layer after the checkout.
We believe any decline in consumer behavior driven by tariffs and corresponding price increases will be offset by sales acceleration in the onboarding of new commerce partners trying to mitigate the impact of a down market. Put simply, when the market contracts related to reduced spending, this increases interest from commerce partners, therefore offsetting the potential loss in spending from advertisers. While there is still little visibility on the potential impact on the consumer and the economy, we believe we're in a strong position to deliver on our growth.
We remain bullish on our agenda and excited about the momentum we've generated as we continue to lean into the exciting and significant mega growth opportunity in the large and growing commerce media industry, where we can uniquely leverage the competitive advantages of our owned and operated marketplace. Importantly, we are expanding our strategic value proposition to world-class partners beyond customer acquisition and delivering higher-quality consumer engagements across the entire marketing funnel. And as our strategic trend line continues throughout 2025, we believe shareholder value will follow.
And with that, I'll turn the call over to Ryan Perfit to provide more detail on our financial results.