Tremor International Q3 2023 IR Newsletter
Hello Everyone,
We are pleased to share the Q3 2023 edition of the Tremor International IR Newsletter. Please note, all financial information related to Tremor International (and its Nexxen-branded Ad Tech platform and products) in this newsletter refers to results generated and disclosed through our Q2 and H1 2023 earnings release. Q2 and H1 2023 results include the combined results of Tremor International and Amobee, while Q2 and H1 2022 results do not include Amobee.
During Q3 2023, we continued to build on successes and milestones achieved in H1 2023, announcing several new partnerships and achieving further momentum across our unified suite of Ad Tech solutions as well as increased adoption of our newly developed products and capabilities by major industry players following the completed integration of Amobee.
In August, Nexxen (the recently rebranded name of Tremor International’s unified data-driven suite of advertising technology solutions) announced a partnership with H/L, a renowned multiservice and independent agency. H/L expanded its product adoption beyond solely the Nexxen DSP following its successful collaboration with the tool, adding several additional solutions including Nexxen Discovery (a data insights tool designed to enhance audience knowledge, targeting and planning efficiency), global exclusive automatic content recognition (“ACR”) data through our relationship with VIDAA (Hisense’s main CTV operating system), premium supply through the Nexxen SSP and our cross-channel planning technology. The partnership empowers local and national advertisers to operate campaigns across digital and linear environments to reach regional audiences, bridging the gap between CTV and linear for advertisers at the local level. By embracing the full breadth of Nexxen’s platform, H/L and its clients have successfully deployed cross-channel, end-to-end campaigns, elevating regional business growth and improving local measurement. Through Nexxen, H/L has enabled its clients to analyze, plan, activate, measure and reinvest their marketing spend across linear TV and CTV seamlessly through one holistic solution, helping advertisers solve local video fragmentation. As a result, H/L is driving greater efficiency and savings for advertisers, eliminating fees associated with working with multiple third-party entities. As our rebrand and newly developed products continue to gain traction in the market, we anticipate being able to generate more success stories like we have with H/L, where partners expand adoption beyond a single product to leverage multiple technology and data solutions to take full advantage of our holistic ecosystem.
Nexxen also announced a partnership with Lumen Research, a global attention technology company, and TVision, the leading solution for CTV and linear TV attention measurement, to deliver the first omnichannel Attention Measurement solution to advertisers across CTV, online video (“OLV”) and display. The global partnership augments the launch of Nexxen’s full Attention Measurement offering, which spans the lifecycle of an advertiser’s campaign, from creative testing to media curation to real-time measurement and optimization, all through Nexxen’s end-to-end platform. By leveraging all elements of the offering, advertisers can plan against, activate on and optimize for consumer attention across screens, including CTV. Nexxen’s holistic Attention Measurement offering encompasses three main elements: pre-campaign planning via active attention analysis and creative optimization, provided by in-house creative agency Nexxen Studio; activation via Lumen’s Attentive Private Marketplaces (“aPMPs”), delivered for the first time by Nexxen on CTV, and measurement and reporting powered by TVision data and the Lumen Attention Measurement Dashboard. Nexxen Studio’s proprietary creative testing and optimization services set client creatives up for success from the onset of campaign planning. By leveraging AI facial coding technology, the studio’s Active Attention measurement enables brands to identify, frame by frame, the attention-driving elements in creative assets. Using Lumen’s aPMPs, Nexxen further empowers clients to run their optimized creative across high-attention supply. These comprehensive PMPs for OLV and display are made up of premium inventory known for capturing and retaining viewer attention; for CTV, these exclusive PMPs are curated using Nexxen premium supply, all of which can be seamlessly activated through Nexxen’s demand-side platform to drive better results for brands. By predicting the likelihood that an ad will be seen at the impression level, the CTV aPMP solution allows advertisers to purchase media that drives the most attention and allows for transparent, omnichannel attribution for digital environments across click-through, view rate, video completion rate and conversion rate, offering a set of attention metrics that can inform and optimize media buying in the future thanks to a deep integration with TVision’s CTV dataset.
More recently, we also shared strong momentum and early adoption of our cross-platform planning technology amongst major broadcasters such as A+E Networks, FOX Corp and TelevisaUnivision. We also announced the addition of a first-of-its-kind Auto Budget Allocation feature within the cross-platform planner which facilitates budget fluidity across linear and CTV, and within a broadcaster’s portfolio, through a single step, to achieve maximum media efficiency across a broadcaster’s entire footprint. As a reminder, we were able to create this first-to-market cross-platform planning technology as a direct byproduct of the acquisition and integration of Amobee. Being able to assist broadcasters, advertisers and agencies in cross-screen planning is a critical capability which we believe positions us strongly as advertisers in the U.S. approach $100 billion in annual spending across combined linear TV and CTV in the coming years. We believe that linear TV and CTV are converging, and as linear TV advertisers seek to expand into CTV to reach incremental audiences, the cross-screen planner positions us to not only accelerate our CTV opportunity, but to also drive significant multi-enterprise-technology-solution deals with major broadcasters and agencies that have massive budgets, which can help propel our future growth.
In Q3 2023, we also released our Q2 and H1 2023 results, highlighted by strong programmatic and CTV revenue growth, as well as a significant rebound in Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA Margin compared to Q1 2023.
Key highlights and achievements from Q2 and H1 2023:
- Completed the technology integration of Amobee, creating one of the most comprehensive unified data-driven CTV and video-focused Ad Tech platforms on the open internet, while realizing our total annualized operating cost synergy target of $65 million by the end of Q2 2023, in line with expectations.
- Rebranded our major products and platforms as Nexxen, successfully generating significant momentum and positive response from customers, partners, and prospective customers.
- Launched and incorporated new products and partnerships including first-to-market self-service cross-planning technology, Nexxen Discovery, and first-to-market Green Media Product (“GMP”) for CTV via global partnership with Scope3.
- Generated $76.3 million in Programmatic revenue in Q2 2023 (+26% year-over-year) and $138.8 million in H1 2023 (+16% year-over-year).
- Generated $24.7 million in CTV revenue in Q2 2023 (+5% year-over-year) and $45.9 million in H1 2023 (+17% year-over-year).
- Significantly expanded Programmatic revenue to 91% of revenue in Q2 2023 (from 80% in Q2 2022) and 89% in H1 2023 (from 76% in H1 2022).
- Generated $80.3 million in Contribution ex-TAC in Q2 2023 (+13% year-over-year) and $147.1 million in H1 2023 (+4% year-over-year).
- Generated $21.0 million in Adjusted EBITDA in Q2 2023, up 137% from $8.9 million in Q1 2023
- Doubled Adjusted EBITDA Margin (as a percentage of Contribution ex-TAC) to 26% in Q2 2023 vs. 13% in Q1 2023.
- Added 65 new actively spending first-time advertiser customers in Q2 2023, and 110 in H1 2023, as well as 112 new supply partners in Q2 2023, and 174 in H1 2023, while retaining the overwhelming majority of major customers.
- Maintained a strong net cash balance of $94.2 million as of 06/30/2023 (while also leaving $80 million undrawn on our revolving credit facility).
As discussed in our latest earnings release, macro conditions have remained challenging and uncertain, which has limited advertisers’ and agencies’ budgets and near-term willingness to spend and adopt new products and platforms. While this has impacted our recent financial results, as well as our outlook for the remainder of 2023 (as we indicated in our Q2 and H1 2023 earnings release), we have so many reasons to be excited and are confident that we are extremely well-positioned from a technology and data perspective to take a leadership position in the future TV advertising ecosystem. Strengthened by the completed integration of Amobee, we feel we possess one of the most comprehensive and scaled unified horizontal Ad Tech platforms purpose-built to help advertisers, agencies, CTV publishers and linear broadcasters leverage unique and significant data to exceed their goals and achieve more favorable CTV and video advertising outcomes. With the ability to holistically serve the buy- and sell-sides of the advertising ecosystem through a multitude of differentiated technology, planning and data solutions across all major formats (including CTV and linear TV), we feel we’re poised to capitalize on a significant and growing market opportunity through both expanded relationships with current customers, and new customers seeking our unique capabilities to enhance their advertising efforts. We believe as our rebrand and new solutions continue to gain traction in the market, macroeconomic uncertainty abates and advertisers’ appetites to spend increases, that the breadth of our platform will enable us to drive larger enterprise deals, and to serve as a “first call” for partners seeking to optimize their efficiency, effectiveness, and returns. We also recently announced our intent to initiate a new $20 million Ordinary share repurchase program once we receive Israeli court approval (as is required by an Israeli-headquartered Company such as ours), to take advantage of what we believe is a discounted valuation opportunity in our shares. This impending repurchase program follows two recently completed share repurchase programs in which we invested a combined $95 million in Ordinary shares (acquiring ~13% of shares outstanding) from March 2022 – March 2023, underscoring our focus on shareholder-friendly capital allocation initiatives. We remain optimistic about our growth prospects and believe our unified platform strategy, major partnerships and relationships across the industry, CTV expertise, and differentiated and robust capabilities position us strongly for future success, and to generate long-term value for our customers, partners and shareholders.
We hope you find this newsletter helpful and, as always, if you have any questions, any feedback or if you’re interested in connecting with the investor relations team or management, please reach out to ir@tremorinternational.com or ir@nexxen.com.
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This newsletter can be accessed on our investor relations website at investors.tremorinternational.com and interested parties can learn more about our new unified brand at www.nexxen.com.
Thank you!
Tremor International Investor Relations
Tremor International Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Webcast
Our Rebrand Reflects Disintermediation Trends: Nexxen’s Kara Puccinelli
Nexxen's Steve Broadhead on the Opportunities of CTV
Nexxen - The Ultimate Ad Tech Roll-Up (Interview with Chief Strategy Officer Ken Suh)
Capturing Your Consumer’s Attention on CTV (Webinar with Nexxen & Lumen)
Tremor International Reports Results for the Three and Six Months Ended June 30, 2023
Nexxen’s Cross-Platform Planner Gains Momentum as CTV Revenue Climbs
Tremor International Intends to File a Motion with Israeli Court Seeking Authorisation for New Share Repurchase Program (Up to $20 Million Ordinary Shares)
Nexxen and H/L Bridge Linear-to-Digital Gap for Local Advertisers
Nexxen Partners with Lumen and TVision to Deliver Its First High Attention CTV Solution, Complementing the Launch of Nexxen’s Pre- to Post-Campaign Attention Measurement Offering
Ad Overexposure on Streaming Networks Shown to be a Detriment to Both Brands and Streaming Platforms (MAGNA Media Trials and Nexxen partnered to study the aftereffects of repetitive ads on viewers, brands and the streaming platforms that run them)
Attention Please! The Power of Pre-Testing Campaigns
Nexxen Selected as Finalist for Best Programmatic DSP and Best Programmatic SSP in Digiday’s 2023 Technology Awards
Nexxen Selected as Finalist for Best DSP and Best SSP in Cynopsis’ Best of the Best 2023 Awards
Nexxen DSP Platform Enhancements
During Q3 2023, we made several enhancements to our DSP platform as we continue to improve the user experience, workflows, and pricing efficiencies for our customers.
- DSP UX enhancements include a new look featuring dark navy and mint green colors to match our new company color scheme. We also refreshed the login screen with new Nexxen branding and renamed platforms to align with our new brand architecture.
- Launched impression pacing multiplier to allow consumers to front load line items to reach impression goals to ensure delivery against their impression targets.
- Updated our ghost bidding capabilities to now include experiments at the household level for even more accurate results. Ghost bidding allows advertisers to understand if a campaign influenced a user to perform an action (i.e., click, purchase an item) by comparing results between exposed and control groups and can serve as a guide when allocating campaign budgets for the highest ROI.
- Launched adjusted impressions, which allows select Managed Service DSP users to add extra impressions to a campaign to avoid reporting discrepancies with third-party reporting vendors due to errors (i.e., duplicates).
Driving Incremental Value for Customers Through Data and Supply Curation
We invested heavily in bringing together our data and supply assets to provide our clients with more compelling portfolio options that meet their business challenges. Additionally, we bolstered our TV Intelligence solution, rolled out a new Attention offering and launched a CTV display solution in the US and Canada through our partnership with VIDAA.
- Syndicated Audience Segments and Nexxen Discovery Audiences directly from Nexxen DMP to Nexxen SSP, which allows advertisers using third-party DSPs to overlay segments on Nexxen PMP deals.
- Launched pre-defined Diversity and Inclusion Audience Segments, which allow advertisers to reach select minority consumers in a privacy-compliant manner by tapping into their online engagement and content consumption.
- Bolstered our TV Intelligence solution for clients via the following:
- Integrated Peerlogix data into Nexxen Discovery and our TV viewership audience-blended TV data. This nationally representative streaming media data enables scalable activation for national and regional campaigns and extensive audience customization.
- Updated our Ad Airings dashboard which now allows advertisers to view reports, campaign performance and viewership data.
- Launched reporting capabilities for buyers who are running PMPs via third-party DSPs to validate their TV retargeting campaigns. This provides more flexibility for our customers to activate and measure through whichever channel they desire.
- Rolled out our global Attention Measurement offering, which features a first-to-market measurement and deal curation solution for CTV through our strategic partnership with Lumen and provides flexible options for advertisers throughout the campaign lifecycle.
- Launched our VIDAA Smart TV native display offering in the US and Canada, which gives advertisers access to native display placements on VIDAA’s launcher screen. This offering helps solidify our position as leaders in the CTV space, bolsters our partnership with VIDAA and drives greater efficiency for our clients.
Nexxen SSP & Ad Server Enhancements
In Q3 2023, there were a variety of enhancements made to both the SSP and the Ad Server, including expanding customer education efforts across the CTRL platform with the addition of Ad Server information to the in-platform Help Center. Further, new and unique features were released that unlock expanded monetization capabilities.
- An expansion to our in-platform Help Center within Nexxen CTRL was launched to provide Ad Server publishers with information on "What's New," the latest feature releases and platform updates and sections for FAQs, getting started, how-to articles, report overviews and a glossary.
- The Ad Server was also enhanced with a user warning that will alert publishers when deleting an object that has any dependencies. This will give users greater clarity into how actions will affect revenue.
- Enhancements to SSP Deals Summary included the addition of Hourly Intervals and Deal Configuration Type. Both features allow for greater granularity of data included in the Deals Summary Report, including reports broken down by hourly intervals and the ability to "Filter" or "Group By" the Deal Configuration type. These enhancements provide greater ease of use as well as greater insights to evaluate campaigns.
- Supply Allocation for Deals is a unique feature that allows for multiple inventory packages to be included in one deal. Now, publishers who have multiple properties will be able to create an inventory package for each and set the allocation of those packages to be used in a deal. This feature can also be used in other ways by single property publishers who can create deals, including packages by device type. This allows for more optimal monetization by improving the curation of supply for the buy-side. Publishers can also easily sync these deals with DV360.
Nexxen TV Planning Enhancements
During the third quarter, we continued to refine and enhance our U.S. TV Planning tools by expanding the planning capabilities to reflect the ongoing linear to digital TV viewing shifts, improving reporting and streamlining workflows for our customers. Several larger releases occurred in our cross-platform (“XP”) planner including Budget Auto Allocation which derives the linear/digital budget split in one easy-to-use, automated action.
Linear TV Planner:
- Additional enhancements were made to Linear Planner error messaging for proposal failures, which include information regarding broadcast weeks and non-integer unit allocation. This will improve user workflows.
- In addition, post reports were enhanced to automatically include frequency data, which will make it easier for broadcasters to evaluate campaigns.
- Linear proposal outputs, pacing reports and post reports changed the ‘A’ for Adult to a ‘P’ for Persons/People to ensure a more cohesive nomenclature across the platform for better ease of use.
XP TV Planner:
- The XP Platform saw a multitude of workflow enhancements, including providing additional linear constraints that bring the XP workflow to parity with the Linear workflow. Some of the added constraints include Buy Demo CPM Maximums and Minimums, Strategic Target Goal CPMs and Numbers of Networks Maximums and Minimums. These added enhancements give broadcasters more clarity in reporting and better ability to evaluate campaigns.
- With the release of Multiple XP Campaign Configurations, broadcasters are now able to create multiple campaigns for one XP plan. To make this easier, it is now possible to use the copy campaign function if the user is using the same proposal information. This will allow for faster campaign configuration and make it much easier for users to copy from one campaign to the next.
- Budget Auto Allocation introduces the ability to determine the reach-optimal budget split in one step. The platform takes in total budget, business rules and constraints, and then automatically determines the ideal budget split across linear and digital based on client campaign and inventory configuration. This will make it faster and easier to put together media plans or multiple ‘what-if’ scenarios.
- On-going work continued this quarter to bring cross-screen planning to advertisers.
The Hollywood Reporter - Why Streaming Services Are Pushing Subscribers to Ad Tiers
Ad Exchanger - How Nexxen Is Lowering The Walls Between Linear And Streaming
The Washington Post – Make it Stop! How to Handle that One Streaming Ad Playing On Repeat
Beet TV - Ad Overexposure on Connected TV Harms Brands & Streaming Platforms: Magna’s Kara Manatt
AdNews - Nexxen expands FAST channel offering for advertisers across APAC
Next TV - Nexxen Says Networks Are Adopting Its Cross-Platform Planner
MediaPost - Nexxen Partners With Lumen On Omnichannel Attention Measurement
Next TV - Nexxen Adds Lumen Attention Metrics For CTV To Platform
Digiday - Media Buying Briefing: Here’s How Independent Agencies are Using Marketing Mix Modeling
Digiday - Ad Overexposure on CTV Hurts Streamers as Much as Brands
MediaPost - Magna: Excessive Streaming Ad Frequency Damages Purchase Intent
MediaPost - The Fallout From Repetitive Ads Is Worse Than You Think
This IR Newsletter contains forward-looking statements, including forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements are identified by words such as “anticipates,” “believes,” “expects,” “intends,” “may,” “can,” “will,” “estimates,” and other similar expressions. However, these words are not the only way Tremor International, or any of its affiliates, identifies forward-looking statements. All statements contained in this IR Newsletter that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees but involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause Tremor's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from its expectations expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Tremor cautions you not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. For a more detailed discussion of these factors, and other factors that could cause actual results to vary materially, interested parties should review the risk factors listed in Tremor’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov) on March 7, 2023. Any forward-looking statements made by Tremor in this IR Newsletter speak only as of the date of this IR Newsletter, and Tremor does not intend to update these forward-looking statements after the date of this IR Newsletter, except as required by law.
Tremor, and the Tremor logo are trademarks of Tremor International Ltd. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word “partner” or “partnership” in this IR Newsletter does not mean a legal partner or legal partnership.