DoubleVerify (DV) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript

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DATE

Wednesday, May 6, 2026, at 4:30 p.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Chief Executive Officer — Mark Zagorski
• Chief Financial Officer — Nicola Allais

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TAKEAWAYS

• Total Revenue -- $181 million, reflecting 10% year-over-year growth led by higher social verification and optimization demand.
• EBITDA Margin -- 31% in the quarter, up from 27% in the prior year, attributed to AI-enabled operational efficiencies.
• Social Measurement Revenue -- Grew by 23%, driven by continued success on Meta and acceleration relative to the prior quarter.
• Social Activation Revenue -- Increased 92% year over year, up from 62% in Q4, with scaling across Meta Platforms, Alphabet’s YouTube (Authentic Advantage), and ByteDance’s TikTok.
• Measurement Revenue -- Up 16%, with international measurement revenue rising 18% and comprising 27% of this segment.
• Active Clients—Meta Activation -- 87 advertisers have used Meta activation (up from 68 in Q4), with an annualized run rate of $12 million.
• Authentic Advantage on YouTube -- On track to deliver $10 million in expected ACV for 2026, up from $8 million last quarter.
• CTV Measurement Impressions -- Grew by 28%, reflecting greater product adoption by large advertisers and demand for streaming transparency.
• ABS Utilization -- Over 75% of the top 500 clients used ABS, which represented 53% of activation revenue.
• Supply-Side Revenue -- Accounted for 10% of total revenue, increasing 12% year over year.
• AI Slop Stopper Coverage -- Measurement now applied to over 40% of measured impressions; pre-bid solution is being piloted by six major advertisers.
• Bot Scheme Threats -- 140% more AI-powered bot scheme variants emerged compared to the prior year, and over 1,300 fraudulent apps were identified since January.
• Share Repurchases -- Year-to-date repurchases total 9.8 million shares for $100 million, including 7.3 million shares ($75 million) repurchased in Q1.
• Cash Position and Debt -- Ended the period with $174 million in cash and no long-term debt.
• Expenses -- Product development, sales and marketing, and G&A rose 2% compared to 10% revenue growth, evidencing productivity gains from AI capabilities.
• Stock-Based Compensation -- $24 million in Q1, flat to prior year, with full-year guidance of $102 million to $107 million (over 40% reduction vs. 2025 grants).
• Revenue Guidance—Q2 2026 -- Projected $199 million to $205 million, implying 7% growth at the midpoint and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 32%.
• Full-Year 2026 Guidance -- Revenue expected between $810 million and $826 million (8%–10% growth), with a 34% adjusted EBITDA margin.
• Free Cash Flow Conversion -- Anticipated at approximately 60% for the year.
• Greenfield Win Ratio -- 77% in the quarter, reflecting new wins in non-competitive solution areas.
• MRC Accreditation -- Achieved for TikTok video viewability, marking a first among measurement vendors.
• Spectrum Reach Partnership -- Announced as first to join Certified Transparent Streaming program, providing direct show-level data within DV reporting.
• Top Advertiser Revenue Mix -- Over 340 advertisers now contribute in excess of $200,000 annually; average revenue per top 100 advertiser continues to increase.

SUMMARY

Management reiterated full-year guidance, emphasizing confidence in expanding social, streaming, and AI product lines. The company detailed strategic focus on agentic ad buying and LLM advertising, targeting new channels outside historic core markets. Internal use of AI in development is enabling "roughly 40% faster" product creation while maintaining headcount efficiency. AI-driven fraud threats have accelerated, with the company using proprietary tools—such as Slop Stopper—to combat advanced bot variants and app-based fraud at record scales. Shareholder returns were prioritized by repurchasing about 6% of outstanding shares since fiscal year-end 2025.

• CEO Zagorski said, "We work with over 340 advertisers now generating more than $200,000 annually, and our unique solutions underscored a 77% greenfield win ratio in Q1."
• CFO Allais stated, "Total expenses for product development, sales and marketing, and G&A increased 2% as compared to 10% revenue growth."
• CEO Zagorski stated, "Slop Stopper is now being applied on the measurement side to about 40% of all of our impressions, one of the fastest scaling attach rates we have seen."

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• ABS: Activation Bid Strategy—a pre-bid optimization feature controlling ad placement for brand safety and suitability across digital platforms.
• Slop Stopper: AI-powered tool designed to block advertiser placements alongside low-quality or undesirable AI-generated content, enhancing brand safety.
• Greenfield Win Ratio: The proportion of new contracts won in areas where no competitive incumbent offers a similar solution.
• MTM: Measured Transactional Media—volume metric reflecting media buying/activation measured by DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc.
• MTF: Measured Transactional Fees—average fees earned per measured media activation or transaction.
• LLM: Large Language Model—AI platforms that can be used to deliver ad-supported, chatbot-like user experiences.
• MRC: Media Rating Council—an independent industry accreditation body providing verification standards for digital ad measurement providers.
• CPG: Consumer Packaged Goods—industry vertical selling low-cost, frequently purchased consumer products.
• ARPU: Average Revenue Per User or advertiser.
• DSP: Demand-Side Platform—automated system enabling buyers to programmatically purchase digital advertising inventory.
• ACV: Annual Contract Value—the expected annualized revenue from a contractual agreement for a product or solution.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Mark Zagorski: Thanks, Brinlea, and good afternoon, everyone. We delivered strong Q1 results as we continued our solid execution on our product innovation, strategic, and financial road maps. In Q1, we achieved 10% year-over-year revenue growth, led by accelerating growth of our social verification and optimization solutions, and we delivered a 31% EBITDA margin, which exceeded expectations largely due to AI-fueled operational efficiency. Advertiser growth was positive across all key industry verticals in the quarter, as we continue to benefit from our focus on further diversification of customer engagements and ad spend across various client types.

We also repurchased $100 million worth of shares year to date, reflecting confidence in our business and our commitment to returning capital to shareholders as a core element of our long-term value creation strategy. We expect to deliver a strong 2026 as we successfully execute on our strategic plan to verify the quality, optimize the investment, and prove the impact of digital ad impressions across any platform, media, or market where advertisers spend. The solid results this quarter were fueled by our core growth catalysts: social activation and measurement products, streaming TV verification, and our dynamic suite of solutions that empower advertisers to better navigate the evolving ecosystem of AI advertising platforms and GenAI content.

Across all of these sectors, our incredibly durable value proposition remains tantamount. DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. is the independent, essential trust layer that marketers rely on to ensure their ad spend is protected from fraud, in unsuitable context, and, most importantly, delivers the highest possible return on investment. And this essential role in the ecosystem continues to expand as new product innovations power our growth flywheel. Let me share a few recent stats that underscore the impact of these investments. Driven by continued success on Meta, social measurement grew 23% year over year, a significant acceleration from Q4. Social activation, our fastest growing solution set, grew 92% year over year in Q1, up from 62% in the fourth quarter.

Authentic Advantage on YouTube, which combines Scibids AI optimization with pre-bid filtering and post-bid measurement, launched in Q3 last year and is also expanding rapidly. It is now on track to deliver $10 million of expected ACV in 2026. CTV measurement impression volumes also grew, up 28% in the quarter, and our ABS-enabled streaming TV pre-bid Do Not Air list entered general availability in January, with three top-15 customers representing hundreds of millions in CTV spend implementing these DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc.-only streaming TV controls. DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. continues to break new ground in the drive towards greater transparency in streaming TV. AI measurement tools like Slop Stopper, now available on YouTube, and AI Agent ID are showing meaningful engagement rates.

Our AI Slop Stopper measurement solution for mobile and online video and display is already applied to over 40% of measured impressions, and the pre-bid tool is being tested by six of our largest advertisers. Our midterm goal remains to increase the contribution of social, streaming TV, and AI-driven solutions from under 30% of total revenue today to approximately 50%. As we drive this evolution, our mobile and online video and display business remained stable in Q1, with approximately two thirds of impressions that we engage with delivered on mobile, in-app, and mobile web environments. We remain focused on creating a revenue mix that closely aligns with the fastest growing global digital ad sectors.

DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. continues to drive new revenue opportunities, distance ourselves from competition, and create meaningful margin expansion through AI efficiencies and product innovation. AI solutions, social activation tools, and streaming TV quality solutions are positively impacting our customers’ ad performance and building a foundation for TAM and market share expansion for DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. Shifting focus to the role that AI is playing in the ongoing expansion of our product-led growth cycle, we continue to lean into AI to operate more efficiently, launch products faster, and improve margins. And as the emerging AI advertising universe evolves, it is creating new revenue opportunities that expand our TAM as we extend our essential role in this burgeoning environment.

Regarding this new environment, we have identified three main areas where DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. has the largest AI growth opportunities and which we are already seeing traction with customers. First, the agentic buying and selling of media: we are building new products, connecting with, and leading the development of numerous protocols that will help advertisers lean into AI-based buying. Second, we are empowering advertisers to navigate the dynamic AI-impacted advertising landscape as AI cyber fraud and AI content slop become prolific. And third, we are digging into the massive potential ad market on LLM chatbots where many of our current advertisers are beginning to deploy their marketing dollars, yet have had little in the way of transparency and independent measurement.

Let me talk briefly about each one of these opportunities. First, we are focused on establishing security and trust in the agentic advertising ecosystem. Trust has always been essential in our industry, and we recently joined the Ad Context Protocol (AdCP), a coalition of ad tech companies established by Agentic Advertising Organization to define standards for ad buying and selling by AI agents. According to eMarketer, about two thirds of ad buyers plan to focus more time on agentic ad buying this year.

While in early days, we are actively engaged to make sure DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. is at the forefront of establishing standards that will continue to preserve trust and transparency for its advertisers wherever they choose to deploy their advertising. As with all of our engagements, we remain independent and agnostic, and the way we operate in the agentic advertising world will be the same, with the ability to plug into any agentic protocol, from the IAB framework to platform-specific systems that are important to our customers. Second, we are expanding tools to protect ad investments from AI-fueled challenges.

We continue to enhance our market-leading suite of AI tools that combat the increasing challenges of navigating AI slop and avoiding AI cyber fraud. With the launch of DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. AI Slop Stopper for social, we have expanded our capability for advertisers to avoid low-quality AI-generated content on YouTube and will broaden our coverage to other walled gardens in the coming quarters. Fueled by malicious AI, cyber fraud continues to become more sophisticated, threatening to challenge the ROI and efficiency gains driven by the positive use of AI. In Q1 2026, DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc.’s fraud lab continued to harness AI to fight fraud as AI-powered fraud schemes proliferated at a record pace and became even more sophisticated.

AI-powered bot schemes continue to evolve faster than ever, with 140% more bot scheme variants emerging in Q1 2026 compared to Q1 2025. In parallel, app-based fraud continues to accelerate dramatically, especially across mobile and CTV, where we have classified over 1,300 apps as fraudulent since the beginning of 2026. Finally, we are focused on capitalizing on the massive potential ad market that AI chatbot marketing will represent. According to eMarketer, ad spend on LLMs is forecast to grow by over $25 billion by 2029, with ad spend expected to cannibalize over 14% of search spend, a roughly $400 billion market that DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. has historically not been able to access.

OpenAI recently shared that they could generate $100 billion in advertising revenue by 2030, underscoring how the market may be moving even more rapidly than analysts are predicting. As has been the case for the open web, mobile, streaming, and social environments, unbiased independent measurement will play a key role in engendering the advertiser trust needed for this new ecosystem to thrive. While AI platform ad models continue to evolve, advertiser demands remain the same: ensuring ad transactions are trusted and transparent, and ads are viewable, brand suitable, and delivered to legitimate traffic within authentic content environments.

Our enterprise customers and agency partners have made it clear to us that expanding beyond test budgets in AI environments will require even greater transparency and trust than is present today. We are confident that, as we have shown on social and streaming platforms, our role as an essential trust layer will extend to this new ecosystem, and we are engaged in discussions with several LLMs that are leaning into ad-supported models. As AI drives digital advertising to become more automated, agentic, and opaque, and as AI slop becomes the must-avoid content category for advertisers, the need for independent verification, protection, and performance measurement has never been greater.

Regardless of platform, buying mode, or message, DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. will be an integral, trusted part of the ad equation. Moving to social verification, the social sector remains our fastest growing business segment and is a core driver of our next phase of growth. No other verification or measurement provider has more innovative solutions for advertisers seeking to protect their spend on social platforms and ensure it performs. Social activation accelerated meaningfully to over 90% year-over-year growth in the first quarter, up from around 60% growth in Q4. This acceleration was driven by continued scaling of our social pre-bid solutions, elevated by enhanced product capabilities on Meta as well as expanded capabilities across TikTok and YouTube.

Eighty-seven advertisers have now utilized Meta activation since launch, up from 68 in the fourth quarter, with 31 of these customers coming from our top 100 clients. As of the end of the first quarter, our Meta activation product was already at a $12 million annualized run rate. On YouTube, DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. Authentic Advantage has seen strong customer adoption. Some of our largest CPG customers have started scaling on the solution, driven by the significant ROI improvements that it delivers. Through the combination of Scibids’ AI optimization with social pre-bid filtering and post-bid measurement, DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc.

Authentic Advantage customers have seen their media CPMs decline by as much as 36%, while reach has expanded by 64%, and brand suitability integrity remains strong. As with our Meta pre-bid solution, we are just starting to scratch the surface with the impact that Authentic Advantage can have on our customers’ business and our growth profile, and we are excited about the significant opportunities ahead for both products. As mentioned previously, our social suite of tools is ramping, and we recently announced the expansion of DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. AI to include DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. AI Slop Stopper for social.

This new industry-leading offering is designed to help advertisers navigate the growing challenges posed by low-quality, AI-generated content and safeguard brand reputation across social and video-centric environments, starting with YouTube. DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. AI Slop Stopper for social is another tool that empowers advertisers to ensure their brand and business are protected wherever they spend while driving stronger media outcomes. Additionally, in the quarter, we expanded brand suitability coverage across Snapchat’s Discover feed format, enabling our advertisers to have complete coverage across Snap Discover Tiles placements. And we recently announced that we achieved Media Rating Council, or MRC, accreditation for TikTok video viewability, becoming the first measurement vendor to receive the accreditation.

As advertising investment continues to grow across video-centric social platforms like TikTok, independent verification plays a critical role in ensuring transparency and accountability. With accredited measurement informed by tens of trillions of historical ad transactions, advertisers can now evaluate campaign effectiveness with greater confidence and ensure their media investments deliver real value. This milestone underscores our commitment to delivering the highest standards of measurement accuracy and transparency and further demonstrates the company’s alignment with the MRC accreditation process as a critical layer of accountability in digital advertising. Turning to streaming TV, we continue to deliver product innovation to address advertiser demand for independent transparency and increasing fraud in streaming environments.

Our continued product innovations helped grow CTV measurement volume by 28% year over year this quarter. We have already begun to see solid adoption of ABS Do Not Air Lists from eight of our largest advertisers as well as strong interest in our Authentic Streaming TV solution. In this quarter, we announced that Spectrum Reach became the first partner to join DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc.’s Certified Transparent Streaming program, reinforcing its commitment to secure program-level transparency across streaming TV inventory. Spectrum Reach will share key show-level data across their programming, including news and live sports, spanning both direct IO and programmatic buys. These insights will be available directly within DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc.

Authentic Streaming TV reporting, giving advertisers verified post-bid visibility into the specific programs their ads ran alongside. By combining real, not implied or aggregated, show-level transparency in a privacy-focused way with DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc.’s performance analytics and optimization capabilities, advertisers can now better understand how contextual relevance drives outcomes and make smarter decisions to optimize future streaming investments. This is just the start of our drive to deliver granular, unaggregated, show-level transparency across all streaming environments, and we are seeing momentum from additional platforms to join our Certified Transparent Streaming program. The results of our innovation leadership are clear. We are growing client engagements and winning deals with new solutions where there are no competitors.

We work with over 340 advertisers now generating more than $200,000 annually, and our unique solutions underscored a 77% greenfield win ratio in Q1, meaning that we are winning deals with solutions in new areas in which there are no competitive incumbents to displace. Investment and innovation continue to be DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc.’s secret sauce to get stickier with our customers, win new deals, and gain market share. AI is enabling us to innovate more efficiently than ever as we continue to expand margins while launching and expanding the tools that cement our role as the essential trust layer for buyers and sellers of digital media.

With strong execution in the first quarter, we are leaning hard into AI-powered innovation that will continue to extend our leadership position. Looking ahead to the rest of the year, we remain focused on product development acceleration, partner expansion, market share growth, and continued strong margins and cash flow. With that, let me turn the call over to Nicola.

Nicola Allais: Thanks, Mark, and good afternoon, everyone. For the first quarter, we achieved 10% year-over-year revenue growth and 31% EBITDA margins. Off the strong start to the year, we are reiterating guidance for the full year. For the first quarter, total revenue was $181 million, representing 10% year-over-year growth. Total advertiser revenue, which includes activation and measurement, represented 90% of total revenue and grew 9% year over year, driven by 12% growth in volume, or MTM, partially offset by a 4% decline in fees, or MTF. Activation revenue grew 6%, with ABS representing 53% of activation revenue in the quarter. As of quarter end, over 75% of our top 500 clients were using ABS.

Measurement revenue grew 16% year over year, with social measurement revenue increasing 23% and representing 49% of measurement revenue, and international revenue increasing 18% and representing 27% of measurement revenue. Supply-side revenue represented 10% of total revenue in the quarter and grew 12% year over year. We are driving growth by adding new CTV and digital platform partnerships and by continuing to expand DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. solutions on retail media networks. Moving to expenses, in the first quarter, we delivered 82% revenue less cost of sales. Our continued investments and use of AI capabilities are allowing us to scale at a consistently efficient rate, even as we measure increasing levels of volume.

We delivered $55 million of adjusted EBITDA, representing a 31% margin as compared to a 27% margin in 2025. Total expenses for product development, sales and marketing, and G&A increased 2% as compared to 10% revenue growth. We are showing early signs of the benefit of using AI capabilities to grow through improved productivity across the organization and increased software capitalization related to product development. We are scaling the business more efficiently, which results in increasing EBITDA margins. Stock-based compensation was $24 million in the first quarter, flat to prior year. For the second quarter, we expect stock-based compensation of approximately $25 million to $27 million and weighted average fully diluted shares outstanding of approximately 157 million shares.

For the full year, we continue to expect stock-based compensation to range between $102 million to $107 million, a decline year over year, reflecting the impact of our updated equity incentive plan that reduced the annual value of equity grants in 2026 by over 40% as compared to 2025. Turning to cash, year to date, we have repurchased 9.8 million shares for $100 million, of which 7.3 million shares were repurchased in the first quarter for approximately $75 million and 2.5 million shares were repurchased in April for approximately $25 million. Year to date, the 9.8 million shares repurchased represent approximately 6% of fiscal year-end 2025 outstanding shares.

Net cash from operating activities in the first quarter was $4 million and was impacted by timing of collections and payments at the end of the quarter. For the full year, we expect free cash flow conversion of approximately 60%. We ended the first quarter with approximately $174 million in cash and no long-term debt. Now turning to guidance. For the second quarter of 2026, we expect revenue to range between $199 million and $205 million, representing a year-over-year increase of approximately 7% at the midpoint, as a reminder, we are lapping our 21% growth rate in 2025, and we expect adjusted EBITDA to range between $63 million to $67 million, representing a 32% adjusted EBITDA margin at the midpoint.

For the full year 2026, we are reiterating our prior guidance. We expect revenue to range between $810 million and $826 million, representing an 8% to 10% year-over-year increase, and expect adjusted EBITDA margins of approximately 34%. As discussed on our prior call, incremental growth in 2026 will be driven by three product-led growth engines. First, continued adoption of our solutions across social and streaming TV. Second, growth from existing enterprise clients scaling our product offering. And third, continued new customer acquisition driven by DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc.’s differentiated products. Our first quarter results demonstrate progress on each growth driver, with increasing social activation revenue growth, increased adoption and scaling of new products, and a consistently high win rate.

Our first quarter results show solid execution, with a clear focus on durable growth and expanding profitability. We are well positioned to continue to deliver long-term shareholder value. We will now open the call for questions. Operator, please go ahead.

Operator: At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for a moment. Your first question comes from the line of Matt Swanson with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Matt Swanson: Great. Thank you so much, and congrats on a solid start to the year. I think I will pick up right where Nicola left off. It was a great quarter for social measurement, but focusing on that growth opportunity in social activation—anytime you have something with over a 90% growth rate, we should probably start there—could you give us an update on how things are trending and how the rollout has been going relative to your expectations with your customers, especially on Meta?

Mark Zagorski: Thanks for the question, Matt. We are really pleased with the scaling and speed of scaling on social activation, which is being driven by all three prongs: first, Meta activation and the new Meta pre-bid tools we have there; second, growth in YouTube through our Authentic Advantage solution; and third, TikTok, which continues to grow at a really nice pace on the pre-bid side. Our social activation business is really running on all cylinders. This underscores that our solutions are playing an essential role in the walled gardens, just as they do on the open web.

The power of the pre-bid plus post-bid engine is evident—where we can launch pre-bid solutions where we already have measurement in place, we see a nice catalyst for growth. Meta in particular now has over 80 clients engaged, including some of our biggest advertisers. We previously targeted $15 million of ARR in 2026, and we are already at $12 million, so it is scaling well. The 90% growth in social activation is being supported by our innovations in TikTok and YouTube as well.

Matt Swanson: Great. And then, Nicola, thinking more on the guidance side, I know over the last couple of years you have become less exposed to CPG and retail. Is there anything from a macro standpoint you would point out to us, and any updates on the advertiser who went through the agency change last quarter?

Nicola Allais: From a vertical perspective, we spoke about retail and the impact it had on our business at the end of last year. That has normalized, as we had expected and discussed on our last call. Overall, all of our key verticals showed growth in the first quarter of 2026, and we have not seen material changes across the verticals. We have diversified further into healthcare and technology, which reduces our reliance on retail and CPG and helps create a more predictable business. Regarding macro, the two verticals often mentioned—auto and travel—are fairly small for us, so we are not as exposed there. We are not assuming strong tailwinds, but we are assuming an environment that remains fairly stable.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Brian Pitz with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Brian Pitz: Thanks for the questions. Mark, since I know Slop Stopper is one of your favorite topics, could you give us your latest expectation around penetration rate and your thoughts on future opportunities around this product? And then stepping back more broadly, as AI content continues to proliferate across the Internet, what are you hearing from advertisers in terms of how they are adapting to this changing environment? Are they starting to get more comfortable? Any additional insight would be helpful. Thanks.

Mark Zagorski: Thanks for the question, Brian. Yes, I love Slop Stopper because I love saying the name on these calls. As noted, Slop Stopper is now being applied on the measurement side to about 40% of all of our impressions, one of the fastest scaling attach rates we have seen. That shows advertisers are still figuring out how to navigate AI content. Slop Stopper is built to avoid low-quality, questionable AI content—not all AI content is bad, but there is certainly content advertisers want to avoid. On what is next, we launched a pre-bid Slop Stopper solution on YouTube and will expand to additional social platforms over the next few quarters.

Video-centric social platforms are the most challenging for advertisers to decide where to be, so we see this driving higher attach rates and serving as a catalyst for advertisers to engage with DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc., even if they are not currently customers. The problems advertisers saw on the open web are evolving behind walled gardens, and we have solutions to address them.

Operator: Your next question comes from Maria Ripps with Canaccord. Your line is open.

Maria Ripps: Great. Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions. Mark, you said you were in discussions with several LLMs regarding verifying ads on their platforms. Is this the same brand safety stack that you offer today, or will the agentic ad environment require a fundamentally different product? And how are you thinking about structuring pricing models for agentic ads?

Mark Zagorski: Thanks, Maria. On ad-supported LLMs, we have seen, even as recently as this week, announcements that OpenAI is embracing third-party ad solutions—from demand solutions and creative optimization through companies like Kargo, Pacvue, and Smartly. The next step we have observed is moving into measurement and verification, and we are leaning into discussions with multiple LLMs. Our role there is fundamentally the same as in social, streaming, display, and online video: act as the trust and transparency layer, ensuring ads are viewable by real humans and that the context aligns with a brand’s suitability preferences. On the business model, most platform arrangements are advertiser-paid and volume-based.

We assume that model will extend to LLMs as well, with pricing tied to engagement volumes and impression scale.

Maria Ripps: And then just following up on Slop Stopper—do you view it primarily as a retention tool bundled into existing relationships, or can it be priced and sold independently? What is a realistic timeframe for this product to move the needle on revenue, either directly or indirectly?

Mark Zagorski: Slop Stopper drives value in two primary ways. First, retention: it adds value for existing customers by providing transparency into a new content category, which makes relationships stickier and supports future price discussions. Second, attach: it helps drive higher attach rates for our pre-bid solutions—for example, on YouTube—by enabling advertisers to avoid AI slop. Third, it is a differentiator—this is a unique DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. solution that competitors do not have, helping us win new deals. We are already seeing financial impact in our numbers. Measurement grew 16% and social activation grew 92% in Q1; features like Slop Stopper contribute to these outcomes by driving attach and new customer engagements.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Marok with Raymond James. Your line is open.

Andrew Marok: Hi, thanks for taking my question. On the chatbot surface again, we have seen OpenAI evolve its offering from CPM to CPC over time. From the architecture of the chatbot ad offering itself, is there anything they could do that would be more or less advantageous for you to partner with? Are there structures you hope they lean toward? Thank you.

Mark Zagorski: Great question, Andrew. The model is evolving quickly as both advertisers and LLMs experiment. The current setup aligns well with our strengths—analyzing text-based content and context at scale in real time. The predominant consumer engagement model in chat aligns with what DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. has done for 15 years, including our experience ingesting real-time content feeds from walled gardens like TikTok. We are flexible and have built for many environments—video, short-form video, and text-based open web—so integrating with ChatGPT or other platforms is well within our existing classification and infrastructure capabilities.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Analyst with Citizens. Your line is open.

Analyst: Hi, this is Brianna on for Matthew Condon. You raised the Authentic Advantage on YouTube ACV to $10 million from $8 million last quarter, and Meta activation is now $12 million versus $8 million prior. Can you help us understand the incremental growth within these two products—how much is from new advertisers versus existing advertisers ramping spend?

Mark Zagorski: It is a combination of both. We are upselling existing DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. advertisers to these solutions and adding new customers, and then seeing prior adopters scale. We went from the high-60s to 80-plus Meta pre-bid engagements, so new customers are coming on and scaling, and we are seeing similar scaling on Authentic Advantage. With a 90% growth rate in social activation, it is fueled by both new customer adds and current customers meaningfully increasing spend.

Analyst: Got it, that is helpful. And on activation overall—social activation grew 92%, but activation revenue was up 6% and similar to Q4. Can you unpack what is going on within that line item?

Nicola Allais: Activation for the quarter was up 6%, consistent with Q4. Mark spoke to social activation growth, which is a higher percentage on a smaller base. The rest of activation remained fairly steady in Q1 and is largely driven by mobile and online video and display. We continue to verify and grow where advertisers are spending—so social activation growth aligns with social measurement growth of 23%. Those are key vectors we are focused on to verify wherever advertisers spend.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Mark Murphy with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Mark Murphy: Thank you so much, and congrats. Behaviorally, what are you seeing from the six or seven large retail and CPG companies that had started to drag on your growth rates about a year and a half ago? Understanding you have lapped that slowdown, is there any signaling from those companies relating to their internals or how they are coping with commodity prices or consumer spending trends? Any different behavior there? I have a quick follow-up.

Nicola Allais: We are not seeing behavior different from the overall vertical trends in CPG and retail. As noted earlier, retail spend patterns normalized after the end of last year, which is positive. All of our key verticals showed growth in Q1, and we are diversifying further into healthcare and technology with large clients scaling across those areas, which helps reduce concentration. So, Q1 reflected more normalized spend patterns in CPG and retail.

Mark Murphy: That is encouraging. My other question is on working with LLM providers—OpenAI, Perplexity, or others. When might ads run at scale such that they could be measured and verified in a way that contributes noticeably? And is the push to do this coming more from LLM providers or from brand advertisers?

Mark Zagorski: Things are moving very quickly on LLM advertising. Our advertisers and their agencies are eager to test, but to scale budgets they have been clear they need third-party measurement, transparency, and verification—the same agnostic, currency-grade verification they get on Meta, YouTube, TikTok, the open web, and streaming. So the push is very much coming from brands and agencies. We saw this week that ChatGPT and OpenAI opened their ad platform to numerous third parties for buying and creative optimization, which shows they are embracing the marketplace and partners. When you project up to $100 billion in ad revenue by 2030, they will need partners.

While it has not materialized in our numbers yet, if history with social, streaming, and mobile is a guide, we see a strong opportunity for DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. over time.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Analyst with SSR. Your line is open.

Analyst: Hi, thanks for taking the question. Switching to CTV—you had an announcement or two during the quarter. What are you bringing to CTV measurement that is new and different versus what has existed thus far? I am using “measurement” loosely—there are many new ways to measure TV. What is the opportunity for DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. in a much more complicated TV market these days than it used to be? And relatedly, you mentioned MTMs for CTV were up 28% in the quarter—could you elaborate? Also, when you say “streaming,” are you specifying this from video measured in social?

Mark Zagorski: We have three pillars for growth—social, AI, and streaming—and streaming is incredibly important. Impression growth last quarter was up 28%, driven by higher attach rates for new solutions. Verified Streaming TV ensures ads are delivered on a high-quality full-episode player—not an outstream or embedded video—so it is truly a streaming TV environment. That is gaining traction and driving post-bid measurement attach. Our automated Do Not Air lists let advertisers create dynamic exclusion lists of programming to avoid; attach rates have almost tripled across our pre-bid solutions on specific DSPs. As pre-bid attach grows, post-bid measurement attach grows as well.

Advertisers have been demanding more transparency on CTV; ironically, they often get less granular verification data on CTV than on social or even short-form video. Our solutions are addressing that need, driving attach and impression growth.

Nicola Allais: On volumes, yes, CTV measurement impressions grew 28% in Q1, and we expect that to continue to outpace overall company revenue growth because streaming is a key growth area.

Mark Zagorski: For definitions: we designate CTV as content that ends up on a large player in a living room. Streaming TV includes CTV plus high-quality branded entertainment on mobile or tablet—think Hulu or Paramount—not short-form video like a TikTok reel. Streaming TV includes all high-quality TV; CTV refers to big-screen living room delivery.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Analyst with Truist. Your line is open.

Analyst: Hi, this is Rob on for Youssef. Thanks for taking the questions. First, on the sustainability of gross margin—can you remind us how to think about revenue less cost of sales as volumes grow? And second, any color on large advertisers—are you seeing upsell into new solutions and ARPU growth among the top 100?

Nicola Allais: On revenue less cost of sales, we delivered 82% in Q1. We feel confident we can remain efficient as volumes grow, and 80% is a healthy benchmark. Regarding large advertisers, our average dollars per client within the top 100 continues to grow year over year. Our large advertisers are being upsold to new solutions and are part of the social activation growth, and we expect similar dynamics on CTV. ARPU is growing as we offer new products, especially on social and, soon, more broadly on CTV.

Operator: Your final question comes from the line of Justin Patterson with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Justin Patterson: Thanks. On internal AI execution, how are you deploying agentic development and code generation, and what efficiencies are you seeing? Any updates on core classification as well?

Mark Zagorski: On internal AI product development, we are focused on agentic development and using agents to create code. So far, we have seen roughly 40% faster development, and we are triaging IT tickets at rates we have never seen before. This allows us to maintain headcount efficiency through the year. We rigorously evaluate token costs versus ROI when we deploy AI. Regarding core classification, we have been using that [inaudible].

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