This Ad Tech Briefing covers the latest in ad tech and platforms for Digiday+ members and is distributed over email every Tuesday at 10 a.m. ET. More from the series →Public markets are becoming an uncomfortable place for many companies in the sector, and while that’s been widely known for some time, the latest quarterly earnings have underlined that. Increasingly, though, there’s a theory that many in this cohort will go private, with some of the industry’s sharpest minds sharing their insights on how that will play out. Below is an excavation of some of the best takes.
The catalyst was Nielsen’s agreement to acquire DoubleVerify for $2.15 billion, making it the latest publicly listed ad tech company to leave Wall Street following similar moves involving Integral Ad Science and LiveRamp.
The transaction came as the market reacted bruisingly to Q2 earnings from AppLovin, The Trade Desk, and Criteo, each of which reported underlying businesses that remain profitable and strategically relevant, but nevertheless suffered sharp stock price declines.
The Q2 earnings numbers from the cohort of publicly listed ad tech firms (see chart above) tell much of the financial story: lagging revenue growth leading to declining valuations, both of which make mergers and acquisitions increasingly feasible, even for companies that continue to generate healthy cash flows.
