Direct Digital Holdings Q1 2026 Earnings Call - Revenue Decline Masks Margin Expansion and Strategic Pivot to Ignition+

Operator: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to Direct Digital Holdings’ first quarter 2026 earnings call. After today’s prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Walter Frank, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Walter Frank, Investor Relations, Direct Digital Holdings: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Direct Digital Holdings’ 1st quarter 2026 earnings conference call. On today’s call are Direct Digital Holdings Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mark Walker, and Chief Financial Officer, Diana Diaz. Information discussed today is qualified in its entirety with the Form 8-K and accompanying earnings release, which has been filed today by Direct Digital Holdings, which may be accessed at the SEC’s website and the company’s website. Today’s call is also being webcast, and a replay will be posted to Direct Digital’s investor relations website. Immediately following the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please note that the statements made during the call, including financial projections or other statements that are not historical in nature, may constitute forward-looking statements.

These statements are made on the basis of Direct Digital’s views and assumptions regarding future events and business performance at the time they are made, and we do not undertake any obligation to update these statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks which could cause Direct Digital’s actual results to differ from its historical results and forecasts, including those risks set forth in Direct Digital’s filings with the SEC, and you should refer to those for more information. This cautionary statement applies to all forward-looking statements made during this call. During this call, Direct Digital will be referring to non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP measures are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available in the earnings release that Direct Digital filed in its Form 8-K today.

I will now hand the conference over to Mark Walker, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, Mark.

Mark Walker, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Direct Digital Holdings: Thanks, Walter. Thank you to everyone joining our call this morning. I’ll start by reviewing some of the highlights of our operations and financial results during the first quarter of 2026 before turning the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Diana Diaz, for a more detailed look at our financial results. We’ll conclude by opening the call for a brief Q&A. We remain focused on organically growing our sales pipeline by enhancing how we reach and support customers across a broader set of go-to-market channels. Alongside product innovation, initiatives such as Ignition+, our sales team are seeing encouraging engagement through expanded enterprise outreach, a diversified combination of enterprise sales, inside and outside sales efforts, and new distribution and lead generation channels. This multi-channel approach is broadening our reach, improving sales efficiency, and positioning us to drive more consistent, scalable growth over time.

In March, we launched Ignition+, a unified, transparent platform for programmatic media built to maximize efficiency, reduce costs, and combine AI-driven optimization with a proven team of experienced specialists. Since launching, we’ve seen strong initial interest from mid-market enterprise clients who value the transparency and efficiency this platform offers and its ability to maximize the value of their marketing budget without compromising on transparency or scale. We believe that we’re well-positioned to benefit from this demand as we transition the interest we’re seeing into long-term partnerships. Importantly, Ignition+ combines the strengths of our business across the entire advertising ecosystem and reflects a key strategic shift in focus as we continue to rebuild in the wake of the challenges that we faced over the last couple of years.

We’re executing on a new strategy to return to revenue growth by driving intentional digital marketing spend with current and future customers, as well as mid-market and large enterprise customers, and understand the value our offerings can bring to their business. We’ve aggregated our operations in a streamlined model that we believe position us to drive improved results as we scale. With a more streamlined operating model and a clear focus on our core strengths, we believe we are positioned to thoughtfully evaluate strategic opportunities that could complement our existing platform. While our primary focus remains execution and organic growth, we continually assess potential partnerships or acquisitions that align with our long-term objectives and shareholder value creation. As always, we sincerely appreciate your support of Direct Digital Holdings.

I will now hand the call over to Diana Diaz, our Chief Financial Officer, who will walk through some of the financial highlights in further detail.

Diana Diaz, Chief Financial Officer, Direct Digital Holdings: Thank you, Mark, good morning, everyone. I’ll now provide a review of our first quarter results. Consolidated revenue in the first quarter of 2026 was $6.7 million compared to revenue of $8.2 million in the first quarter of 2025. Although revenue declined due to a decrease in spending by demand-side platform customers of $2 million, we saw an increase in spending by other customers of $500,000 or 8% over the prior year. As Mark stated in his remarks and as we mentioned in our fourth quarter call, we have shifted our focus to driving intentional digital marketing spend with current and future customers historically classified by the company as buy-side customers, as well as new enterprise customers accessing the digital advertising market through our recently launched Ignition+.

As part of this shift in focus, we have reassessed our reportable segments and determined that we have one reportable segment: digital advertising. This new focus to streamline operations is expected to enhance the customer experience and better reflect the economics of our current business, where revenues reflect primarily contracts for managed advertising campaigns, which may or may not access curated publisher audiences managed by the company’s sell-side platform. Gross profit was $2.3 million for the first quarter of 2026, or 34% of revenue, compared with $2.4 million, or 29% of revenue in the last year. Operating expenses in the first quarter of 2026 decreased 13% to $5.5 million compared to $6.3 million in the first quarter of last year.

Total operating loss for the first quarter was $3.3 million compared with operating loss of $3.9 million in the first quarter of 2025. Net loss for the first quarter of 2026 was $5.6 million compared to a net loss of $5.9 million in the first quarter of last year. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was a loss of $2.6 million compared with Adjusted EBITDA loss of $3 million in the first quarter of last year. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $800,000 compared to $700,000 as of the end of December 2025.

Total cash plus our accounts receivable balance as of March 31, 2026 was $3.6 million compared to $3.9 million at year-end 2025. Our efficiency and cost reduction initiatives drove operating results that were in line with our internal expectations and exceeded analyst estimates in the quarter, demonstrating the progress we’re making as we continue to execute on our strategy and goals. We continue to manage the business with a strong emphasis on capital discipline, liquidity, and cost control as we navigate our next phase of execution. While our focus remains on operating performance and organic progress, we believe it is important to retain flexibility to evaluate strategic opportunities that align with our long-term objectives, provided they meet our financial and risk return thresholds. I’d like to turn it back over to Mark for some closing comments.

Mark Walker, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Direct Digital Holdings: Thank you, Diana, and thank you to everyone for joining. We appreciate your interest in Direct Digital Holdings and would like to now open the call for questions. Operator, please open the line.

Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you’re muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Your first question with Daniel Kurnos from StoneX. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Daniel Kurnos, Analyst, StoneX: Thanks. Good morning. Maybe a couple, just fundamental questions first, Mark, just on the Are the DMOs seeing any budgetary pressure from where gas prices are right now? I mean, it sounds like local travel is actually pretty healthy, all things considered, but just curious what you’re seeing there. Then last time we talked about some category expansion, obviously, you know, we’re starting to rescale the buy side here, focus on the buy side. Have your thoughts at all changed on sort of the opportunity set, or your ability to kind of penetrate new verticals to get to the growth you want to see on the buy side?

Mark Walker, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Direct Digital Holdings: Yeah. No, good questions, Dan Kurnos, thanks for it. What we’re seeing right now when it comes to the DMO marketplace and like, local travel, we haven’t seen a reduction or any kind of headwinds, if you will, in that marketplace. As a matter of fact, we’re seeing it meet the expectations and what we anticipated to see for the go forward. We still are pretty bullish on the DMO marketplace. We’re looking at expansions in those markets. Excuse me. As well as we’ve been able to win new business in the DMO market space recently. We’re feeling pretty optimistic about it.

What we have seen in other historical downturns in the overall marketplace, when there’s been some headwinds of the overall macroeconomic market, we actually have seen the local regional travel and tourism space actually become very resilient as people cut down on airline travel and go mostly to driving. That’s what we’re anticipating to see for this year, during the vacation market, and, so far, it’s been holding up. As it relates to your second question about category expansion, we continue to do a push into some of those new verticals, and we’re starting to see some more success, as we continue to push, into those new verticals we’re attaching to as well as, attacking. The way that we’re looking at strategically, going after new verticals, which is our goal for 2026, is twofold.

We’re looking at organic pushes into those new verticals, secondly, we’re also open to strategic partnerships and inorganic growth, in order to actually grow and expand in those marketplaces. We’re still holding to that strategy for this year as well.

Daniel Kurnos, Analyst, StoneX: If we just take that last point, Mark, and just dive a little bit deeper into that, you know, obviously, there’s a lot of assets that are in similar positions to yours. Somebody’s got to do something at some point, although, you know, PE sits on a bunch of stuff forever and eventually decides to make a move. You know, why are you the right aggregator? Do you have a facilitator? How are conversations going? You know, anything Understanding that these are all sensitive processes and things never go as fast as you like. Anything you can share in terms of timing or thought process there?

Mark Walker, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Direct Digital Holdings: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, in regards to timing, sooner is always better than later, is the way that we like to think of it. It’s never fast enough. Especially when you talk about consolidation and strategic inorganic growth. We’re actively in that marketplace. We’re having active conversations literally every week. As soon as we feel comfortable enough to announce anything, we’re planning on doing so. As of right now, the way that we view it, as you said, there’s a significant amount of activity in the marketplace, and we plan on being a part of it.

Daniel Kurnos, Analyst, StoneX: Okay. Thanks, Mark. Good luck.

Mark Walker, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Direct Digital Holdings: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Michael Kupinski with Noble Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Michael Kupinski, Analyst, Noble Capital Markets: Yeah, thank you. I have a couple of questions. I was just wondering, have you noticed any difference in advertising behavior? For instance, have advertisers shortened campaign duration or reduced visibility, particularly into future spending? Anything of note there?

Mark Walker, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Direct Digital Holdings: Nothing that’s been noticeable as it relates to change in tactics. We are seeing a significant amount more interest in a campaign performance and performance marketing, where clients are anticipating and wanting to see a return on investment. However, the way that we have set up our internal processes at our organization, we have always had a mind towards metrics. We’re just seeing a little bit more focus and some pencil sharpening, if you will, as it relates to performance, but it’s nothing that we haven’t been dealing with over the last few years and nothing that we can’t manage. That’s probably been the biggest turn that we have seen, I would say starting at the end of last year to this year, but it’s actually worked favorable for us.

Michael Kupinski, Analyst, Noble Capital Markets: Gotcha. You know, obviously, the buy-side business had some pretty decent margins, and I was just wondering, what are the biggest drivers preventing EBITDA margins from returning to prior levels?

Mark Walker, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Direct Digital Holdings: Yeah. I think it’s really more about the mix. I think what you will also see as it relates to margin growth, it’s gonna take a little bit more time for us to continue to expand those margins. That has been in our growth trajectory over the next couple quarters. We think you’re gonna start seeing a mix change, if you will, as well as us, working to get more efficient as it relates to our campaign management, which we anticipate, we’ll start seeing the results of that margin growth over the next few quarters.

Michael Kupinski, Analyst, Noble Capital Markets: Are you seeing increased advertising demand for AI-driven campaign optimization at this point?

Mark Walker, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Direct Digital Holdings: I would say clients are still trying to get a better understanding and step their toes in the water as it relates to AI, specifically for campaign management. We have internal tools that we leverage and use on a consistent basis that we’ve seen that actually performs. For us who provide the tech-enabled service, we think that that’s also an area where we’re gonna get more e-efficiency and margin optimization, if you will, out of campaign performance. We’ll be passing those savings on to clients, which we think will benefit the entire value chain.

Michael Kupinski, Analyst, Noble Capital Markets: Gotcha. Okay, that’s all I have for now. Thank you.

Mark Walker, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Direct Digital Holdings: All right. Thank you.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Mark Walker for closing remarks.

Mark Walker, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Direct Digital Holdings: All right. Thank you very much for joining the call, and we look forward to speaking to you next quarter. Thank you.

Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.