Inuvo Q3 2025 Earnings Report

Inuvo EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.12
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Inuvo Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $22.57 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Inuvo Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q3 2025
• Date: 11/6/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, November 6, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 4:15PM ET

Inuvo (NYSEAMERICAN:INUV). (NYSE: INUV) is a marketing technology company specializing in artificial intelligence–driven digital advertising solutions. The company’s platforms leverage machine learning and proprietary algorithms to analyze consumer intent and deliver targeted advertising across desktop, mobile and connected TV channels. Inuvo’s core technology is designed to help advertisers optimize campaign performance and improve return on ad spend by focusing on contextual relevance rather than relying solely on cookie-based tracking.

Through its Pulpo Media division, Inuvo offers programmatic advertising services that reach both English- and Spanish-speaking audiences in the United States and select Latin American markets. This unit combines audience insights and AI-powered content matching to serve display, video and native ads on premium publisher sites. In addition, Inuvo’s AdHawk platform provides small and medium-sized businesses with a self-service tool for managing and reporting on Google and Facebook ad campaigns, incorporating automated recommendations to streamline media buying and budget allocation.

Originally founded in 2000 as TARGUSinfo, the company rebranded to Inuvo in 2015 to reflect its focus on user intent visualization and data democratization. Headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, Inuvo maintains operations across North America and has expanded its reach into Europe and Latin America through strategic partnerships and platform enhancements. Its technology stack has evolved over two decades, guided by ongoing investments in machine learning, artificial intelligence and data science capabilities.

Inuvo’s leadership team brings together expertise in technology and digital marketing. The company continues to develop new AI-based methodologies for identifying consumer behavior signals and delivering relevant advertising at scale. By combining proprietary data insights with automated campaign management tools, Inuvo aims to provide advertisers and agencies with a more efficient and transparent approach to planning, executing and measuring online marketing initiatives.

Inuvo Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Q3 revenue was $22.6 million (flat YoY) while revenue for the first nine months grew to $71.9 million, a 25% year‑over‑year increase, and management expects the top five clients to grow over 65% by year‑end 2025.
• Negative Sentiment: Q3 fell short of expectations after management deliberately reduced advertising spend beginning in mid‑August to meet updated compliance requirements from its largest platform client, causing a roughly 5% sequential decline in platforms.
• Positive Sentiment: Product innovation is highlighted as a competitive advantage — Inuvo launched Ranger, an AI-driven creative-to-landing-page compliance system already deployed and producing new platform leads (including 15+ media buying leads from a joint TikTok webinar).
• Positive Sentiment: The Intent Key self‑serve business is scaling — 44 self‑service brands (23 added in Q3), ~90% margins on self‑serve, and reported performance improvements (campaign metrics ~45% above client KPIs and third‑party analysis showing meaningful efficiency and incremental returns).
• Neutral Sentiment: Financially, adjusted EBITDA loss widened to $670k and cash was $3.4M (fully drawn on a $10M credit line), but management expects a substantial class‑action settlement payout in Q1 2026 that could materially affect near‑term liquidity.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Inuvo, Inc Q3 2025 earnings call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press * for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, November 6, 2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Katie Cooper, Director of Marketing. Please go ahead.

[Katie Cooper, Director of Marketing at Inuvo, Inc]

Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today for the Inuvo Q3 2025 shareholder update call. Today, Inuvo's Chief Executive Officer Richard Howe, Chief Financial Officer Wally Ruiz, and Chief Operating Officer Rob Buchner will be your presenters on the call. We would also like to remind our shareholders that we plan to file our 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission this evening. Before we begin, I'm going to review the company's safe harbor statements. The statements in this conference call that are not descriptions of historical facts are forward-looking statements relating to future events, and as such, all forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially.

[Katie Cooper, Director of Marketing at Inuvo, Inc]

When used in this call, the words anticipate, could, enable, estimate, intend, expect, believe, potential, will, should, project, and similar expressions as they relate to Inuvo are as such a forward-looking statement. Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ from those anticipated by Inuvo at this time. In addition, other risks are more fully described in Inuvo's public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be reviewed at www.sec.gov. The company makes no commitment to disclose any revisions to forward-looking statements or any facts, events, or circumstances after the date hereof that bear upon forward-looking statements. In addition, today's discussion will include references to non-GAAP measures. The company believes that such information provides an additional measurement and consistent historical comparison of its performance.

[Katie Cooper, Director of Marketing at Inuvo, Inc]

A reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available in today's news release on our website. With that, I'll now turn the call over to CEO Richard Howe.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Thank you, Katie, and good afternoon, everyone. For the Q3 of 2025, Inuvo delivered $22.6 million in revenue, roughly flat year-over-year. For the first nine months of the year, Inuvo has delivered $71.9 million in revenue. We're pleased to report a strong 25% year-over-year growth through the first nine months. That said, Q3 results fell short of our expectations, primarily due to a deliberate reduction in advertising spend starting in mid-August. This step was essential to align with updated requirements from our largest platform client, enabling us to sustain and scale our partnership longer-term, a move we had previewed earlier. October revenue within platforms was back up year-over-year. The technologies required to meet the client's needs are now in place and are already helping Inuvo avoid compliance risks and facilitate future growth within this large client. I will talk more about these products and technological advances later in my comments.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Therefore, we experienced a roughly 5% decline sequentially in platforms and a roughly 29% sequential growth within agencies and brands. Both platforms and agencies and brands are up year-over-year through the first nine months of 2025. Wally will discuss the financials in greater detail during his section. We have two notable items to share with you related to the business on this call. First, we've been working on a multi-million dollar contract with a government organization where the government shutdown has delayed the signing. I highlight this deal because it's a prime example of the larger opportunities we will be pursuing. Rob Buchner, who I will introduce in a few minutes, will talk about this during his remarks. Additionally, we have been a party to a large class action lawsuit that has now been settled.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

According to the attorneys representing the class and the verifiable claims we have, we expect a substantial payout in the first quarter of 2026. We remain optimistic about achieving our revenue goals for 2025 and want to reiterate that Q3's performance was not a function of reduced demand, but rather additional preparation required to onboard demand. Our largest and 10 key clients' 2025 final budgets are now locked in. Based on those budgets, our top five clients are expected to have grown over 65% year-over-year by the end of calendar 2025. I'd also like to mention that we recently hired a Chief Operating Officer. Rob Buchner brings to Inuvo a successful career as a CMO, a CEO, and an entrepreneur. With his history as a dealmaker, Rob is uniquely positioned to help Inuvo monetize the industry-leading ad tech products we have built at this critical stage of our evolution.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Rob joined Inuvo 10 months ago, progressing from go-to-market consultant to a board member and now Chief Operating Officer, where he can now have an even bigger impact on the company. Let me now turn the call over to Rob for a go-to-market and client activities discussion.

[Rob Buchner, COO at Inuvo, Inc]

Thanks, Rich. Hello, everyone. I want to start by framing the immediate growth opportunities for IntentKey Product, driven by my broad view of the ad industry at this critical moment in ad tech. I bring a unique perspective to Inuvo, having enjoyed a far-reaching career in what I call the creative sciences. That being the co-mingling of brand content, emerging media technologies, and real-time data and analytics. I've organized business units around this operating model at two national agencies within two of the world's largest holding companies, Publicis and IPG. As CEO at Campbell Mithun, I commissioned a programmatic trading arm in 2013, years before most agencies knew of its significance. Today, programmatic is a $200 billion marketplace. I intend to marshal my business development skills and leverage existing C-suite relationships in this new role. The marketers I speak with aren't just confused.

[Rob Buchner, COO at Inuvo, Inc]

They suffer from AI fatigue. It's understandable. The market is saturated with antiquated ad techs wrapping inferior, often cookie-dependent data around general AI with little to no positive effect. The ad tech landscape is experiencing seismic shifts and structural failure. The legacy programmatic spine is breaking, not just due to cookie dependency, but from the fatal design flaws of latency and signal loss. Stalking people around the internet is not the future. IntentKey is the antidote for this privacy-first post-cookie environment. Our go-to-market is shipping decisively upstream. We will pursue million-dollar-plus service deals with CXOs inside brand organizations, leaders who control budgets and are ensnared by diminishing returns in performance marketing. The IntentKey value story resonates most clearly with senior executives who have branding authority and are directly accountable for business results, the very decision-makers who have historically been a challenge to reach. Case in point.

[Rob Buchner, COO at Inuvo, Inc]

The pending government contract, which Rich referenced, was a direct result of Tim Flynn, retired admiral of the U.S. Navy and former executive at Intel, who has joined our team in an advisory role. We have others like Tim who have had brilliant careers and are trusted executives, now partnering with Inuvo to actively unlock access to the C-suite and accelerate enterprise adoption. I see this as a strategic means to securing significant future enterprise deals. We are actively structuring brand direct deal terms to accelerate this high-value growth and upskilling our account management organization to capitalize on growth within existing accounts. As of the end of the Q3, we now have 44 self-service brands, including companies like Kia, Apple, Crate & Barrel, CB2's brand, and others.

[Rob Buchner, COO at Inuvo, Inc]

Critically, we'll continue to aggressively scale self-service deals, in part because it's the easiest way for clients to use our AI and because this component of our business generates margins of nearly 90%. Furthermore, our predictive media mix modeling is an undervalued asset. It is a critical, high-margin solution for brand stewards. A natural on-ramp for the broader IntentKey deployment. Integration of IntentKey through partnerships is another area of emphasis. We are actively pursuing holding companies, adjacent ad techs, and commerce media players. We expect success on this front to generate significant high-margin revenue in 2026. Our managed services business remains robust. We added several new brands in Q3, including a major healthcare provider who recognized IntentKey's targeting leverage for open enrollment this fall. Finally, we're elevating our marketing efforts around two key objectives. First, sharpening our value proposition by highlighting a predictive edge.

[Rob Buchner, COO at Inuvo, Inc]

Our platform forecasts purchase intent 24 hours ahead of legacy programmatic tools. This delivers a clear, measurable advantage that sets us apart. Second, we're showcasing a more intuitive user experience by integrating it across all sales and marketing channels, thereby boosting awareness and easing adoption. Rich will dive deeper into this enhanced IntentKey during his products and technology session. My goal is to take what are the most innovative and performative products in ad tech and scale them to the next level. I was recently reviewing an independent analysis of performance within one of our largest clients. This study concluded that Inuvo had achieved 20-40% higher efficiency compared to legacy ID-based solutions and a staggering incremental return of 400-600% across connected TV and display advertising.

[Rob Buchner, COO at Inuvo, Inc]

Thanks to a great product and a sharpened go-to-market strategy, our current pipeline already features a number of high-profile brands that represent substantial future potential. With that, let me now turn it back over to Rich to discuss products and technology activities.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Thank you, Rob. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, our platform business maintained stable performance in Q3. While the focus shifted briefly to prioritizing advertising compliance and quality, the operations team actually took this opportunity to expand the network through a mix of new site additions and improved engagement across our existing network. This will help us safely fulfill the backlog of demand that is growing within the platform's product line. In today's advertising environment, advertising integrity is finally becoming a strategic advantage. This platform client has now implemented more stringent policies that reward trusted high-quality suppliers, exactly the standard Inuvo was built to exceed. Our consistent investment in quality has positioned us not just to benefit from this shift, but to help define it. This was evident in our ability to implement complex technical changes that quickly met the needs of this client.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

That brings me to a critical innovation we have introduced within platforms, which we have now called Ranger. Ranger is a next-generation compliance and quality capability embedded within our platform solution. It leverages advanced AI to ensure every ad creative we deliver is aligned with the post-click experience. In a market where generative AI has drastically accelerated the speed and volume of ad production, this alignment has become more difficult and more essential than ever. Whether it's a headline, an image, or a video, Ranger analyzes the creative content and compares it to the landing page, the media asset it's promoting, validating that the message is accurate and aligned. This protects the user, the advertiser, and our client. It prevents misleading content from slipping through and gives our clients full confidence that the ads Inuvo is serving exceed policy standards. More importantly, the consumer's expectations.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Let me be clear. Ranger was purpose-built to combat one of the fastest-growing threats in digital advertising: creative and media misalignment that can lead, often inadvertently, to fraud. It is working. Today, we use Ranger internally to safeguard our own campaigns, but its broader application is substantial. Ad buying platforms, networks, and major brands are increasingly in need of real-time assurance that their creative assets will not be flagged, penalized, or worse, cause harm to their brand reputation. The future of advertising demands trust, and it demands alignment between message and experience, and it demands that AI not just automate, but it accounts. With Ranger now deployed within platforms, we have both product lines supported by sophisticated artificial intelligence that aligns around a simple premise. That the reasons why people are interested in the ads should align with the reasons why audiences consume content within which the ads are shown.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Ranger is already opening new platform opportunities. Recently, we co-hosted a joint webinar with TikTok's product, policy, and go-to-market teams that has already resulted in over 15 new media buying leads. In the Q3, we also continued to advance the technologies that power the IntentKey and our agencies and brands product line. In so doing, we have reinforced Inuvo's position as the market leader for proprietary large language generative AI purpose-built for advertising. We recently launched a completely redesigned audience discovery portal that further cements our leadership in this AI-powered ad technology. We now provide next-day predictive indicators for audience size and sentiment trends, offering clients early signals on likely audience intent shifts. We have a new trending geographical map which visualizes emerging consumer intent across the top 10 U.S. states, supporting geographically informed creative and media decisions.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

We also completely reimagined how a consumer's intent changes as they journey from passive interest through active consideration. Furthermore, we introduced a multi-segment audience modeling where the IntentKey now automatically generates up to three unique audience subgroups with individual summaries and performance percentages. Finally, we enriched our demographic insights by retraining our AI on the latest U.S. Census data. Once again, in an industry first, we have aligned this data not with people, but rather with concepts. In the process, we have made our proprietary IntentKey signals even more powerful. For agencies and brand clients, our campaign performance metric came in at 45% above average client KPIs within the Q3. While agencies and brands' margins declined slightly, this was a result of the scaling of our largest services clients, as I mentioned in my opening remarks.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

The strategic foundation we've laid is paying off. The self-serve business continues to gain momentum. These enhancements we've introduced make it easier and faster for clients to harness the power of our AI. At this time, I would now like to turn the call over to Wally for a more detailed assessment of our financial performance within the Q3.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo, Inc]

Thank you, Rich. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to share our financial results for the Q3 of 2025. Revenue for the Q3 was $22.6 million, representing a 1% increase year over year. The growth was driven by increased demand from our agencies and brands clients. Platform revenue was $18.7 million, down from $18.8 million last year. As Rich previously mentioned, we slowed the scaling of our largest platform client during the Q3 to complete the development required by the client. However, partially offsetting this decline, our second-largest platform client continued to ramp the new campaign introduced in the Q4 of last year and yielded a four-fold increase in revenue. Revenue from agencies and brands totaled approximately $3.9 million for the Q3, a 7% increase over last year.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo, Inc]

We onboarded 23 new clients in the Q3, as mentioned, and we now have 44 clients using our self-service product. These self-service clients represent future growth potential with the benefit of being our highest-margin product offering. Cost of revenue increased to $6 million, up from $2.6 million in the Q3 of last year. This was by the new campaign with the platform client that I just mentioned. Unlike other platform clients, where the cost is reported as a marketing cost, the campaign with this client is accounted for as a cost of revenue. Our cost of revenue is primarily payments to website publishers and app developers who host our ads, as well as media costs for our agencies and brands clients. Gross profit was $16.6 million compared to $19.8 million in the same Q3 last year.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo, Inc]

Gross margin declined to 73.4% from 88.4%, which was anticipated due to the accounting required for the new campaign that I had previously mentioned. Operating expenses totaled $18.2 million, down 16% year over year. The largest driver of lower operating expense was $3.6 million lower marketing costs associated with lower revenue from our largest platform client. Compensation expense increased by $39,000 in this year's Q3 compared to last year, primarily due to accruing a separation expense. The separation expense this year. Headcount remained stable at 80 employees at Q3 versus 82 at Q3 a year ago. General and administrative expenses increased by $110,000, largely due to the absence of a $100,000 allowance reversal recorded in the Q3 of last year. Other income was $48,000 compared to zero in the same period last year. Net financing expense was $114,000 compared to $101,000 a year ago.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo, Inc]

Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $670,000 compared to a loss of $357,000 in the Q3 of last year. Net loss narrowed to $1.7 million, or $0.12 per share, versus a loss of $2 million, or $0.15 per share a year ago. We ended the Q3 with $3.4 million in cash and cash equivalents. The same amount was drawn down from our $10 million line of credit. With the available borrowing capacity we have, we believe we have ample flexibility for continued investment and support of our operational needs. With that, I'd like to turn the call back over to Rich.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Okay. Thanks, Wally. In Q3, we delivered $22.6 million in revenue, flat year over year. However, we remain up 25% through the first nine months. We deliberately slowed growth from our largest platform client to complete a major compliance upgrade, including the launch of Ranger, our new AI-driven ad quality system. This investment strengthens our foundation and positions us for sustained, scalable growth. Operationally, we're shifting upstream, targeting larger brand-direct deals while continuing to scale our high-margin self-serve IntentKey product now used by major brands. We're also seeing increased adoption of our predictive media mix modeling, which is becoming a key entry point for a broader IntentKey engagement. We completed a series of enhancements to the self-serve portal. Despite the pause in platform growth, demand remains strong. Our top five agency and brand clients are projected to grow over 65% this year.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

We have a major government contract delayed but pending. We expect a cash payout in Q1 2026 related to a settled class action lawsuit. We remain optimistic on achieving our 2025 goals, and we are building real separation in a transforming ad tech market. I will now turn the call over to the operator for questions. Operator.

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask the question, you may press star and 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press the pound key. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Scott Buck from H.C. Wainwright. Your line is open.

[Scott Buck, Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

Hi. Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Rich, I'm curious. When you onboard 23 new clients in the Q3, do they immediately start generating revenue, or is there typically a 30, 60, X-day lag before you start to see a real ramp?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

They get on pretty quickly, and they start spending, but it's typically small amounts, Scott. They are sort of testing the wires, I guess, and the plumbing and seeing how it works. You see it ramp. They start spending more, and they start spending more, and they start spending more. This is self-serve, I am talking about now because the bulk of the clients that we sign in that 23 number were self-serve clients.

[Scott Buck, Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

Yeah. So there's a cumulative effect, I guess, to how the revenue ramps. Okay.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Yeah. They're trying to compare us to other tactics they're deploying and seeing how well it works. They ease into it.

[Scott Buck, Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

Yeah. No, that makes a ton of sense. On self-service, you're up to 44 clients there. I'm curious. As that business is scaling, what feedback you're getting from those clients and whether or not it's changing the way that you go and market the product to new brands or agencies.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

It is changing the way that we're building the product and marketing it. One of the statements I made in this call is we did a complete overhaul of the interface to the self-serve portal. In part, that's as a result of feedback. Feedback, like some things are a little harder to use than clients would want. Efficiencies, more data. Yeah, we definitely use that feedback loop to both improve the product and to change the way we market, if you will, and go to market and our messaging for go to market.

[Scott Buck, Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

Perfect. Last one. Wally, I would assume that sales and marketing expense is kind of moving back to kind of previous run rate here in the Q4 from the dip in the Q3. Is that fair?

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo, Inc]

Yeah. It should start moving up in direct relation to our platform revenue ramping up.

[Scott Buck, Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

Yeah. Okay. Just wanted to make sure it was temporary and not a more permanent change.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo, Inc]

No. It was temporary.

[Scott Buck, Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

Great. I appreciate the added color, guys. Thank you very much for the time.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Thank you, Scott.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Brian Kinstlinger from Alliance Global Partners. Your line is open.

[Brian Kinstlinger, Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

Great. Thanks so much. Inuvo was well ahead of the market in identifying, I believe, the need for AI for targeted ad tech to drive improvement in campaign outcomes. More than ever, enterprises are looking for ways they can utilize AI. My sense is brand awareness remains the biggest challenge for Inuvo. I am curious how Rob, in his new role, is thinking about new advertising and marketing ideas. What do you think held back the greater adoption of IntentKey thus far?

[Rob Buchner, COO at Inuvo, Inc]

Yeah. Brian, it's Brian, right?

[Brian Kinstlinger, Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

Yes. Thanks.

[Rob Buchner, COO at Inuvo, Inc]

Yeah. Look at. It's tough to be a marketer right now because there's such an onslaught of new technologies out there. Our job, I think, is to be memorable, first of all, and getting our message to them in economic terms because the greatest advantage that IntentKey offers is incremental return on ad spend. Our performance consistently outperforms others. The way the models are shaped and the fact that we're able to identify audiences 24 hours and bid directly into the bid stream actually affects the supply-demand economics. You're actually bidding without the commoditized rush. I like this example: in the open enrollment period for healthcare, all healthcare are targeting the same blocks of people, but we're able to find the nuances. We're able to find them in real time, and we're able to activate our buys.

[Rob Buchner, COO at Inuvo, Inc]

Taking those use cases forward to create momentum for the brand and additional adoption is going to be critical.

[Brian Kinstlinger, Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

Great. Maybe, Wally or Rich, can you talk about the advertising and marketing budgets, what they look like maybe in 2025 and how you're thinking about 2026?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

I think that's you, Wally. Is that an expense question, Brian?

[Brian Kinstlinger, Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

Yeah. I'm just curious how much the company's spending on getting its name out there and brand awareness.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Oh. Oh, oh, that's a different question. Actually, Rob's on the phone. He's got marketing now. You might want to talk about that, Rob, and what you're planning for marketing.

[Rob Buchner, COO at Inuvo, Inc]

Yeah. So the tried and true way is through thought leadership, right? This is a very concentrated group of marketers in the programmatic space. Attending these conferences, coming out with a point of view, making sure people understand the advantages vis-à-vis other ad techs right now, and stepping outside the noise of the category is really important. We will be promoting ourselves in the right places. We're going to leverage some of our key players who are developing really a big social footprint. We've got some individuals on our team that are really leading the conversation in the industry. Not necessarily ad budgets to promote, though that's on the table as we go. Ironically, we're going through some budgeting at an offsite next week. We're going to step up our visibility and all the marketing materials that we're going to market with.

[Rob Buchner, COO at Inuvo, Inc]

Will be pulling out of the user experience. The data visualization tools that we have on the interface are very distinct. And so we're repackaging our story, I guess, is what I'm saying.

[Brian Kinstlinger, Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

Great. That's helpful. You mentioned, Rich, that your largest platform provider is going to reward based on performance. Can you expand a little bit on that? Are they going to evaluate distribution annually, quarterly, and redistribute? How are you thinking about that?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

We're not sure yet because it hasn't been made clear to us exactly how this is going to play out. What I will tell you is, as you well know, Brian, I mean, we really did design for changes that are occurring in the marketplace. This particular client has very much accelerated their desire to make sure that any ad that comes from one of their clients has a high quality, both in the ad itself and in the place the ad's going to be shown. We were able to adapt to that, and we think going forward with them.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Contractually, that we may see some benefit. To the quality. This is not atypical, by the way. I know it sounds like a long, drawn-out answer, but this happens. It has happened to us with other larger clients where there's a reward, if you will, in terms of your take. When the quality standard, which gets measured, is higher. We expect that to happen here because it seems to be heading in that direction. If I could just add something as a trailer to the question you asked, Rob, because I don't want it to be missed by shareholders who are listening. We really have changed the way we're going to market. Up until Rob's arrival, we were, for the most part, chasing mid-tier agencies. We just found that those deals were too small. It was hard.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

are still clients, by the way, and we'll still chase that. Rob has upscaled us quite quickly in terms of our focus, and he talked about Tim Flynn, the former rear admiral. This is probably the best marketing you can do, to align yourself with people who have credibility and have relationships. That is the way we get into the corner office of larger deals. It is proving to be true, and it is working, at least with the short number of them that we have and have started now. I did not want you to miss that, Brian.

[Brian Kinstlinger, Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

I'm going to ask one more question back in the queue because I have a few more. There might be some others. You mentioned a class-action payout in the first quarter. Can you quantify what that is?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

I specifically didn't. I just said it was significant. It'll be in the millions. I think I'll leave it at that. Let's just say it's been settled. That's the good news. It's been settled. We are aware of what our claims are and that we have been told we will get them paid out. Maybe I'll add one other piece of information, which is the last time we spoke to the people responsible for administrating these things, they said that the payouts would probably start in late this year, so sometime in December or in January. That's why I said in the first quarter because at this point, that's the best I can tell you.

[Brian Kinstlinger, Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

Got it. I'm going to sneak one last one in so I don't have to get back in the queue. The business clearly and the industry is always seasonal. Is there anything in this fourth quarter that makes it more or less seasonally strong than typical? And those are all my questions. Thanks.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

I don't think we're seeing any systemic seasonality differences year over year.

[Brian Kinstlinger, Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Jack Vander Aarde from Maxim Group. Your line is open.

[Jack Vander Aarde, Analyst at Maxim Group]

Okay. Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Rich, I joined a little late. It's a busy night tonight on earnings. To avoid asking any repeats, you've been an innovator your whole career. With a true differentiated AI technology like IntentKey that mimics the human brain, that figures out the why, there's a lot of unique opportunities out there for the technology beyond just ad tech. I would love to get your potential out-of-the-box ideas, whether they're just an idea one night or whether they're actually maybe potentially formalized. Are there any opportunities you see that are emerging today to expand the use case of IntentKey as is to another market that no one's thinking about, like maybe predictions in sports betting? That's been a huge hotspot. Maybe growing layoffs from the government shutdowns. You used your technology before for.

[Jack Vander Aarde, Analyst at Maxim Group]

Hiring obscure or helping hire jobs that maybe are difficult to find the right kind of employee. Any out-of-the-box ideas that we're not thinking about that you are?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Yeah. Some of them we're already doing. In fact, the government contract that I referenced is one where we're actually hiring to find employees. I will leave it at that. All right? Yes, there's lots of them. Some of them we're already deploying. We try to stick right now, though, Jack, to our bread and butter. I mean, we are in advertising. We don't try to skew off too far from additional use cases that are related to advertising. One of the ones we've long known we should probably be doing is just generating creative content from the information the AI generates about products and services and have that just happen automatically within our platform. Yes, there's lots of these. I could probably—there's a list of them. At this point, our focus remains. We're in a gigantic market.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

They spend a lot of money. Change takes time with large industries that have lots of suppliers who are hanging on for dear life. We're trying not to get too far askew and start something else. Maybe the innovator in me is trying to hold a little bit. We've got more than enough innovation. We literally have the best technology in this area. Let's keep building on that and go get that market.

[Jack Vander Aarde, Analyst at Maxim Group]

Got it. Nope. That makes tons of sense. I'm not sure if you've seen the news with Kelce and Polymarket in the space. It's creating quite a buzz. I think you have a unique technology with predictions, essentially, that kind of map out the decision-making process. Just interesting food for thought. Maybe just one more. Not to try to pin you into another question about something that you're not doing currently, but just digital assets, cryptocurrencies, NFTs. Is this anywhere on your guys' radar? Do you have any comments on the space? Are you looking at it? Just would love to get your thoughts there.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

I'd say only in a cursory way. Of course, we're interested in what's going on there, and we're following it. No, there's nothing on paper that we've laid out and said, "Hey, here's a solution to this," or some structure that we should put in place to go after this at this point, Jack.

[Jack Vander Aarde, Analyst at Maxim Group]

Okay. Great. I heard about the legal win. Obviously, you just talked about that with another analyst. I'll probably follow up with that at another time, but that sounds interesting as well. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

You bet.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Jon Hickman from Ladenburg. Your line is open.

[Jon Hickman, Analyst at Ladenburg]

Hey, Rich. I just have two questions. This payout that you referenced, that is money you're receiving, not money that you have to pay in penalties?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Correct. Yeah. We are a plaintiff to the class action. So the money is being paid to us.

[Jon Hickman, Analyst at Ladenburg]

Okay. Okay. Great. Had me nervous there for a minute. And then my other question—

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Thank you for asking that in case somebody else got confused by it. So yeah.

[Jon Hickman, Analyst at Ladenburg]

In your prepared remarks, you mentioned that you're on track with your revenue goals. Can you elaborate on that comment? The revenue goal that I thought you had was $100 million for this year. Is that accurate, or?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Yeah. We're trying—yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the best way to answer this question is, we do have a 25% growth rate through the nine months, right? I mean, we'd very much like to continue with that, and we think that'll get us to our goal.

[Jon Hickman, Analyst at Ladenburg]

That portends a fairly large Q4. I mean, greater than anything you've ever done.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Do you want to add anything on that?

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo, Inc]

Yeah. Jon, if you look at our trailing 12 months, we're at $98 million, right? Yeah, I mean, we expect Q4 to be our best quarter. Look, without giving any guidance, it does look like it's possible to do. Yeah, there we go.

[Jon Hickman, Analyst at Ladenburg]

Okay. Thanks. That's it for me.

[Operator]

There are no questions at this time. I would like to hand the call back to Mr. Howe. Please go ahead, sir.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo, Inc]

Thank you, operator. As always, I'd like to thank everyone who joined us today on the call, and we appreciate your continued interest in our company.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Wally Ruiz, CFO
• Katie Cooper, Director of Marketing
• Richard Howe, CEO
• Rob Buchner, COO

Analysts

• Scott Buck, Analyst at H.C. Wainwright
• Brian Kinstlinger, Analyst at Alliance Global Partners
• Jon Hickman, Analyst at Ladenburg
• Jack Vander Aarde, Analyst at Maxim Group