Inuvo Q1 2025 Earnings Report

Inuvo EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.10
• Consensus EPS: -$0.10
• Beat/Miss: Met Expectations
• One Year Ago EPS: -$0.10

Inuvo Revenue Results

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

Inuvo Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025
• Date: 5/9/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Friday, May 9, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 8:30AM 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 Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Inuvo reported a record quarter with 57% year-over-year revenue growth to $26.7 million and trailing 12‑month revenue of $93.5 million, with management projecting Q2 growth of at least ~25% year‑over‑year.
• Positive Sentiment: The Platform business accelerated sharply—Platform revenue ~$23.7M, up 61% YoY, campaign volume +100% YoY, faster site onboarding (50% reduction) and a healthy pipeline with three large paying clients.
• Positive Sentiment: Self‑serve IntentKey traction: visitors to corporate/self‑serve site rose ~430% sequentially, ~15 self‑serve clients onboarded, and management says self‑serve has the company's highest gross margin and large long‑term upside.
• Negative Sentiment: Gross margin fell to 79% from 87.7% (driven by a lower‑margin Platform campaign), operating expenses rose to $22.9M, and the company still reported a net loss of $1.3M despite adjusted EBITDA nearly breaking even.
• Neutral Sentiment: Liquidity and capital moves: cash and equivalents were $2.6M with no debt, the company raised $1.2M via ATM sales, and management is proposing a 10‑for‑1 reverse stock split to reduce share count and perceived volatility.

Presentation

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Inuvo First Quarter 2025 earnings call. At this time, note that all participant lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. Also note that this call is being recorded on Friday, May 9, 2025. I would 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 morning. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today for the Inuvo First Quarter 2025 shareholder update call. Today, Inuvo's Chief Executive Officer, Richard Howe, and Chief Financial Officer, Wally Ruiz, 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 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this morning. Before we begin, I'm going to review the company's safe harbor statement. 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 risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially.

[Katie Cooper, Director of Marketing at Inuvo Inc]

When used in the 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 discussions 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 welcome, everyone. We're thrilled this morning to be able to announce yet another record-breaking quarter ended March 31st, 2025, where we achieved a 57% year-over-year growth rate, generating $26.7 million in revenue, our largest quarter ever. Equally compelling about this result is that it occurred in what is typically our weakest seasonal quarter. Trailing 12 month revenue for Inuvo's now $93.5 million, putting us on track to beat and break through the $100 million barrier in this year. Once again, in this quarter, virtually all the important financial metrics improved year-over-year, including our adjusted EBITDA, our operating cash, and gross profit, which was up 41% year-over-year. Both the Platform and the Agencies & Brands product lines were up materially in the first quarter.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

It may also be appropriate to note for our shareholders that over roughly the last five years, Inuvo has had a 6.8% compounded quarterly growth rate. For reference, the average for public companies between $50 million and $200 million in annual sales by our analysis is about 3.4%. Wally will share more details about our financials in his discussion. Inuvo's financial strategy for 2025 is to grow both Platform and Agencies & Brands' revenues at double digits, keeping product margins steady while generating cash from operations. The product strategy is to accelerate Platform growth through automation and within Agencies & Brands to support growth through AI performance enhancements and self-serve functionalities. The people strategy is to end the year at no more than 90 people, adding engineers and data science professionals within Platform and in Agencies & Brands to continue building out our sales and account management teams.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

At roughly $1 million of annual revenue per employee for a technology company, Inuvo is operating at the high end of the comparable efficiency curve. The valuation strategy for the company includes items on the proxy that I will touch on in my closing statements. Within Platform, we grew 61% year-over-year. As we had mentioned on previous calls, we began re-engineering technologies and services within this product line in 2023, anticipating market changes which have now come to fruition. We see continued strong demand here and a healthy pipeline of new business opportunities. Campaign volume within Platform was up 100% year-over-year and is reflective of the adoption of our capabilities by media buyers and an indication of the scalability of the Platform product line. The more ads we show and the higher the quality of leads we deliver, the more revenue we generate in Platform.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

Within two of our IntentKey Platform clients, we actually saw a 200% year-over-year increase in ad impressions. One of the technological bottlenecks within this product line is our ability to onboard new websites and to monitor existing websites within the overall network. In this regard, we have reduced by 50% the time it takes to onboard these new sites, and we have significantly enhanced our reporting, monitoring, and quality control capabilities. As we had mentioned on our year-end call, the market we serve with our platform technologies and services is roughly a $10 billion annual market. This market is in the midst of undergoing significant changes that we are in a unique position to capitalize on at this point in time. We have three large paying clients for these services, two of which have grown materially year-over-year, and the third is roughly flat.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

That is only because the growth opportunities in the others have had our focus and will continue to have our focus in 2025. For our Agencies & Brands clients, we experienced a 31% year-over-year growth rate within the first quarter of 2025. We entered the year with a strong pipeline of new business opportunities. Our client base has grown 23% year-over-year, and we have added roughly 20 new clients thus far in 2025. We have roughly 15 clients using our Self-Serve capability now that have the potential to scale, among which include a large technology and automotive company. Our two largest clients are both up year-over-year. Roughly 80% of the clients who were running in Q1 of 2024 are currently running in Q1 of 2025. Within the first quarter of 2025, we beat our KPIs on average by a significant 61%. These are the KPIs that we track for our clients.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

We provide this measure so our shareholders can understand generally how much better the performance of the IntentKey is to our competitors, because ultimately the KPIs that we get from our clients are, in fact, the best competitor that they are using. Since launching the enhanced Self-Serve version of the IntentKey earlier this year, we have seen a considerable increase in the number of visitors to our corporate and Self-Serve website, up roughly 430% sequentially. Self-Serve revenues, while still a small component of our overall revenue, have grown steadily month over month so far this year. As a reminder, this Self-Serve product has the highest gross margin of any product Inuvo sells. We continue to add salespeople, most recently to handle the Texas region. We have a number of major holding companies testing the new Platform, and anecdotally, Inuvo brand awareness appears to be rising.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

We've had three recent client feedback notes that emphasize the superior performance, transparency, and insights associated with our artificial intelligence. One of those clients reported seeing three times the number of conversions after activation. Another reported our AI was outperforming their other campaigns. The third commended our technology's ability to signal purchase intent ahead of the implementation of the tariffs. Technologically, in addition to the launch of the enhanced Self-Serve Platform, we also began testing our newest zip code-level targeting features using a number of channels, including the difficult-to-measure digital out-of-home channel, which is the modern digital version of the billboard, only dynamically targetable.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

As a reminder, when we empower our clients with our AI for discovering and targeting audiences, we also provide them with the reporting that measures the effectiveness of those audiences predictively using our proprietary machine learning technology, which works even for hard-to-find channels like digital billboards. On a sequential basis, we have seen a 21% increase in our Inuvo newsletter subscriptions and a 4% increase in our followers on LinkedIn. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Wally for a more detailed assessment of our financial performance within the quarter. Wally?

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

Thank you, Rich, and good morning. We delivered another outstanding quarter marked by significant revenue growth, new clients, and improved cash efficiency. Our continued focus on innovation, client partnerships, and financial management drove strong performance across all key metrics. Inuvo reported revenue of $26.7 million in the first quarter of 2025, a 57% increase over the $17 million in the first quarter of last year. We saw growth in both client categories, Agencies & Brands, and Platforms. We had strong demand for our services from Platform clients. Platform revenue was approximately $23.7 million. New products that launched last year, emphasizing improved technology, quality content, and compliance, fueled the revenue growth in Platforms. Agencies & Brands revenue was approximately $3 million in the first quarter of 2025. The growth in revenue was driven primarily by the signing of new clients.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

The reorganization of our go-to-market and support teams last year contributed to the higher revenue in Agencies & Brands in the current quarter. We expect the revenue mix from Agencies & Brands and Platform to remain relatively stable throughout 2025. Cost of revenue increased to $5.6 million. That's up from $2.1 million in the first quarter of 2024, primarily due to higher Agencies & Brands revenue and to a new campaign with one of our Platform clients. Cost of revenue is primarily composed of payments made to website publishers and app developers that host our advertisements, as well as to media payments made on behalf of our Agencies & Brand clients. We reported a gross profit of $21.1 million, 41% higher compared to the $14.9 million for the same quarter last year. However, gross margin declined to 79% in the first quarter of this year compared to 87.7% last year.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

The decrease in gross margin was due primarily to a new campaign with a Platform client. We anticipate a small decline in gross margin in 2025 as revenues from this client scales. Operating expenses for the first quarter of 2025 totaled $22.9 million compared to $17 million for the same period last year. Operating expenses include marketing cost, compensation expense, and general and administrative expense. Marketing costs, primarily media costs incurred on behalf of clients, were $17.5 million in the first quarter of 2025 compared to $13.1 million in the same quarter last year. The marketing costs were higher because of higher Platform revenue. Compensation expense increased in the first quarter of 2025 to $3.6 million compared to $3.2 million in the same quarter last year. The higher compensation expense was due to a benefit obligation arising from the death of an employee and to higher incentive accrual.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

Our total employment, both full and part-time, was 81 at the end of the first quarter of 2025 compared to 93 for the same time last year or at the same time last year. Our 2025 budget includes hiring of seven additional people, including engineers, data scientists, sales personnel, and account managers, of which three have already joined the company. General and administrative expense for the first quarter of 2025 increased to $1.7 million from $700,000 last year. That is due to a $1.1 million adjustment made last year to reduce the allowance for expected credit losses for an amount due from a former client that has been paid in full now. Other income was $541,000 for the three months ended March 31st, 2025, and it was zero for the same period last year.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

In March 2025, the company received a refund from the Internal Revenue Service totaling $610,000 in connection with an amended form that we filed in May 2023 for the employee retention credit. Of the total refund, $533,000 was recognized as other income, while $77,000 was recognized as interest and included in net financing expense. Net financing or interest expense was approximately $28,000 in the first quarter of 2025 compared to $20,000 last year. The net interest expense this year is higher due to higher borrowing within the quarter and is net of the $77,000 of interest income that I just mentioned. Net loss in the first quarter of 2025 was $1.3 million compared to a net loss of $2.1 million for the first quarter last year.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

Adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter of 2025 was nearly a break-even at a $22,000 loss compared to a loss of $1 million in the first quarter of last year. As of March 31, we had cash and cash equivalents of $2.6 million and no outstanding debt. During the quarter, we raised $1.2 million at an average price of $0.73 per share through the sale of stock with an at the market agreement. Our capital structure is composed of 144 million common shares outstanding and 11 million employee-restricted stock units outstanding. Effective cash management has allowed us to reduce cash burn by $1 million in the first quarter of this year over the same quarter in 2024, and we expect to generate cash in the second half of this year. In Rich's closing remarks, we will touch upon proposals in the proxy.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

This is merely a reiteration and explanation of what is included in the proxy statement and is not meant to be a solicitation. Rich?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

Thank you, Wally. We achieved 57% year-over-year growth in the first quarter of 2025, hitting yet another all-time revenue high of $26.7 million and a trailing 12 month revenues now standing at $93.5 million. All our important financial metrics improved year-over-year. Building on strong momentum, unaudited April results point to continued strength. Consequently, we project second quarter 2025 revenue growth to be no less than roughly 25% year-over-year. I'd like to close by saying something about our annual shareholder meeting scheduled for May 22nd. This year, we are asking shareholders to vote for what we expect will be a 10 for one reverse split of our stock. We've long known that at roughly 150 million shares outstanding, we are outside the normal and optimal range for public companies of our size.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

We've recognized that having so many shares outstanding results at times in a share price that prevents some buyers from owning our company, that it can lead to greater volatility and potentially manipulation, and that it does also impact our earnings per share and while also potentially undermining investor confidence. As part of this decision that's on the proxy, we did analyze public companies with revenues up to $250 million, and we settled on shares outstanding of approximately 15 million or the 10 for one that's on the proxy statement. This reverse split is unrelated in any way to our New York Stock Exchange listing requirements, nor is the company currently working on any capital raise activities. I will now turn the call over to the operator for questions. Sylvie?

[Operator]

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do have any questions, please press star followed by one on your touch-tone phone. You will then hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by two. If you're using a speakerphone, we ask that you please lift the handset first before pressing any keys. Please go ahead and press star one now if you do have any questions. Your first question will be from Brett Kinstlinger at Alliance Global Partners. Please go ahead, Brian.

[Brian Kinstlinger, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

Hey, guys. Thanks so much. Outstanding results. We've heard demand from the automotive sector has dropped significantly since tariffs were implemented. Has there been any meaningful changes from your new anchor customer that you've discussed over the last few quarters since the beginning of April? What's the percentage of revenue from automotive as a percentage of the first quarter revenues?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

I do not know what the answer to the last one is, and I do not think we provide that as a rule, but I will speak to the primary question about tariffs. We have been thinking about this a lot as well, Brian, probably in the same way every company in America is right now. We have not seen the decline in our largest automotive client. In fact, we have seen the opposite. We have seen an increase. I mean, that could partly be related to the fact that they are trying to move inventory that is already here ahead of the tariffs. It is also, interestingly for us, a consequence of this customer consolidating the various vendors they use to help them with finding and targeting audiences. We have benefited from consolidation a little bit. Yes, for us, as it turns out, it is up.

[Brian Kinstlinger, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

Great. That's good to hear. I guess I'd ask the same question not only on that other large new anchor customer retail, but in general, has there been any changes in your customer base's demand for advertising since April, of course?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

I have to say, generally, no, and particularly not in the large customer. The other large customer you're talking about, everything is going very, very well. There is no, there in that particular client, we've already got a budget that we've discussed with the client, obviously, coming into the year. Right now, there's no changes being made to that budget. In fact, we're already talking with them about how the budgets might change for next year and anticipate growth there.

[Brian Kinstlinger, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

Great. One more pair of questions, sorry, but it seems to be the hot topic, obviously, of this earnings season. As it relates, you talked about new logo wins year to date. It was solid. I am wondering again, oftentimes, since I have been covering Inuvo in times of uncertainty, business development, namely new logo wins, has slowed. Customers tend to not look for new technology at uncertain times. Is that something you are experiencing now? As you discussed, the brand is improving for Inuvo, has that been unchanged as well?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

I think we said we signed up 20 new ones since the beginning of the year. That is good. The pipeline looks strong. I think my answer to this question is I do not know. I mean, I think we are all kind of, Brian, wondering how tariffs are going to impact, whether they are going to continue, what the outcome from it is. At this point, we are not seeing, at least, an impactful impact on our business. We are not.

[Brian Kinstlinger, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

Okay. Great. My last question, the numbers question. Revenue was less in the fourth quarter compared to the first quarter, yet you generated over $1 million of EBITDA in the fourth quarter. If we backed out another income of $500,000 in the first quarter, you lost almost $500,000 in the first quarter in adjusted EBITDA. I'm wondering, has the break-even point changed? I've already added back the non-recurring $300,000 plus. Was there something else non-recurring, I'm wondering, or has the break-even changed for Inuvo?

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

Yeah, Brian, we had a couple of non-recurring items. I think I referenced them in my discussion. Also, we have a new campaign with a Platform client that's driving dollars, right, revenue, and driving dollars in gross profit. It's a little bit slower, a little bit lower margin. It did affect the number that you're referring to to some extent.

[Brian Kinstlinger, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

Just to be clear, $25 million, is that ongoing, or do you think at $25 million a quarter should generally keep you at break-even and higher than that profitable?

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

Yeah, I would say slightly higher than $25 million, you know $26 million, $27 million.

[Brian Kinstlinger, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

Okay.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

26 million, 27 million in a quarter.

[Brian Kinstlinger, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at Alliance Global Partners]

Yeah. Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Next question will be from Scott Buck at H.C. Wainwright. Please go ahead, Scott.

[Scott Buck, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

Hi, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Wally, to piggyback on that last question, that new Platform client that's driving a bit of a headwind on gross margin, you expect that to improve throughout the year, though, correct? Is that business scales?

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

Yeah. It's actually not a new client. It's a new campaign within a.

[Scott Buck, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

New campaign client that we have.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

Yeah, we expect it to scale. Yes, we do expect it to scale. Like I said, interestingly enough, it has an effect on the gross margin itself, making it lower, but it's driving a lot of gross profit dollars. On the other side is that it has little to no marketing expense, which is different than the rest of the platform clients. Yeah, we're very happy with that business.

[Scott Buck, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

Great. I appreciate that. I'm curious, on seasonality, should we expect typical seasonality to be maintained in 2025, or has that changed a bit?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

I think that, hey, Scott, the reality of Q1 suggests that we're already out of what would be normal seasonality. Typically, Q1 is lower than Q4 simply because, as we've said in the past, marketing generally and marketing budgets get reassessed in the first quarter, and then they start spending them in the subsequent Q2 quarter slowly and then accelerating in Q3 and Q4, although sometimes Q4 is a little bit lower than Q3. I don't know. It's kind of a crapshoot. Depends on the year and what's going on economically. Right now, we appear to be heading into this year strongly. Of course, I just gave at least some indication of where Q2 might be over last year. Things look, I don't know, right now, they look pretty good for the year.

[Scott Buck, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Then last one, Richard, could we get a little bit of color on the initial feedback you're getting from the enhanced IntentKey self-service platform that you launched earlier this year? How do you size that opportunity?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

We'd like to have that opportunity be many, many tens of millions of dollars in the next few years. There's no reason why it can't be. The market is sufficiently large. The feedback is very positive. Generally, the positive feedback comes from the reality that, like other large language-based technologies, the ability to simply prompt our AI and have it generate an audience and then execute on that audience, it just has never existed before, ever, in advertising. Yes, the feedback's positive on it. At this point, we just need more salespeople, and we need more visibility, and we need more people knowing that this capability exists.

[Scott Buck, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

Great. I appreciate the added color, guys. That's it for me.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Next question will be from Jon Hickman at Lindenberg. Please go ahead, John.

[Jon Hickman, Managing Director of Equity Research at Lindenberg]

Wally, could you give us some guidance about the G&A costs going forward? Without that $1 million, I guess, I don't know, bad debt reversal, should that expense line go back to what it was kind of last year, or should we go forward with the new number?

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

We've been running, if you back out that $1.1 million reversal that occurred in the first quarter of last year, we've been running about $1.5 million-$1.7 million in G&A a quarter. We expect it to be in that $1.7 million range going forward. Yes.

[Jon Hickman, Managing Director of Equity Research at Lindenberg]

Okay. So that's kind of a, that was more of a one-time item?

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

Oh, it was definitely a one-time item.

[Jon Hickman, Managing Director of Equity Research at Lindenberg]

Why didn't you back that out in your EBITDA?

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

I'm not sure. Did we back? We did not, I guess, back then. Yeah.

[Jon Hickman, Managing Director of Equity Research at Lindenberg]

No, you did not.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

Yeah.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

Okay. Anyway, thanks for the color. So this new campaign that you've got with the Platform customer, is that something that's, I mean, should that type of campaign grow in the future? Other, can you still hear me?

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

Sorry.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

Yes. We got you, Jon.

[Jon Hickman, Managing Director of Equity Research at Lindenberg]

Okay. So that new campaign.

[Wally Ruiz, CFO at Inuvo Inc]

Is that the question?

[Scott Buck, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

Yeah. That new campaign, is that a portent of what's going to of the future, or is that just the brands and agencies are not in that category? So margins should be, I guess, more historical?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

I think maybe I'll answer this just because there's a couple of questions in there, Jon. Hopefully, I get the answer you're looking for here, right? One is the demand right now for, let's call it, campaigns within Platform is strong. In fact, we've got a backlog we can't even fill right now because we want to make sure we have all the right processes and procedures in place for onboarding. That's slowing us down a little bit, but demand's there. The answer to maybe the first question you got is, yes, there'll be more of these campaigns that we're anticipating as the year progresses and as we start to onboard these campaigns. The second thing is, as is typically the case with any marketing activity, regardless of whether it comes from our Agencies and Brands or within the Platform, it's always kind of the same.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

Campaigns usually start off less profitable maybe than they do once they've been running for a while because that's when the optimizations kick in. It takes time. There's some history. Yeah, when campaigns come on, they'll probably impact margins a little bit, but then as three, six months out, they start to improve.

[Scott Buck, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

To expand on Wally's comment, if you X out the, or if you add in the lower marketing expense related to that, are they profitability-wise about the same as the brands and agencies?

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

Oh, you mean a Platform campaign versus an Agencies & Brands campaign?

[Scott Buck, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

Yeah.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

Yeah. No, Agencies & brand campaign. If you net out the marketing costs for the Platform business, then the margins on Agencies & Brands is higher. On campaigns within Agencies & Brands is higher. Certainly higher for anything Self-Serve within Agencies & Brands. That's near 100% margin.

[Scott Buck, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright]

Okay. Thank you.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

You bet. Thanks, Jon.

[Operator]

A reminder to please press star one should you have any questions. Next is Jack Codera at Maxim Group. Please go ahead, Jack.

[Jack Codera, Equity Research Analyst at Maxim Group]

Hi, thank you. This is Jack Codera calling in for Jack Van Der Aarde. To touch on the dynamic of the Self-Serve front again, you mentioned double-digit growth goal for Agencies & Brands, and then obviously the 15 new Self-Serve clients, which you expect to scale. How do you explain kind of the scope of initial Self-Serve deployments compared to other campaigns, and how does that growth develop relative to other parts of the business? Thank you.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

It's much easier. It's easier to onboard them. Jack was asking this question, right? Yeah. It's much easier, Jack, to onboard self-serve. There's less friction across the entire process. One of the benefits of this Self-Serve capability is we've basically embedded our AI into existing campaign systems, demand-side platforms. All a client who wants to use this capability has to do is go into those platforms once they've built a model with our capability, which can take five minutes. That's the incredible part of this technology. They just execute against it. The campaign system collects the money and just remunerates us. It's as easy an onboarding and execution for a client product as exists. We don't even need to have a contract with the client. We're already contracted with the campaign system.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

I hope that answers you, but that's one of the reasons why we're excited about this, just the ease with which people can get up and running, test lots of things. That is the value in this, other than, of course, the capability to target audiences they could never target before.

[Jack Codera, Equity Research Analyst at Maxim Group]

Okay. That's helpful. Given the strong quarter, and you mentioned kind of seasonality is out of whack now, can you talk a little bit more about the broader market? What sort of sentiment are you hearing from agencies, CMOs? What important factors do you think are going to change as we progress into 2025? Thank you.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

I think that one, Jack, is the discussion we had a second ago. I think everybody's sort of waiting to see how the current U.S. strategy vis-à-vis world trade and tariffs is going to pan out. There is some apprehension that we hear only because we're all talking about it, but we're not yet seeing the implementation of any major changes, at least in our business. Now, that could change as we progress in the year, but at this point, that's the best I can tell you is everybody's talking about it, but we're not seeing anybody sort of act on it from an advertising perspective yet.

[Jack Codera, Equity Research Analyst at Maxim Group]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, Mr. Howe, we have no other questions registered. Please proceed, sir.

[Richard Howe, CEO at Inuvo Inc]

Thank you, Sylvie. I would like to thank everyone who joined us today on the call. We appreciate your continued interest in our company, and we will talk again at the end of our second quarter.

[Operator]

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending. At this time, we ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a good weekend.

Participants

Executives

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

Analysts

• Jack Codera, Equity Research Analyst at Maxim Group
• Jon Hickman, Managing Director of Equity Research at Lindenberg
• Scott Buck, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at H.C. Wainwright
• Brian Kinstlinger, Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst at Alliance Global Partners