Magnite NASDAQ: MGNI is positioning itself as a key infrastructure provider for programmatic connected-TV advertising as streaming platforms, television manufacturers and commerce-media businesses seek technology partners to manage inventory, data and demand, according to Head of Investor Relations Nick Kormeluk.
Speaking at BofA Global Research’s small- and mid-cap executive insights event, Kormeluk described Magnite as a supply-side platform that helps publishers sell digital advertising inventory by connecting it with demand from advertisers. The company operates across connected TV, mobile applications and web, digital out-of-home and other channels, though Kormeluk emphasized the company’s CTV opportunity.
CTV Relationships and Market Concentration
Kormeluk said connected-TV inventory is more concentrated than traditional open-web advertising, with about 30 large global partners representing roughly 80% of global inventory. He said Magnite has relationships with all of those partners except YouTube and has become a primary access point for buyers seeking CTV inventory.
He said the company’s relationships with partners including Disney, Roku, Fox and Netflix have expanded over time. Rather than serving solely as another bidder for inventory, Magnite seeks to provide technology for ad serving, mediation, demand generation, yield management, identity and audience creation.
“We have shown that we are that partner that can execute and bring people to the programmatic market,” Kormeluk said.
Kormeluk also said the company’s CTV relationships have created a “halo effect” in its broader digital-video-plus, or DV+, business. He cited commerce-media partners including United Airlines, Pinterest, Best Buy, Redfin, RE/MAX, Expedia and PayPal, saying Magnite now has 21 partners relying on it exclusively as their programmatic partner.
Walmart and Samsung Opportunities
Among recent partnerships, Kormeluk discussed Walmart’s expanding advertising ambitions following its Vizio acquisition plans and its announced purchase of demand-side platform Vibe. He said Walmart has tapped Magnite to help make its user data available not only on Vizio inventory but also across other inventory sources.
Kormeluk said the opportunity with Walmart was not contributing to Magnite’s results as of the second quarter and characterized it as a future growth opportunity.
He also highlighted Magnite’s win to provide ad-serving technology for Samsung’s television home screen. Kormeluk said Samsung had historically sold that inventory through direct sales and insertion orders rather than through an ad server. Magnite won the business through a request-for-proposal process, he said.
Samsung has the largest global installed base of smart TVs, according to Kormeluk, who added that home-screen advertising can account for as much as 30% of advertising revenue for other TV original equipment manufacturers. He said the Samsung home-screen opportunity similarly had not contributed revenue in the second quarter.
Data, Curation and AI Workflows
Kormeluk said data activation is increasingly shifting toward the supply side because CTV publishers have greater control over user identifiers and data matches than publishers in the fragmented open-web market. Magnite does not charge publishers directly for using their first-party data, he said, but the data can help generate higher CPMs by improving advertisers’ ability to target desired audiences.
Magnite can also help partners monetize data beyond their owned-and-operated properties. Kormeluk cited LG’s automatic content recognition data as an example, saying Magnite can help sell that data for use across non-LG inventory and share the resulting revenue with the partner.
The company is also developing agentic advertising capabilities through products including Magnite Orchestration. Kormeluk said the technology is intended to reduce friction in advertising workflows that have traditionally relied on APIs and manual configuration.
He said the platform can support buyer agents, seller agents and mediation agents while also providing infrastructure for privacy protections, payment workflows and inventory monetization. Magnite is targeting agency spending still conducted through insertion orders, which Kormeluk described as a process that can take weeks to develop, test and refine. He said Magnite’s tools can complete comparable testing and creative refinements in minutes.
Growth Priorities and Margin Outlook
Kormeluk said Magnite’s core operating priority is to grow advertising spend and revenue rather than pursue take-rate expansion. He said the company aims to add services and inventory opportunities for publishers while maintaining a cost structure that makes outsourcing to Magnite more attractive than building technology internally.
He said the company has raised its EBITDA-margin guidance three times during the year, most recently to at least 37%. Kormeluk said Magnite’s second-quarter top-line beat of $10 million translated into an $8 million EBITDA beat, which he said reflected the company’s expected high incremental flow-through once revenue growth exceeds 10%.
Magnite is also focused on reducing its cost per impression, he said. The company has moved portions of its CTV infrastructure to a hybrid model, using on-premises systems for predictable volume and cloud capacity for demand spikes. Kormeluk said the company has reduced cost per impression by strong double-digit percentages annually.
On investor concerns, Kormeluk said the main question centers on the outlook for DV+. Open-web advertising faces pressure, while mobile app, streaming, audio, digital out-of-home and commerce media have healthier trends, he said. He characterized the near-term DV+ outlook as generally flat, while arguing that faster-growing parts of the business should become a larger portion of the mix over time.
About Magnite (NASDAQ:MGNI)
Magnite, Inc NASDAQ: MGNI operates as an independent sell-side advertising platform that enables publishers and digital media owners to monetize their inventory through programmatic advertising. Formed in 2020 through the merger of Rubicon Project and Telaria, Magnite combines technologies for desktop, mobile, connected television (CTV) and digital out-of-home (DOOH) ad exchanges. The company provides an end-to-end solution designed to help media owners optimize yield across open marketplaces, private marketplaces and programmatic guaranteed deals.
At the core of Magnite's offering is its supply-side platform (SSP), which connects publishers' ad impressions to demand-side platforms (DSPs) through real-time bidding (RTB).
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