Zeta Global NYSE: ZETA executives highlighted another quarter of above-guidance results and a higher full-year outlook, pointing to strong demand for AI-driven marketing tools and early traction from its new Athena product.
Q1 results extend “beat and raise” streak
Co-founder, Chairman and CEO David Steinberg said the company delivered its “19th consecutive beat and raise quarter,” which he attributed to a broader market shift toward applied AI and vendor consolidation. “AI is no longer a feature,” Steinberg said, arguing enterprises are replacing legacy systems with fewer platforms that can deliver measurable outcomes.
First quarter revenue was $396 million, up 50% year-over-year, with Steinberg noting growth of 29% year-over-year excluding the Marigold acquisition. Adjusted EBITDA was $66 million, up 42% year-over-year.
Chris Greiner, CFO, said results came in $26 million above the midpoint of quarterly guidance and described the upside as broad-based rather than driven by a single factor. He added that revenue growth excluding acquisitions and political candidate revenue accelerated for the fourth consecutive quarter to 29%.
Athena rollout and early adoption signals
A central theme of the call was Athena by Zeta, which Steinberg described as an interface that brings AI “directly into marketing workflows” and speeds enterprise adoption. He said Athena demos increased “dramatically” through the quarter and that Athena influenced deal outcomes, including what he described as one of Zeta’s largest deals ever with a global apparel retailer that consolidated from four vendors to Zeta.
Greiner told analysts Athena is not “explicitly monetized,” but he pointed to leading indicators. He said that in the first week of general availability, Zeta saw a 7x increase in “agentic interactions” and that 60% of AI usage on the platform was driven by Athena. Greiner and Steinberg both tied Athena’s impact to deeper adoption of Zeta’s platform and higher customer spend over time.
Steinberg also emphasized enablement efforts, telling Goldman Sachs that Zeta made Athena available to 100% of enterprise clients and that a learning and development group has onboarded the company’s top 30 clients. He said Zeta is running weekly virtual training, recorded modules available inside the platform, and “ask Athena question of the week” prompts to encourage usage. He also said Zeta plans to roll out an Athena certification for client users.
Data advantage, consolidation wins, and “One Zeta” expansion
Management repeatedly connected product momentum to Zeta’s proprietary data and consolidation positioning. Steinberg said Zeta SuperGraph, the company’s identity and intelligence graph, helps unify enterprise data and provides what he called a “deterministic view of the consumer.” He cited a win with an online pet products retailer and said proprietary data contributed to an expansion at a Fortune 100 telecom customer that is expected to drive an “18 times increase” in spend with Zeta in 2026 versus 2025.
Greiner reported several customer metrics tied to the company’s “One Zeta” land-and-expand strategy:
- Super-scaled customers totaled 189, up 19% year-over-year (and up five sequentially).
- Super-scaled customer ARPU was $1.7 million, up 21% year-over-year.
- The number of super-scaled customers using more than one use case was up over 50% year-over-year.
- Customers using more than three channels increased 40% year-over-year.
Steinberg said the company is increasingly displacing “legacy marketing clouds” and point solutions as enterprises consolidate. In a discussion about competitive dynamics, he argued platforms that “do not have proprietary data” and “do not have proprietary native artificial intelligence” will struggle, while Zeta continues to take share.
Margins, cash flow, capital return, and Marigold integration
Greiner said Zeta generated $49.7 million in net cash provided by operating activities and $41.7 million in free cash flow, representing a 10.5% margin and 63% free cash flow conversion of adjusted EBITDA. He noted free cash flow included a working capital headwind tied to longer agency payment cycles.
On profitability, Greiner reported adjusted EBITDA margin of 16.7% in Q1, down 100 basis points year-over-year, and attributed cost-of-revenue pressure partly to new agency wins driving a higher initial mix of social. He said social carries a higher cost of revenue but remains accretive to adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow margins and can serve as an entry point before agencies expand into Zeta-owned channels such as email, display, video, mobile and connected TV.
Greiner said the Marigold integration is progressing rapidly and “tracking ahead of our expectations,” with operating synergy actions expected to begin benefiting margins in Q2 and the back half of the year. He also said Marigold revenue came in better than anticipated and noted early traction from cross-selling Marigold’s loyalty product alongside Zeta use cases, though Steinberg cautioned that much of the cross-sell progress is “not a lot…in the numbers yet.”
On the bottom line, Greiner reiterated Zeta’s expectation to be GAAP net income and EPS positive for full-year 2026, targeting $0.02 to $0.04 in GAAP EPS, and said Q1 results have the company pacing toward the high end of that range. Zeta posted a GAAP net loss of $13.2 million versus a $21.6 million loss a year ago, with Greiner attributing Q1 costs primarily to Marigold integration.
Zeta also returned capital through buybacks, repurchasing 1.5 million shares for $25.7 million in Q1, with approximately $138 million remaining under its authorization. Greiner said the company expects to remain active, subject to market conditions and priorities.
Guidance raised again; pipeline growth remains a focus
Management raised its full-year outlook for the second consecutive quarter. Greiner said Zeta increased the midpoint of 2026 revenue guidance by $30 million to $1.785 billion, implying 37% growth, or 22% growth excluding Marigold and political candidate revenue. He emphasized that none of the increase was tied to political candidate revenue, which remains assumed at $15 million for 2026.
For Q2, Zeta now expects revenue of $420 million at the midpoint, and adjusted EBITDA of $86.6 million. For the full year, Greiner raised the midpoint of adjusted EBITDA guidance to $397 million and increased free cash flow guidance to $235 million.
Greiner said the sales pipeline is up 40% year-over-year, with discretionary industries growing even more, and he cited Athena demos as a differentiator in “marquee enterprise and agency wins” in Q1. However, he told Truist that deal cycles have remained consistent across macro environments, with Athena adding opportunities and larger deal sizes rather than necessarily speeding close times.
About Zeta Global NYSE: ZETA
Zeta Global, founded in 2007 and headquartered in New York City, is a leading data-driven marketing technology company. The firm's mission centers on helping brands acquire, grow and retain customers through a unified customer lifecycle management platform. Over the years, Zeta Global has built a reputation for leveraging big data and predictive analytics to power digital marketing programs across multiple channels.
At the core of Zeta's offering is the Zeta Marketing Platform, which combines identity resolution, audience insights and real-time engagement capabilities.
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