Viant Technology Q4 Earnings Call Highlights

14 Mar 2026, 12:10 by Sarita Garza · The Markets Daily

Viant Technology (NASDAQ:DSP) reported record fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results, with management highlighting accelerating connected TV (CTV) demand, expanding adoption of the company’s addressability tools, and an expanded artificial intelligence product suite led by a newly launched autonomous performance product called Outcomes.

Record Q4 and full-year results

Co-founder and CEO Tim Vanderhook said the company delivered “new company records across all key metrics” in the fourth quarter. Fourth-quarter revenue rose 22% year-over-year and contribution ex-TAC increased 19%, both above the high end of guidance. Management emphasized that political advertising created a difficult comparison; excluding political advertising, fourth-quarter revenue and contribution ex-TAC increased 28% and 24%, respectively.

Chief Financial Officer Larry Madden said fourth-quarter revenue was $110.1 million, up 22% year-over-year and 5% above the high end of guidance, while contribution ex-TAC was $64.6 million, up 19% and 1% above the high end of guidance. Adjusted EBITDA rose 45% year-over-year to $24.7 million, exceeding the high point of guidance by 5%.

For the full year 2025, the company reported:

Revenue: $344.2 million (up 19% year-over-year)
Contribution ex-TAC: $208.7 million (up 18%)
Adjusted EBITDA: $57.4 million (up 29%)
Adjusted EBITDA margin: 28% (up nearly 250 basis points year-over-year)
Non-GAAP net income: $41.1 million (up 19%)

CTV momentum and “Direct Access” growth

Management repeatedly pointed to CTV as a core growth driver. Tim Vanderhook said total CTV spend reached an all-time high in the quarter and represented 46% of total advertiser spend. He also said CTV contribution ex-TAC increased by more than 40% for the second consecutive year, which he described as more than two-and-a-half times broader industry growth.

A key component of that CTV strategy is the company’s Direct Access premium publisher program. Tim Vanderhook said Direct Access allows advertisers to transact more directly with publishers, “bypass bid stream resellers,” and allocate more spend to working media. For full-year 2025, he said nearly 50% of CTV ad spend on Viant’s platform was transacted through Direct Access, which includes publishers such as Disney, Paramount, and Peacock.

Addressability: Household ID and IRIS_ID adoption

Viant also highlighted adoption of its addressability suite, including Household ID and IRIS_ID. Tim Vanderhook said Household ID is embedded in “over 80% of all programmatic bid requests and over 90% of all CTV requests,” and that 95% of household addresses are mapped to Viant’s ID graph. He added that Household ID offers “approximately 4 times the coverage of competing audience identifiers.”

On IRIS_ID, Viant’s proprietary content targeting and measurement solution acquired with IRIS.TV, Tim Vanderhook said IRIS_ID’s presence in the CTV bid stream has grown fivefold in just over a year, reaching nearly 50% of incoming CTV bid requests during the first quarter. He described IRIS_ID as enabling show-level contextual targeting beyond the app level, including signals such as emotional sentiment and brand suitability.

Management also provided specific adoption and monetization signals for IRIS_ID. Tim Vanderhook said revenue attached to IRIS_ID utilization increased 90% sequentially in the quarter. In the Q&A, Chris Vanderhook said the company believes it is “reasonable” that IRIS_ID could reach 70% penetration during 2026, and argued that network effects and implementation within the OpenRTB protocol create barriers to replication.

Viant AI and the launch of “Outcomes”

The company’s most prominent product update was the launch of Outcomes, which management described as a branded AI decisioning solution powered by an “AI Lattice Brain” and an intelligence layer. Tim Vanderhook said Outcomes is designed for performance advertisers and requires just four inputs—advertiser (or product/service), budget, flight dates, and goal (such as incremental revenue, return on ad spend, or cost per action)—after which the platform autonomously plans, executes, and optimizes the campaign.

Chris Vanderhook framed the launch as an effort to compete for performance advertising budgets, which he said represent about 70% of U.S. ad spend. He said performance budgets have historically been dominated by “search and social walled gardens,” and that Outcomes is intended to divert spend to the open internet by connecting initial CTV exposure to final conversion.

Chris Vanderhook cited early testing across more than 20 existing customers, and shared several case studies where Viant compared Outcomes-driven campaigns to campaigns planned and optimized by human experts. Examples included:

MacKenzie-Childs: Outcomes delivered a 58% lower cost per conversion versus the human-optimized control; Outcomes also generated “over a 180% increase in total sales” for the same budget in the test.
UMass Global: Outcomes achieved an 82% lower cost per outcome in a test focused on high-intent student inquiries.
Kampgrounds of America: Outcomes delivered a 76% reduction in cost per purchase event in a holiday-season test.
Tire Discounters: Outcomes delivered a 43% reduction in cost per lead.
Uqora: Outcomes delivered a 95% reduction in cost per outcome.
Alzheimer’s Association: Outcomes delivered a 68% reduction in cost per outcome.

Customer wins, capital return, and Q1 guidance

Management said new customer momentum continued, naming Molson Coors as a “flagship customer” that is live in the first quarter with plans to ramp throughout the year, as well as WHOOP, which Viant recently announced as a multi-year partnership with Viant designated as its “DSP of record.” Tim Vanderhook also referenced other wins, including “a leading CTV streaming service, a national charitable foundation, and a national convenience store chain.”

On capital allocation, Madden said Viant ended the quarter with $191.2 million in cash and cash equivalents, no debt, and full access to a $75 million credit facility. He said the company generated $33.1 million of operating cash flow and $28.2 million of free cash flow in the quarter. Madden also said that since launching its share repurchase program in May 2024, Viant has returned $59.6 million to shareholders, with $40.4 million remaining under authorization as of March 9.

For the first quarter of 2026, Madden guided to revenue of $83 million to $86 million, contribution ex-TAC of $49 million to $51 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $8.5 million to $9.5 million. Management said the midpoint implies record first-quarter performance across revenue, contribution ex-TAC, and adjusted EBITDA. In the Q&A, Madden said contributions from Molson Coors, WHOOP, and Outcomes were expected to be limited in Q1, with more meaningful ramp beginning in Q2 and beyond, and he reiterated expectations for sequential acceleration through 2026, including political advertising contribution in the back half of the year.

About Viant Technology (NASDAQ:DSP)

Viant Technology Inc (Nasdaq: DSP) is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) advertising technology company that delivers data-driven solutions to marketers and agencies. Its core offering, Adelphic, is a programmatic demand-side platform (DSP) that empowers clients to plan, execute and optimize digital ad campaigns across desktop, mobile, connected TV and other emerging channels.

Complementing its DSP, Viant offers PeopleCloud, a people-based data management platform (DMP) that aggregates and normalizes first- and third-party audience data.