The days of agentic ad tech being only for direct ad buys are coming to an end.
PubMatic has run more than 30 fully autonomous, end-to-end agentic campaigns through the SSP’s AgenticOS platform, CEO Rajeev Goel told investors during the company’s Q1 earnings call on Thursday.
That’s in addition to more than 1,000 direct publisher deals that have already run through AgenticOS as of Q1.
Scaling up AI deals drove an 80% year-over-year growth rate in PubMatic’s emerging revenue category for the quarter, pushing the category to 14% of PubMatic’s total revenue.
That growth contributed to the company’s 13% YOY overall growth in Q1, with revenue totaling $62.6 million. In addition, PubMatic saw double-digit YOY growth in monetized impressions. And CTV as a standalone category was up 18% YOY, while mobile app revenue grew 25%.
The agentic advantage
PubMatic’s AgenticOS isn’t just helping its bottom line; the product also makes campaigns more efficient, according to Goel.
Buyers are seeing 30%-40% improvement in CPMs from using the solution, he said. And they’re able to buy 40% more publisher inventory because no other ad tech intermediary is collecting fees on end-to-end agentic deals run through PubMatic’s platform.
“It’s a single layer of technology, and it looks a lot like what the walled gardens leverage to drive ad performance,” Goel said.
And when it comes to consolidating the ad tech supply chain, PubMatic’s Activate direct-to-buyer connection has tripled its business since last Q1, while its Connect data platform now boasts more than 300 data and commerce media partners, including Walmart Connect and PayPal Ads.
Meanwhile, PubMatic’s mobile app business, which saw 25% YOY growth and contributed to the SSP’s 5% growth in display advertising, was another revenue driver. Combined revenue from mobile and omnichannel video accounted for 79% of PubMatic’s Q1 revenue. And PubMatic is now integrated with the mobile market’s three leading mediation platforms, AppLovin Max, Google AdMob and Unity LevelPlay, Goel said. In addition, PubMatic now has access to more than 90% of global mobile SDK inventory.
Continuing on the mobile front, Goel also highlighted AgenticOS’s Creative Innovation Suite, which uses AI to generate consistent creative when targeting viewers across CTV, mobile and online display touch points. He mentioned Horizon Media, Crossmedia and Kelly Scott Madison as agencies that have adopted the creative suite.
All of these features give PubMatic a foundation for continued AI growth, according to Goel. And the company reaffirmed its Q4 projection of a double-digit growth rate in the second half of this year.
But investors are still skeptical of PubMatic’s agentic AI business sustaining true revenue growth. One investor pointed out that, even with AgenticOS running over 1,000 direct deals and more than 30 end-to-end autonomous campaigns, that still represents “an immaterial percentage” of PubMatic’s overall business.
In response, PubMatic CFO Steve Pantelick said that AI is also impacting other areas of PubMatic’s business, such as helping publishers set up and troubleshoot campaigns faster, and the company expects those improvements will continue to drive double-digit growth alongside mobile and CTV.
DSP deals
While PubMatic is bullish about AI, the company is also dealing with an old problem: competition between DSPs and SSPs for direct advertiser business.
That is, PubMatic is still fighting headwinds from a major unnamed DSP – clearly The Trade Desk – spending less on PubMatic’s SSP, likely due to increased adoption of TTD’s direct-to-publisher OpenPath solution that cuts out SSPs. This contributed to PubMatic’s US revenue declining by 12% YOY in Q1, Pantelick said. However, the decline in US business was offset by 25% growth in the Asia-Pacific region and 10% growth in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
But the unnamed DSP’s pullback will be a drag on Q2 earnings, too, with PubMatic projecting between a 2% and 4% decrease in revenue next quarter.
Multiple investors asked for clarity around the DSP’s impacts. And Pantelick responded that revenue from the DSP in question was actually better than the company expected in Q1 due to PubMatic’s efforts to “optimize our platform to meet the needs of this buyer.” He added that PubMatic expects to fully lap the impact of this DSP’s pullback by Q3.
To help offset the DSP losses, PubMatic added more than 50 other DSPs to its partner list last year and grew its integrations with mid-market DSPs by 20% in Q1.
PubMatic also struck a deal with Amazon DSP this quarter to integrate Amazon’s Dynamic Traffic Engine, which has improved publisher CPMs by up to 10% since the integration went live, Goel said.
Future plans
Looking ahead, one of PubMatic’s immediate priorities is to replace CRO of the Americas Kyle Dozeman and Chief Growth Officer Paulina Klimenko, who are both leaving the company. Goel said PubMatic is looking for ways to consolidate some of their responsibilities into a new global CRO position.
Goel added that PubMatic sees continued opportunities for growth in serving mid-market, performance-focused DSPs and midsize indie agencies, who have proven quicker to adopt AI solutions than their large holdco counterparts.
And, unsurprisingly, PubMatic is keen to work with OpenAI as ChatGPT opens up to advertising. Goel said the SSP has been working with smaller AI players like Kontext and Dappier and is “already innovating on the ad formats and appropriate signals to monetize that kind of inventory.”
Goel pointed to OpenAI’s ambition to earn $100 billion in ad revenue by 2030 as a sign it will have to work with platforms like PubMatic.
“It’s going to be an ecosystem-wide effort for them to get to that level,” he said.
