Home CTV MNTN’s SMB CTV Ad Business Is Growing Like Gangbusters

MNTN’s SMB CTV Ad Business Is Growing Like Gangbusters

SHARE:

Since going public in May, self-serve CTV company MNTN has only released two quarterly earnings reports: one for Q2 at the end of August and another for Q3 on Tuesday.

Technically, those two reports might not be enough to confirm a pattern. But it is enough information to draw a line – and, so far, that line is going up.

Revenue grew to $70 million during the last quarter at a year-over-year growth rate of 31%, compared to $57 million in Q3 2024.

Looking to Q4, the company expects to earn between $85.5 and $86.5 million, representing a projected 34% rate of YOY growth. Per CFO Patrick Pohlen, MNTN may look to increase head count and invest more in sales and marketing.

For both the last and next quarter of 2025, that growth does not include the ongoing impact of divesting Maximum Effort, the digital marketing agency founded by Chief Creative Officer and “Deadpool” star Ryan Reynolds.

Even still, MNTN averaged almost 40% YOY growth over the last six quarters, according to what CEO Mark Douglas has previously told investors.

Climb Ev’ry MNTN

MNTN’s rapid success, said Douglas, comes partly from an acceleration in new customer growth, particularly among small businesses. In Q4 of last year, small businesses represented 6% of the company’s revenue; as of last quarter, it’s up to 15%.

What’s more, Douglas added, the customer expansion rate is “well north” of 115%, meaning new customers are spending more with the company over time.

Many of those customers are coming to MNTN on their own, too. Roughly 2% of MNTN’s leads were inbound three years ago, said Douglas. Now, it’s a whopping 75%, which he attributed to the success of their marketing strategy and the nascent potential of the performance TV market.

Many of those inbound leads come from self-sign-ups, meaning users who register for an account without interacting with any member of the sales team. (Douglas and Pohlen took care to differentiate self-sign-ups from “self-serve,” which has always been part of MNTN’s platform.)

Tomorrow belongs to AI?

And no ad tech earnings call would be complete without AI.

Last week, the company finally announced the beta launch for QuickFrame AI, an AI platform developed from a video creation marketplace that was acquired back in 2022.

After all, 97% of MNTN customers have never run a TV ad before, a statistic that Douglas shared four times over the course of the call (and during last quarter’s call, too). That means they don’t have TV commercials or other video assets ready to go when they come to MNTN.

Using these news tools will shorten the time it takes for businesses to go live with their CTV ad campaigns, Douglas said.

Not discussed on the call, however, was what the launch of these new generative AI tools means for the thousands of human creators and editors that once populated QuickFrame’s video content maker network. But considering that most of the links for that particular offering now default to a broken page on MNTN’s website, it likely isn’t a priority.

Must Read

The Trade Desk’s Revenue Growth Stalls As Big Brands Tighten Their Belts

“Our revenue growth is below our expectations and below the standard we hold ourselves to,” The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green told investors.

Comic: Measuremints

Nielsen Is Acquiring DoubleVerify For $2.15 Billion

On Thursday, Nielsen entered into a definitive agreement to acquire DoubleVerify in an all cash transaction valued at approximately $2.15 billion.

WBD Hopes To Buoy Linear TV Long Enough For Streaming To Find Its Way

Warner Bros. Discovery cited softer ad sales growth and the continued decline of linear TV as its reasons for missing investor expectations in Q2. Unsurprisingly, streaming ads are the biggest bright spot on WBD’s earnings report card.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters
Comic: The Mobile Freight Train

AppLovin Asks For Patience As It Grows Its Ecommerce And Consumer Ads Business

“We’re deemed a new bucket, so a testing category,” AppLovin CEO told investors regarding its nascent consumer and ecommerce ads business. “And to graduate up takes time. This stuff compounds over quarters and years.”

Magnite Doesn’t Want To Be A DSP. It Just Wants To Own The Decisioning Layer

On Wednesday, Magnite CEO Michael Barrett painted a picture of a company that’s edging into the buy side by adding more DSP-style capabilities for planning and activation.

For Cuisinart, AI-Generated Ads Are As Handy As A Kitchen Blender

Cuisinart’s marketing team has been eager to take advantage of generative AI-based creative.