CEO, Perion Network
Snap's content wasn't something advertisers wanted to be associated with: Perion CEO Tal Jacobson
Tal Jacobson, Perion CEO, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss Snap's quarterly earnings results, which reported revenue that trailed analysts’ estimates and issued a forecast that came in a bit below Wall Street expectations, the headwinds facing the company, Snap's ad revenue strategy, state of the digital ad market at large, and more.
About Tal Jacobson
Tal Jacobson, CEO of Perion Network, has described 2026 as "year one" for the company following a strategic pivot in which it reset its management, product line, and focus. In podcast appearances, Jacobson stated that Perion now positions itself as an "AI native" advertising technology company that does not own inventory, allowing it to recommend ad placements across platforms such as Google, YouTube, Meta, and TikTok without being tied to any single one. He introduced Perion One, a platform that sits above existing ad-buying systems, and Outmax, an AI agent that applies algorithmic-trading methodology to media buying. Jacobson said Outmax serves 52 Fortune 100 companies and claimed it provides "up to 80 or 90% better results" than manual work. Jacobson also discussed partnerships with Amazon, Walmart Connect, and Mastercard, and noted that the company's historical product growth has been around 19-20% year-over-year. He projected that Perion's EBITDA margin could reach 28% by 2028, attributing potential efficiency gains to AI-driven automation, stating that as revenue scales, the company does not expect to proportionally increase headcount.
Transcript (11 segments)
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Host0:00
Snap revenues missing the mark, shares plunging on the news. The company has struggled to navigate a slowing digital advertising business. Join us now with more on the ad landscape, Tal Jacobson, CEO of Perion. And we were shaking our heads, Tal. I'm interested in your view on exactly what's happening here. Company-specific, the war in the Middle East, the weather, what do you attribute this to? They've had trouble quarter after quarter trying to grow digital ad sales. Other companies haven't had quite as much of an issue, it doesn't seem like right now.
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Tal Jacobson0:35
Thanks for having me first of all. You know, I think social platforms such as Snap, TikTok, especially within war, are just becoming news portals. So for advertisers to advertise there with all the negative content, you know, it's just become harder and harder. So I think that was a big thing in Q4 for them. But you know, they did grow their user base, but I just think the content wasn't the right content for advertisers to be associated with, as brand safety is a big thing.
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Host1:21
The stock had been trying to make a stand and rebound from the stratospheric levels that we saw during the pandemic. I think it was a 70 or 80, almost a hundred billion dollar company at one point. So it was making a comeback, giving it all back today. What do you think that management needs to do to get this back on track? What would you be doing? You have your own company, right?
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Tal Jacobson1:51
So I think, you know, what they're doing now is laying off 10% of their employees is a first good step to be efficient. You know, Reddit are going to go, probably going to go public this year. So I think they're going to have the same issue telling advertisers that they are ready to be brand safe. I think that's the bigger issue. And that once they have that, I mean, they have the demographics, right? They have Gen Z, they have Millennials, the user base is actually growing. They just need to have better communication with the advertisers.
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Host2:24
Who would you say, as far as digital ad, who knows what, who's the best, who should they emulate at this point? Give me the top three companies that are leading here.
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Tal Jacobson2:38
Right, so you know, obviously Google showed great growth, Meta showed great growth. And Meta knows how to deal with sensitive content around it. I think, you know, I would look at how Meta solved that issue and tackled that as far as the overall environment.
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Host3:00
Now, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much, what is the rebound that we've seen in digital advertising? If not digital, then where is it going right now? The Super Bowl?
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Tal Jacobson3:11
Well, obviously Super Bowl is a very interesting event. I think 2024 is big on all those events that are going to attract a lot more advertising budgets. Super Bowl is the main thing, but we also have March Madness, we're going to have the Olympics, we're going to have the political budgets which are expected to be about 177 billion dollars. So yeah, and I think, you know, it's interesting to see how the Super Bowl actually changed in demographics within the past few decades. I mean, it's a lot more female-oriented, like half of the viewers are going to be female. And you know, with everything that goes on with Taylor Swift, you know, a lot more cosmetic companies are going to advertise there. So it's very interesting. Obviously, out-of-home is becoming very, very big. You know, the Las Vegas Sphere which is now charging a million dollars for a spot. You know, all of those are growing. So I think 2024 for digital advertising is actually a good year.
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Host4:17
It did bring in, obviously, the ads themselves bring in a lot of a cross-section of society for the Super Bowl. But this year, as you even just talking about it in passing, Tal, you brought up Taylor Swift. So the whole, the female demo, and I'm not saying that there's not male Taylor Swift fans, but just in my family, I cannot believe how interested people that didn't used to be that interested in football, I can't believe how much they're looking forward to this game because of the Taylor Swift effect.
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Tal Jacobson4:49
I mean, look, you know, think about it. Like 20 years ago, you know, Budweiser was a big advertiser, right, for the Super Bowl. Now it's cosmetic companies. So that shows you the shift, the huge shift. And it is, at the end of the day, it is an entertainment event and it's being treated that way, which is good. I think it's good. 46% females and a lot of Millennials and Gen Z, which is kind of new. I'm guessing Taylor Swift had something to do with that.
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Host5:25
Yeah.