CEO, Perion Network
Perion Network (PERI) CEO On A.I.-Powered ‘WAVE’
Perion Network (PERI) is a global technology company serving major digital advertising channels. CEO Tal Jacobson joins Nicole ...
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 (13 segments)
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Interviewer0:00
We're getting a look here at the advertising and marketing sector, and joining me right now is Tal Jacobson, CEO of Perion Network. Thank you for being here.
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Tal Jacobson0:10
Hey, well, tell me briefly about the company. So our company basically is connecting advertisers and consumers through technology, and we have been doing that for many, many years. We're traded on the NASDAQ, and we have so many different components to our company where we're doing search advertising, social, display, CTV, and now audio. And we keep growing.
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Interviewer0:43
So at this point now, we talk about earnings season, and your last week's earnings were stronger year over year. You had that revenue increase. I'm sure you're very proud of the team. Tell me about what's driving that, and can that continue?
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Tal Jacobson1:01
Yes, absolutely. So we've been growing steadily through the past three years, quarter after quarter after quarter. Again, this quarter we grew 17% in revenue, 29% in EBITDA, and we're going to continue to grow. What drives that? We have an amazing team with exceptional execution ability. We're basically a technology company, so everything we do is through technology. For the amount of money we're generating, it's a fairly small company. It's a 500-person company, and it's very well diversified. So we're not putting all our chips on one specific thing. As I said, we have so many different activities that are trying to get as much as possible through advertising budgets, again, through technology. We're only doing things through technology.
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Interviewer2:02
So when we talk about the generative AI-powered tool Wave, I want you to explain more on that. I don't fully understand the competitive landscape, but we want to hear. You must be facing some headwinds, some tailwinds. Tell us a little bit about that. How does it work, and why is it so important now?
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Tal Jacobson2:24
Yeah, sure, absolutely. So we have an AI lab, and we've been investing in that heavily in the past few years. We just launched a new generative AI product called Wave. What it does is, when we launch a campaign for retailers, we take all their data. We can then combine their data, which is product data, promotional data, location data, and enrich that with weather, traffic, games, demographics. And through that, we give our AI technology an algorithm that can actually write all those scripts for audio ads. So we're talking about hundreds of thousands of audio ads with their scripts. Right now, up until now, you would need to take a voice actor that would read all those scripts, which is impossible. So we have a component that is reading those scripts, but it actually sounds very human-like. No human ear would understand that it's not human. And that's our ability to drive hundreds of thousands of ads with generative AI.
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Interviewer3:46
You know, at this point now, when you talk about each company's data and having that, you have your deal with Albertsons grocery. What kind of companies are you hoping to work with, and which ones are the biggest that you currently work with that we would know of, or that you're working on? What types of companies?
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Tal Jacobson4:05
Right, so we're working not just with Wave on our entire retail solution. We're working with all the biggest retailers out there. Albertsons is obviously the most advanced within our technologies. We launched Wave with Albertsons, but we're working with so many others, really, with so many other programs, and many others understood.
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Interviewer4:32
Now, at this point now, when we talk about the advertising and marketing industry, the dollars that can be spent, what do you foresee? Because a lot of this is the economy at home, abroad. What's your take on what can happen in advertising and marketing? I guess you have a bull case and a base case.
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Tal Jacobson4:57
Listen, I always look at advertising as the fuel of the economy. People need to buy so the economy can move forward. People always would buy when you advertise. So advertisement will always go up, budgets will only grow, and we're seeing that in the past few years. The budgets of advertising only grew and grew and grew because the economy needs to continue, sales need to grow, and we're feeling very bullish about that.
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Interviewer5:31
And what's the final thought here? For your goals going forward for 2024, what would you like to be able to come on and say, 'Perion Network,' so everybody knows it and takes it away with them?
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Tal Jacobson5:45
So listen, we understand that generative AI is the future of advertising, and we're investing heavily in generative AI for advertising technology. And we're going to continue to grow, and we're going to continue to invest in that specific technology. And we have high expectations of taking more and more market share, as we've been doing so in the past few years.
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Interviewer6:13
All right, it's great to see you, Tal Jacobson, CEO of Perion Network. Thank you for joining us.