What Management Said

Read the full Q3 2025 transcript ↗

Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are available in today's earnings press release, which is available on our Investor Relations website at ir.doubleverify.com. Revenue grew 11% to $189 million within our guidance range, and adjusted EBITDA margin reached 35%, once again above expectations, demonstrating the scalability of our model. During the quarter, market dynamics led to some retail budgets being softer, while growth in our other core verticals, including CPG, remained in line with expectations. At the same time, social and CTV are adding new growth and diversifying our revenue, strengthening the foundation for 2026.

To frame the quarter simply, DV's growth drivers, AI-driven product innovation, margin expansion, and customer success remain firmly in our control, and on those levers, we continue to deliver. Second, diversification: how growth across social, streaming TV, and programmatic is strengthening the durability of our model. Third, monetization: how we're translating that innovation and diversification into sustained revenue growth, operating leverage, and cash flow. Moving to our next growth engine, diversification, our progress in AI-powered innovation is driving customer adoption in social and CTV.

Beginning with social activation, both DV Authentic AdVantage and our Meta Pre-screen solutions are off to solid starts, underscoring the demand for transparent, performance-driven solutions in walled gardens. Revenue from Meta activation solutions continues to outpace expectations, with 56 advertisers now live and in the early stages of scaling, up from 26 last quarter. Shifting to diversifying revenue through CTV growth, advertisers continue to describe the streaming landscape as fragmented and opaque. Our third-quarter results reflect continued double-digit year-over-year revenue growth, solid profitability, and strong cash generation.

What went well
  • Adjusted EBITDA reached $66 million at a 35% margin, above the high end of guidance, driven by cost discipline, operating leverage, and AI-driven efficiency gains, even as revenue grew 11% to $189 million within the guided range.
  • DV maintained zero churn among its top 100 customers in the quarter, and supply-side revenue grew 27% year over year on new platform and publisher partnerships.
  • The newly launched DV Authentic AdVantage on YouTube closed roughly $8 million in annual contract value in just its first few weeks, with early CPG tests delivering 24%-34% lower CPMs and 26%-50% higher impression volumes while maintaining or improving brand suitability.
  • Meta activation continued to outpace expectations, scaling to 56 advertisers live (up from 26 in Q2) with 20 of the top 100 customers now using it (up from 13), and ABS grew 12% with 73% of the top 500 customers now activated, up from 68% a year earlier.
  • DV raised its full-year 2025 adjusted EBITDA margin guidance from approximately 32% to approximately 33% and announced a 2026 equity incentive plan projected to cut annual stock-based compensation by 20%.
  • The company generated about $51 million of operating cash flow in the quarter, repurchased 3.3 million shares for $50 million (bringing nine-month buybacks to $132 million, more than offsetting full-year SBC), and ended the quarter with roughly $201 million in cash and no long-term debt.
What went wrong
  • Revenue growth decelerated sharply to 11% from 21% in Q2 and was essentially flat sequentially, as DV lapped its strongest quarter of 2024 and absorbed softer retail spend.
  • Retail budgets were softer across the entire vertical (one of DV's largest), dragging on both non-ABS activation (which grew just 8%) and measurement revenue.
  • Measured transaction fees (MTF) decreased 4% year over year on product and geographic mix, and measurement revenue grew only 9% while international revenue grew just 2%.
  • Reported social measurement growth was held to 9% by the earlier suspension of one CPG customer; excluding that, it would have grown 22% in the quarter.
  • DV lowered its Q4 outlook to $207 million-$211 million (about 10% growth) to reflect ongoing retail softness in a key seasonal period and trimmed implied full-year 2025 growth to approximately 14%, with back-half growth normalizing to roughly 10%; GAAP net income was also pressured by higher tax expense tied to the lower share price and higher SBC.

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Q3 2025 call
Reported 2025-11-07 · figures from the DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. Q3 2025 earnings call.

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