DoubleVerify closed 2025 with a fourth quarter that showed strong profitability but disappointing top-line growth: revenue rose 8% year over year to $206 million, below expectations, while adjusted EBITDA margin hit 38%. The shortfall stemmed from late-quarter campaign pullbacks by a couple of large customers amid agency changes, layered on continued retail softness, though healthcare and technology were notably strong. Newer growth engines accelerated, with social activation up about 60%, CTV measurement impressions up 22%, and a record 90% greenfield win rate. For the full year, revenue grew 14% to $748 million at a 33% margin with 109% net revenue retention, and DV guided 2026 to 8%-10% revenue growth and an improved approximately 34% margin, while authorizing $300 million of buybacks.
Good afternoon and welcome to DoubleVerify's fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. With us today are Mark Zagorski, CEO, and Nicola Allais, CFO. Today's press release and this call may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to inherent risks, uncertainties and changes and reflect our current expectations and information currently available to us and our actual results could differ materially.
For more information, please refer to the risk factors in our recent SEC filings, including our Form 10-Q and our Annual Report or Form 10-K. Our discussion today will include references to certain supplemental non-GAAP financial measures and should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for our GAAP results. Reconciliation 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. During the call today, we'll be referring to the slide deck posted on our website. With that, I'll turn it over to Mark Zagorski.
Thanks, Brinlea Johnson. Good afternoon, everyone. Let me start today's call with a quick take on the most recent quarter. In Q4, we delivered a strong 38% adjusted EBITDA margin and 8% year-over-year growth in revenue, demonstrating the strength of our operating model even as revenue came in below expectations. As we mentioned last quarter, while we anticipated some retail softness, our results were impacted by further pullbacks of a customer campaign spend late in the quarter, primarily due to agency-related changes. We saw no broad-based spend decreases or detachment of DV services and noted exceptional strength across multiple sectors in the fourth quarter, including healthcare and technology. We reported strong customer retention during the quarter with no new deactivations among our top 100 customers in Q4 and usage across social and streaming TV continued to scale.
In addition, our programmatic business continued to grow with nearly two-thirds of the impressions that we engage with delivered on mobile in-app and mobile web environments. Outside of mobile, both programmatic display and video measurement impressions grew at double-digit rates in 2025. The investments we are making in building durable, diversified long-term growth in sectors that continue to thrive alongside the AI revolution, namely social, streaming, and AI platforms, are becoming core catalysts for our future growth. Social activation accelerated meaningfully, growing at approximately 60% year-over-year in Q4 and starting 2026 at an even stronger year-over-year growth rate. Authentic AdVantage on YouTube is entering the year with $8 million of expected ACV. CTV measurement impression volumes also grew impressively, up 22% for the quarter, continuing their cadence of outsized growth.
We also saw strong interest in our ABS-enabled Do Not Air list for streaming TV, which entered general availability with a strong debut this January, with three top 15 customers representing hundreds of millions in CTV spend implementing pre-bid controls. AI measurement tools like SlopStopper and Agent ID showed meaningful engagement rates and are now being tested by six of our largest customers with a broader rollout scheduled for the coming months. Together, the areas which are most important for a durable growth story in the future are setting us up for a strong 2026. Before turning to the full year 2025 results, I want to discuss the continuing evolution of our product-led growth cycle and what is really on everyone's mind, our take on the potential impact of AI on advertising and DV's business.
DV's growth cycle and trajectory is foundationally shaped by the timing of product releases, platform enablement, and customer adoption. Over the last year, our new product development cycle accelerated across social, CTV, and AI platforms with several major releases rolling out in the fourth quarter of 2025. With social and CTV innovations now broadly available and AI capabilities continuing to expand, we've entered 2026 with a more diversified revenue mix driven by a broader product offering. These new solutions fuel two main product-led growth engines. First, we have a significant opportunity to expand within our existing customer base. As we elevate product attach rates for our new social, CTV, and AI platform verification capabilities, we drive higher wallet share, spur revenue growth, and create broader, stickier client relationships as enterprise customers adopt more of our platform.
As a result, average revenue per top 100 customers grew by 7% for the year to $4.5 million. Second, our accelerating product cycle is enabling us to win new customers and gain market share with proprietary solutions as entry points to new customer engagements. Our leadership in the fastest-growing areas of digital advertising, social CTV and AI-enabled performance optimization, is expanding our relevance, increasing our competitiveness, and landing us new logos. These differentiated solutions drove a 90% greenfield win ratio in Q4, our highest ever recorded, meaning that we are winning deals with solutions in new areas in which there are no competitive incumbents to displace. Ultimately, our product innovation in 2025 harnessed the power of AI to expand TAM, improved solution efficacy, and drove stronger margins, and also helped deliver solid results that will set the stage for future growth.
We grew total full-year revenue 14% year-over-year, well exceeding the 10% growth outlook we provided at the start of the year. We also delivered double-digit growth across all three revenue lines. We continued to onboard large global enterprise customers, further strengthening our position as a trusted partner to the world's leading brands. This momentum delivered strong profitability and cash generation with a 33% adjusted full-year EBITDA margin and $211 million in net cash from operating activities. Turning to the impact of AI on marketer behavior, and more importantly for this call, on DV's business, to put it simply, we see this evolution only in terms of accretive future opportunities for DV. The ad ecosystem has always been one in constant flux.
Where marketers buy ads, how they buy ads, and even how they create those ads changes with each advancement of media and technology. The current AI revolution is just the next evolution of this story. In all of these evolutionary cycles, what has never changed is why marketers buy ads, their need for measurement, and their demand for trust and transparency. Whether it was ad networks in 2010, programmatic platforms in 2018, social networks in 2021, or agent-based AI platform buying in 2026 and beyond, DV has been and will be essential in driving transparency and trust. Regardless of changes in media or mode of buying, our customer value proposition lies in the vast amount of data we gather and the trust layer that supports the unbiased, independent analytics we provide.
In the AI era, the question isn't about who has the best model, it's about who has the best data. DV generates a massive proprietary data set from the hundreds of terabytes of advertising data we process every day across trillions of annual transactions. This isn't generic web data that anyone can access or scrape. These are proprietary signals tied to actual ad delivery, brand suitability, fraud detection, and business outcomes based on contracted relationships with leading platforms. LLMs can help us interpret this data faster and more efficiency, but they cannot replace its unique value. DV has never been about the media or the method, but about the data supporting the motive. In addition, OpenAI's introduction of advertising marks the creation of an entirely new digital media environment, and DV is ready for this evolution.
According to eMarketer, ad spend on LLMs is expected to grow to over $25 billion by 2029, cannibalizing over 14% of search spend, which is a $400 billion market that DV has historically not been able to access. We believe advertising within LLM platforms has the potential to create a new search-like digital channel where independent verification from companies like DV becomes foundational. Independent metrics in this new environment are critical. Several dozen of our current customers who are experimenting in this new space have already indicated that they expect consistent measurement across everywhere they advertise. While AI platform ad models continue to evolve, advertiser demands remain the same: ensuring ad transactions are trusted and transparent, and ads are viewable, brand suitable, and delivered to legitimate traffic within authentic content environments.
As digital advertising becomes more automated, agentic, and opaque, and as AI slop becomes the must-avoid content category for advertisers, the need for independent verification, protection, and performance measurement has never been greater. Regardless of platform, buying mode, or message, DV will be an integral, trusted part of this ad equation. Building on our progress in product innovation in 2025, I'll now walk through the updates on our key 3 product cycles, starting with social, then streaming TV, and closing with AI. As noted on previous calls, our goal is to increase the contribution of social streaming and AI-driven solutions from under 30% of total revenue today to approximately 50%, creating a revenue mix that more closely aligns with global digital ad spend trends. Starting with social, it remains our fastest-growing environment and a core driver of our next phase of growth.
As I mentioned earlier, social activation accelerated meaningfully to approximately 60% year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter, up from around 20% growth in Q3. That acceleration was driven by continued scaling of social pre-bid, building upon Meta's specific product enhancements that we upgraded through the year. Expanded content-level avoidance across feed and Reels nearly doubled filtering coverage and materially improved activation effectiveness. By year-end, 68 advertisers were live on Meta Activation, up from 56 in the third quarter. Adoption is being driven by large enterprise advertisers, with 28 coming from our top 100 clients. We exited December with social activation at an annualized run rate of approximately $8 million ahead of our expectations, and it continues to be our fastest-growing area as we start 2026.
Adoption of DV Authentic AdVantage on YouTube also expanded during the quarter, with estimated ACV of approximately $8 million driven by continued customer adoption. Some of our largest CPG customers have started scaling on this solution. We are excited about the opportunity to grow this business over the coming quarters. Driving social growth into 2026, we expanded attention measurement on TikTok during the fourth quarter, becoming the platform's first badged marketing partner to deliver impression-level attention insights. In addition, we expanded our post-bid brand suitability measurement on Meta to include Facebook Reels overlay placements, extending independent transparency across one of the platform's fastest-growing ad formats. We expanded our integration with Meta through the launch of Rockerbox Relay, which enables Rockerbox customers to send attribution results to Meta as an optimization signal. This launch improves advertisers' ability to drive performance against outcomes.
Thanks, Mark Zagorski, good afternoon, everyone. Let me walk through our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results then discuss our 2026 outlook, including the key growth drivers and assumptions underlying our guidance. For the fourth quarter, revenue was $206 million, representing 8% year-over-year growth. For the full year, revenue was $748 million, representing 14% year-over-year growth, despite variability driven by the retail sector in the second half. In the fourth quarter, activation revenue increased 6% year-over-year measurement revenue increased 8% year-over-year, both driven primarily by social. In the fourth quarter, social activation and measurement together represented approximately 19% of total revenue. Supply-side revenue increased 17% year-over-year, supported by retail media platforms and expanded publisher and platform integrations.
In the fourth quarter, total advertiser revenue, which includes activation and measurement, grew 7% year-over-year, driven by 8% growth in volume or MTM, partially offset by a 3% decline in price or MTF, excluding the impact of an introductory fixed-fee arrangement from one large customer onboarded from Moat. Fourth quarter activation revenue grew 6%, with ABS representing 52% of activation revenue in the quarter. As of year-end, 78% of our top 500 clients were using ABS. Measurement revenue grew 8% year-over-year, with social measurement revenue increasing 11% and representing 49% of measurement revenue, and international revenue increasing 5% and representing 29% of measurement revenue. Excluding the previously disclosed CPG customer suspension at the start of the year, social measurement revenue would have grown 22% in 2025.
Finally, revenue from Rockerbox was slightly ahead of expectations. Turning to full year 2025, revenue grew 14%, driven by double-digit growth across each revenue line, including 15% growth in activation, 10% growth in measurement, and 25% growth in supply side. Advertising revenue growth remained primarily volume-driven, with MTMs increasing 15% year-over-year to 9.5 trillion billable transactions measured, partially offset by 3% decrease in MTFs to $0.07, excluding the impact of an introductory fixed-fee arrangement for 1 large customer onboarded from Moat. We expect volumes to remain the primary driver of growth in 2026 as we continue to verify more digital ad impressions through new product launches and through new channel and geographic expansion.
Supply side revenue grew 25% year-over-year by adding new CTV and digital platform partnerships and through continued expansion on retail media networks, with DV tags now accepted across 152 retail media networks, including 18 major platforms and 134 retailers globally. For the full year, we achieved a net revenue retention rate of 109%, and gross revenue retention remained above 95% for the fifth consecutive year. Average revenue for top 100 customers increased by 7% year-over-year to $4.5 million, and we ended the year with 344 advertisers generating more than $200,000 annually. Our long-term customer relationships remain strong with top 75, top 50, and top 25 customers working with DV for approximately nine years. Moving to expenses.
In the fourth quarter, we delivered 83% revenue less cost of sales and $78 million of adjusted EBITDA, representing a 38% margin. For the full year, we delivered 82% revenue less cost of sales and $246 million of adjusted EBITDA, representing a 33% adjusted EBITDA margin to combine continued revenue growth with solid profitability. We ended 2025 with 1,231 employees, slightly down year-over-year, excluding the impact of the Rockerbox acquisition. In 2026, we expect to continue to invest in AI capabilities that will enable us to maintain revenue less cost of sales over 80%, accelerate product development and time to market, while also growing with fewer employees through improved productivity across the organization. This will allow us to scale the business more effectively and increase EBITDA margins in 2026.
Turning to cash flow, we generated approximately $211 million in net cash from operating activities in 2025. Capital expenditures were approximately $39 million or 5% of total revenue, driven by investments in innovation and platform scalability. This resulted in free cash flow of approximately $173 million, representing a conversion rate of approximately 70%, up from 61% in 2024, reinforcing the durability of our cash-generating model. Our strong cash generation enabled us to repurchase 8.4 million shares for approximately $132 million in 2025, outpacing stock-based compensation expense and driving a net reduction in shares outstanding of approximately 3%.
We ended 2025 with approximately 162 million shares outstanding, approximately $260 million in cash, and no long-term debt, providing us with significant flexibility to invest in growth, pursue strategic opportunities, and return capital to shareholders. Reflecting continued confidence in our financial strength and long-term growth prospect, we have, as of to date, $300 million authorized for share repurchases, which we plan to deploy in 2026 at increased levels versus prior years. Now turning to 2026 guidance. For the first quarter, we expect revenue to range between $177 million and $183 million, representing a year-over-year increase of approximately 9% of the midpoint, and adjusted EBITDA to range between $48 million and $52 million, representing a 28% adjusted EBITDA margin at the midpoint.
To provide context, fourth quarter growth of 8% reflected elevated retail pressure driven by campaign pullbacks late in the quarter from a couple of large customers. Based on the current momentum we have seen to date, our first quarter guidance is 9% growth, despite a 17% growth comparison in the first quarter of last year. This improvement reflects expected higher contributions from our recently launched social and CTV products, along with continued sector diversification towards healthcare and technology. For full year 2026, we expect revenue to range between $810 million and $826 million, representing an 8%-10% year-over-year increase. Our full year revenue outlook is driven by a recurring base of growth of core products to core clients, which is reflected in our net revenue retention of 109% in 2025.
Incremental growth in 2026 off the base will be driven by three product-led growth engines. First, adoption and scale deployment of the recently launched solutions across social and Streaming TV. Second, incremental revenue growth from existing enterprise clients scaling across our product offering. Third, continued new customer acquisition driven by DV's differentiated MAP product vision, which integrates independent verification with real-time optimization
Outcomes measurement. Our 8%-10% year-over-year revenue growth guidance assumes a measured take on the impact of these product-led growth drivers as they scale in 2026 and doesn't assume an improved macro advertising environment. In terms of quarterly growth cadence, 2026 shapes into a stronger second half growth as we lap 19% growth in the first half of 2025 as compared to 9% growth in the second half of 2025. For full year 2026, we expect adjusted EBITDA margins of approximately 34%. We're guiding to an increased adjusted EBITDA margin of 34% in 2026 as compared to 33% over the last 3 years, reflecting our ability to grow the business more efficiently while improving productivity across the organization.
Below the line, we're implementing an updated equity incentive plan that is projected to reduce the annual value of equity grants by over 40% as compared to 2025. As a result, we expect full year stock-based compensation to decline year-over-year and range between $102 million-$107 million. For the first quarter, we expect stock-based compensation of approximately $23 million-$26 million and weighted average fully diluted shares outstanding of approximately 164 million. We expect capital expenditures, including capitalized software, to be approximately $46 million in 2026, reflecting continued investment in product innovation, AI-driven automation, and platform scalability.
With zero debt and approximately $260 million of cash on the balance sheet at the end of 2025, we remain well positioned to invest in growth and execute on our capital return strategy. In closing, 2025 was a year of product evolution for DoubleVerify. We launched the next generation of social, streaming TV and CTV products, delivered growth, maintained strong margins, generating meaningful cash flow, and returned capital to shareholders. As we move into 2026, we're well-positioned with a more diversified business, a clear focus on durable growth, and expanding profitability to deliver long-term shareholder value. With that, we will open up the line for questions. Operator, please go ahead.