Ziff Davis at JPMorgan Conference: Strategic Growth Insights

On Wednesday, 14 May 2025, Ziff Davis (NASDAQ:ZD) presented at the 53rd Annual JPMorgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference. The company’s leadership shared a strategic overview that highlighted a positive Q1 performance, with some challenges on the horizon. While the company exceeded internal estimates with 5% revenue growth, concerns about AI’s impact on web traffic were addressed.

Key Takeaways

• Ziff Davis reported a 5% revenue growth in Q1, exceeding internal estimates.
• The company reaffirmed mid-single-digit growth guidance for revenue, EBITDA, and EPS for the year.
• Concerns about AI’s impact on web traffic were addressed, with a focus on data licensing and IP protection.
• Ziff Davis aims to maintain a consistent M&A strategy and return capital to shareholders through buybacks.
• The company is optimistic about future growth across all business segments.

Financial Results

Ziff Davis reported a solid financial performance in Q1, with a 5% increase in revenue and a 9% growth within its digital media segments. The company maintained consistent adjusted EBITDA margins of around 35% over the past three years.

• Technology & Shopping segment grew 14% in revenue and 44% in adjusted EBITDA.
• Gaming & Entertainment segment saw mid-single-digit growth.
• Health & Wellness segment experienced mid-to-high single-digit revenue growth and double-digit EBITDA growth.
• Connectivity segment grew 5% in Q1, with margins over 50%.
• Cybersecurity & Martech segment faced a decline but expects sequential growth.

Operational Updates

The company highlighted several operational improvements and strategic moves:

• Technology & Shopping: CNET Group’s integration streamlined operations and expanded margins.
• Gaming & Entertainment: Humble Bundle faced challenges, but advertising growth was strong.
• Health & Wellness: Growth driven by pharma advertising and the weight loss trend.
• Connectivity: Anticipates growth from Wi-Fi 7 refresh and strong performance in data services.
• Cybersecurity & Martech: Focus on margin expansion and addressing challenges with specific products.

Future Outlook

Ziff Davis expressed optimism about future growth, aiming for acceleration in all business segments and a return to organic growth. The company plans to continue its M&A strategy and expects stability in the global trade environment to support performance.

Q&A Highlights

During the Q&A session, Ziff Davis addressed several investor concerns:

• Only a small percentage of revenue is directly affected by AI overviews.
• The company seeks compensation mechanisms for content used by AI platforms.
• Continues to target mid-single-digit growth in revenue, EBITDA, and EPS.
• Plans for synergistic acquisitions across all segments were reiterated.

In conclusion, Ziff Davis remains focused on sustainable growth and value creation for shareholders. For further details, refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - 53rd Annual JPMorgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference:

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: Alright. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to day two afternoon of the JPMorgan conference. Corey Carpenter, Internet analyst here. Happy to have Ziff Davis, CEO Vivek Shah and CFO Brett Richter with me today.

Thank you both for joining.

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: That’s great to be here.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: So for those who haven’t followed the stories closely, Vivek, I think to start, maybe if you could level set just what the Ziff Davis portfolio looks like today.

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: Yeah, so we built a company by systematically acquiring and growing digital media and internet businesses where we see a path to value creation. So we own a couple of dozen assets across five different vertical categories, which I’m sure we’ll talk about. Very much a total growth mindset looking to drive organic growth from the businesses we own as well as drive growth through the acquisition of assets where again we think we can stimulate growth, diversified business model, advertising, subscription revenue, licensing revenue. And look, I think that in the end, I think the business has had sort of a flattish period of time, but really coming out of that from a growth perspective.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: So more near term, you reported earnings last week. Thought it’d be helpful just what’s the quick recap of the quarter and the key messages that you wanted to get across?

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: Yes, so as I was saying ahead of our internal estimates, which is good. Revenue growth of 5% in the quarter. If you look at four of our five segments that used to be put together into the Digital Media segment, that segment grew 9%. We reaffirmed our guidance for the year, which is about mid single digit growth across all of the metrics, revenue, EBITDA and EPS. M and A cadence looks really good.

So we’re closing transactions. 2024 was a pretty good year from an M and A point of view. We think 2025 holds the same sort of potential balance sheets in a great place. So a lot to like I think in the print and a kind of a good setup for the rest of the year.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: So before we go into the new segmentation of the company, we have to get the macro and tariff questions out of the way, the obligatory ones. On macro, you had a pretty sanguine message I thought last What are you seeing on the advertising side in other parts of your business? And how do you think about just overall the resilience of Ziff Davis should macro start to deteriorate?

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: So ad revenues were really strong in the quarter, I mean up 12% in Q1. And so that’s something to feel very good about. As I’ve talked about in the past, when I think about the ad market, I think of it categorically by the categories in which we operate. So that’s tech and shopping and health and wellness and gaming entertainment. And so there’s a lot to like.

I’ll start with health and wellness. I just think that we’re seeing a strong FDA drug pipeline that is a real driver to the ad business there. And again, there’s a digital upfront that takes place in that category. So we have some perspective there. And so that’s proposition consistent with Q1.

In the gaming entertainment space, also reasonably good growth on the advertising side mid single digit in Q1. And we look towards the rest of the year, console releases can be good for us. So the Nintendo Switch two kind of ushers in a bunch of new IP. That IP has advertising attached to it. And so we think that will be a nice tailwind as we go through the year.

And tech and shopping will be interesting. So really good first quarter. The category is probably the category where questions around tariffs kind of come up and are relevant. And so I look at it this way. I think the software oriented categories, maybe some of the exempt categories, phones, etcetera, we won’t see much of an impact potentially in the other areas.

The degree to which there are tariffs that put cost pressure on these businesses and they start to look for ways in which they’re managing their costs, that’s obviously something we’re going to watch. Have we seen any signs of that? No, but that’s something we’re going to look On the shopping side, this is more a consumer statement than it is an ad statement, but something to just consider. The degree to which the consumer is facing price increases, the consumer may decide to look for discounts and cash back and savings and our RetailMeNot platform is perfect for that. So the advertising macro looks good right now.

So I feel good about where we sit and where the quarter is and some of the trends. In the subscription business we had slightly down. There was some noise in our cyber and martech segment, which I’m sure we’ll talk about. But generally speaking, that’s also been kind of a very steady and low single digit type growth proposition. I think that continues.

I think we have really good retention in a lot of the businesses, for instance, our cybersecurity business, high revenue retention and that type of thing. I don’t see that changing.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: I think that covers macro and tariffs well. We’ll move on. So I want to go segment by segment. You provided new disclosure earlier this year. It gives investors a lot more visibility into the verticals.

Maybe to start before we go into each, what was the rationale behind this and what’s the message that you’re trying to get across?

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: Look, I mean I think we want to have the investment community have a better understanding of the business, have a better appreciation for the business and the pieces of the business. I find often that the questions are disproportionate. They’re all about maybe just one piece of the business, 20% of the business or even less, and said, look, let’s unpack this a little bit. And so what we hope happens is that we can see the investment community start to look at all of the pieces and understand each of the pieces on their own to come up with a valuation. Obviously the company we believe is operating very much right now and valued very much at a discount.

And so sitting there and looking at each of these, we’ve provided four or five years of revenue history. We’ve provided probably nine quarters of history down to

Brett Richter, CFO, Ziff Davis: adjusted EBITDA

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: and to operating income. So there’s a lot there to look at. You can see revenue disaggregation, advertising, subscription and licensing and other by each of the five segments. So you’ve got a lot to look at to really understand the company in a better way. This is us being responsive.

We’ve been asked for this and we’re saying, okay, listen, here it is and get to it. And so I’d to see you Corey.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: We’ve got some homework.

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: Look at a little bit of a sum of the parts. That would be I think productive.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: Okay, that makes sense. So let’s go through each of the five. I know in prior years of the conference we’ve done ad subscriptions. Now we get to go in more And

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: you can do ads and subs too. However you want to go.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: So let’s start with just technology and shopping. Maybe I thought it would be helpful if you could go through just the key businesses in that vertical and what the revenue drivers are.

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: Yeah, so that is the CNET Group, which includes CNET, PCMag, Mashable, Lifehacker, Spiceworks, a broad range of tech media properties, certainly the leader within the space. And then the RetailMeNot group which is RetailMeNot and associated properties that’s more in the discount and cash back savings space. Together, the segment grew about 14% top line, 44% in adjusted EBITDA, a very strong quarter. That is owing to organic growth within some of those consumer tech properties and margin expansion within the CNET group with CNET and I can talk about that in a moment. And then also just some success within the shopping business.

There is a drag within this segment that I should point out, is the B2B businesses, which has been a long term drag for this segment and for the company. It’s been the single largest drag for the company from an organic growth point of view. We’re basically getting to the point where it shrunk to a level where it doesn’t have as much of an impact and to the point where actually it is profitable. And so that was something we looked to do which was walk away from even more revenue within that business, simplify it to basically a single one or two SKUs and get to profitability. And so the expense out was in excess of the revenue that we walked away from.

And so that was an EBITDA contributor which contributed to the 44% adjusted EBITDA growth. But just back to CNET. And so what we’ve done is we go to market now as the CNET group with single sales force, single marketing force. We a single audience development team, single engineering team, single product team. We do have multiple editorial teams to maintain voice across each of the products, but a single editorial director who sits on top of those.

And so this has been a success. And everything we were hoping to happen by bringing CNET in, putting us into a market leadership position. I mentioned on the call our ability to come to market was crystallized at CES where we had a really great presence. And I think a lot of marketers and tech marketers who are at the show would tell you that, look, it’s great to see this come together. We view ourselves as kind of the one stop buy within this vertical.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: So let’s move to gaming and entertainment. Similar to the tech and shopping vertical, just if you could go through the key businesses and then any notable trends to call out here.

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: So the go to market is IGN Entertainment. So that’s IGN, that’s Humble Bundle, that’s Gamer Network, a recent acquisition, Max Roll. So this is a series of video gaming entertainment oriented properties. A nice combination of advertising and subscription, a mid single digit grower. This quarter 6% to 7% probably last year from memory.

A very good business for us, a very good market space for us, again where we’re in a leadership position. We had a little bit of a hiccup on the subscription piece of the business which is Humble Bundle which is really around the games and the assortment that we had on offer on Q1 probably wasn’t as strong as we had wanted. So there’s a lumpiness that comes with that business. It’s a function of how good is the IP in any given period. But again, we’re addressing that.

So it’s not something that I’m terribly concerned about. But the advertising growth was quite strong. EBITDA wasn’t that strong. There was some timing of expenses. But again, I think that’ll work itself and reverse itself frankly in Q2.

So again, very strong signs. I mentioned I think Switch two just in terms of things that can help contribute. I think as streaming platforms grow, that’s good for us too. So there’s been the business has expanded to being beyond video games. It has a pretty good streaming advertiser base.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: So health and wellness, which will be our third of five, your largest vertical last year. What are the key businesses in health and wellness? And if you could talk through some of the trends that are impacting performance there as well.

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: Yeah, so this is the Everyday Health Group. That’s the go to market. So that’s Everyday Health. It’s MedPage. It’s Prime.

It’s Baby Center. It’s what to expect. It’s series of businesses that reach consumers but also reach providers. Again, strong growth out of the business, kind of mid to high single digit revenue growth in the business, double digit EBITDA growth in the quarter. A business that historically, if you look at the historical financials has been a pretty steady grower.

Last year was a flattish business. But we view the, as I think I said earlier, the drug pipeline is being favorable. So look, think it’s a great space. Again, we’re number one in Comscore there as well. So we’ve got a leadership position in the space.

The pharma advertising world in particular is a really good one. Pharma has certain restrictions around where it can advertise and platforms. And so they generally like to either go broad mass market or they like to go very endemic, but they stay away from social platforms generally. And so it’s an interesting space for us. As the pharma pipeline and the therapies become more targeted, I think targeting platforms like ours make a lot of sense.

Connectivity. And just one thing on that. There’s a really great subscription business in there, Lose It, that has been killing it. It is actually GLP-1s and weight loss. And the focus there has actually been very good for that business.

I was making this analogy earlier. You get an injury, you take the cortisone shot, you still need to do the PT. And in that sense, that’s what Lose It has become. So as people get on GLP-1s, get some initial benefit, they want to actually change their diet and fitness to complement what they’re doing with the GLP-one.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: Makes sense. So connectivity, that’s actually been your fastest growing segment historically. I know there’s been a few moving parts recently maybe. What’s kind of in that portfolio? And what are the underlying drivers that supported that level of growth over the years?

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: So it goes to market as Ookla. And within Ookla, you have Speedtest, DamDetector, RootMetrics, and ECAL. So the first three are mostly what I’ll just refer to as a data as a service business. So what speed test is is a consumer application. It’s on 300,000,000 devices.

People organically install it. They take speed tests. We get a quantum of data that comes through that activity. In addition, we get some background testing data as well along with crowdsourced speed testing. And then we have RootMetrics, which does drive testing.

All of that becomes a data analytics and intelligence platform that carriers, ISPs, regulators, tower companies all subscribe to have a better understanding of network performance in a real time basis, doing network benchmarking, etcetera. An incredible business. And the other part of the business, which is Ekahau, is Wi Fi planning design and deployment. So in a room like this, you’ll look up, you’ll see wireless access points within the room. Those wireless access points, the design, the deployment, the frequency, etcetera is informed by Ekahau.

We are the market leader in this. Last year, wireless access point sales were down roughly 25% in the industry. So if you have a 25% decline in the hardware that we are essentially informing how to deploy, that’s going to have an impact on your business. We kept that business flat, which I thought was a great outcome. This is going to fundamentally change as Wi Fi seven comes to market.

All these routers are going to become Wi Fi seven routers. They’re not going to happen overnight but over time you’re going to see this sort of refresh that takes place. And as this hardware refresh takes place, that’s going to bring in ECHO. So we’re super excited about that. Having said all that in the quarter, again entirely through the speed test side of the business, the data side of the business, we grew 5%.

We see that accelerating through the year because was a good chunk of the business, nearly half, not growing on the ECAL side, but I think that’s going to continue. The margins in this business are really, really incredible. They’re in excess of 50%. I said on our call, this is easily a rule of 60 company.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: Last one. So we’ll finish on cybersecurity and Martech. This was your only vertical that declined this quarter. I think it’s been a drag on growth for a bit now. Maybe could you give us some background on what’s going on here and where are you at in the turnaround process?

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: So this is just a bundle of businesses that are endpoint security, which is Viper, personal VPN, consumer VPN, which is IPVanish, marketing technology businesses, iContact, Campaigner, the email marketing businesses, Moz, which is search engine optimization, and Stat, which is search engine optimization, and then Line two, Evoice, which is second line. So there’s a series of stuff here. And they’re moving in different pieces. The one thing I’ll say in aggregate is that it was a tough comp because last year had a one time benefit, this year didn’t. So it showed the year over year not favorably.

I will say that sequentially we’re optimistic that we will see sequential growth throughout the year. So that I think is a very important piece. The other thing is that we’ve been really focused on margin and we had a fair amount of margin expansion and margin growth last year. And so that was another thing which was just really focusing on profit making. There are different dynamics in each of these markets.

I will say generally that what has been historically a challenge which has been VPN growth, Given bookings and retention, we’re feeling good about where that’s going. I think we have some question and open questions around mods and some of the other pieces that we’ve got to work through. But look, I think cash flowing, margin expanding and sequential growing, actually think it will be a contributor.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: So let’s move to AI. You recently filed a lawsuit against OpenAI regarding unauthorized use of your content. Could you talk to just what led you here in your broader thoughts on the data licensing landscape?

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: Yeah, so look, I mean I think we tried to cut a deal. And we obviously didn’t successfully do felt that it was important for us to protect our intellectual property, our copyrights, and our trademarks. I encourage everyone to read our claim because it is accessible. It’s readable. You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand it.

I think when you read it, you’ll recognize that we have very strong points that we’re making. You cannot take our copyrighted information, create copies, compress, retain and use and create commercial and derive a commercial benefit from that. There needs to be compensation. So filing a lawsuit to ensure that for a company that is an IP maker, an IP producer and currently an uncompensated supplier to a large language model we thought was very important. I will also point you to a day or two ago the US Copyright Office pre published a paper.

And if you read that, I think you will come to a headline that says many of the uses of content and copyright were not fair use and therefore do require compensation. And so look, we think it’s important as a large digital media company, as a large publisher, as a large provider of content to these systems, I think it was important for us to do this. And so look, I think we feel very good in our case.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: Last one on AI. I think it’s no secret there’s concern in the industry just around the risk of generative search and how that could impact publisher traffic. Could you talk about how you’re thinking about this risk and what seeing play out in AI overviews and just how dependent you are on search traffic?

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: Yeah, so look, I mean we went through some of this math. Just do it really quickly. So 35% of the company’s revenues are web traffic based. So that’s what people are talking about, what’s going to happen to web traffic. It’s 35%, it’s not 100% because we have systematically diversified our business.

This is something we’ve never wanted to be dependent on any single company or any single platform, whether it’s Google, whether it’s Alphabet, whether larger Google, whether it’s Meta, whether it’s TikTok, whoever it is, we wanted to be diversified. So that has been part of our model for a long time. So 35% is web traffic based, which is less than what I think most people assume. Within that 40% is search. So we are successful at search, 40%.

But 40%, thirty five %, we’re talking about 15% of the company’s revenues. Of that, 20% of our queries right now generate an AI overview. So we’re talking about a 3% situation. I think the amount of attention it’s gotten, at least in the dialogues that we have, make it seem that it’s far more than that. So it’s disproportionate.

But even where there are AI overviews, 33% of the time we’re finding that we’re in the AI overview, which is some of the best real estate right now on a search engine result page. All to say, I don’t know if AI overviews are negative some, positive some, or zero some. I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows. It’s early and it’s hard to track.

All I would say is and by the way, the other thing I would say is that the number one query in search related to our properties are our properties names themselves. IGN is the number one search query for IGN. BabyCenter is the number one. How much traffic do you get just from that generic search that’s not brand related? Non brand search.

We can. But in the end, just brings down more of the percentages. So if I’m at 40, it’s less than 40. And that’s probably a next layer to do too, which gets to like we’re talking about non branded search where AI overviews are present, we’re getting to even lower single digits percentages of revenue. Which is all to say that look, search absolutely matters.

No one can sit there and say search doesn’t matter. But search is a function of discovery. And I do think that discovery still will happen. Ultimately, I go back to your other question, which is if search concedes query volume to AI platforms, those AI platforms could only survive with content feeding them. And so there needs to be a compensation mechanism there, which is why these two questions can be related and can be connected.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: Brett, thank you for your patience over there. So and if anyone in the audience has a question, feel free to raise your hand. I’ll start with a financial question though and capital allocation next. So you guided to revenue acceleration in 2Q. You reiterated your outlook just a few days ago.

So very fresh. Brett, what’s driving the improved growth in 2Q and kind of underwriting your confidence in the full year outlook right now?

Brett Richter, CFO, Ziff Davis: Well, starts with our performance in the first quarter. So again, to reiterate, we had our own internal assumptions and expectations And we largely beat those. We were ahead on revenue relative to our expectations. We were ahead on adjusted EBITDA and we were almost spot on adjusted EPS. I think you can as Vivek took us through, if you go segment by segment, there are different dynamics in each of the segments but they all have elements of improved performance.

And some of it in tech and shopping may be more from M and A in the case of CNET. And as we walk through them, won’t repeat everything that’s said, but we see dynamics in the gaming business whether it be the Sidekick two or better content in Humble. We see strength in the health business from pharma and the upfront. We see growth coming back and accelerating forward in our connectivity business. And there were some anomalies in the first quarter for Cyber Martech and we see that sequentially improving over the course of the year.

We also, and again, I’m at risk of being redundant here to a degree, we’re very, very conscious of elements of the macro but we haven’t seen the disruption to our marketplace. So as we build our expectations for the balance of the year, if stability remains and we can continue to operate globally through the change in the global trade environment, we expect to have a year that’s consistent with our expectations that we set in February.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: And then you also reiterated your profit guide. And I know you haven’t had to do this yet. You’re not seeing it yet, but should the macro environment deteriorate, what’s your ability or your appetite perhaps to pull back expenses and protect profit if needed?

Brett Richter, CFO, Ziff Davis: There’s almost a data point you could look at. So in the last three years where we’ve migrated at various points through the expectations that we’ve set in the beginning of the year, we’ve been able to consistently deliver adjusted EBITDA margins on the order of 35%. And that has been the result of us both monitoring our spending and taking actions at various points in time to reduce costs, reduce investments when we haven’t seen the performance at a certain of our businesses. Our expectations going forward is to the extent we saw top line pressure or we were failing to meet our expectations, we will continue to take actions to be within a reasonable range of our expected EBITDA margins.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: Makes sense. Any questions in the audience? All right. I’ll keep moving. Acquisitions, part of your DNA.

Mentioned at the beginning you’ve gotten more active lately. How would you characterize the M and A market and what types of acquisitions are you looking for?

Brett Richter, CFO, Ziff Davis: Continue. So I think the acquisitions that we’ve both announced and consummated through the first four plus months of this year, and we’ve said that we’ve announced two, we’ve closed an additional one in the beginning of the second quarter and signed a fourth have largely been tuck ins. So these are highly attractive acquisitions that are highly synergistic with the businesses that we currently operate where we’ve seen communities that are served by products that fit well within the product sets that we provide in the communities that we serve. We have a very robust pipeline that I think right now covers all five of our segments. In fact, if you just look in the last these four and then last twelve months, almost every one of our segments has become active.

Last year was pretty more dominated by tech and shopping, but already this year health has participated. Gaming has participated. And in the fourth quarter of last year, Cyber and Martech participated. We’re constantly on the outlook for acquisitions for our connectivity business. And again, always things in the pipeline that we’re pursuing.

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: Yeah. And the only thing I’ll the formula, right? So we look for 20% cash on cash returns on our deals. We look for M and A to contribute roughly 50% generally speaking long term of the revenue and EBITDA growth. We look to convert of the company, we look to convert 50% to 55% of our EBITDA into free cash flow.

That free cash flow gets into recycling into the acquisition program and financing any borrowings we do for the acquisition program. And we generally of a self imposed limit of gross debt to EBITDA of three times. So within that rubric, all I would say is, and that has been the historic rubric. We took a pause in 2022 and 2023 for market reasons, maybe some portfolio reasons, but we’re back into that program. And I think what you’re going to see add into that our share buyback activity, we’ve bought in 10% of the company in the last four quarters, you’re going to see the return to the kind of predictable, steady and attractive EPS compounding that I think people came to expect and see from the company for a decade.

And I think the last couple of years didn’t have that. And I think we’re here to say that all of the pieces are aligned for a return to that. In fact, we’ve been seeing it. There’s been three straight quarters of growth. We had a great EPS growth rate in the second half of last year and we’re expecting the same for the balance of this year.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: Vivek, I thought you made an interesting point on the earnings call that you’re doing more EBITDA this year than in 2021 when the stock was worth four or five times more. You’re actively buying your own shares as you said, but I would just be curious to hear your thoughts on why you think this value disconnect is happening in some of the ways you think you can address it. Look, I

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: think the interruption of our system and our program is part of it. Look, 2022 and 2023 did not look like any other year in recent memory. And I think that the market noticed and I think the market has a view of that. So that’s one. I think two, I think there are a lot of questions around AI.

I think we’re trying our best to address them and size them and frame them and put them in the appropriate context of our business. But there are. I think there’s a fair amount of that. And then there are things, look, we can’t control, the macro and tariffs and SMID caps and the flight to mega caps and all these things that are happening. But those to me are cyclical, right?

So I think the combination of the imperfect frankly alignment of our own formula not presenting itself for a couple of years against a new technology which what did we say was the rule? Impact of The rule. The Amara rule. We have a tendency to overestimate the impact of a technology in the near term and then underestimate it over the long term. We’re in the overestimating phase right now with AI.

And so I think the overestimation of AI, I think us frankly not performing against the model as it was established for more than a decade. And then I think just a macro environment in general probably places us where we are. We don’t think it’s the correct place And we think that it’s up to us to continue to provide segment analysis, the disclosure, information around AI and AI impacts. And I think this works out.

Brett Richter, CFO, Ziff Davis: That’s what I was going to add. I think we appreciate that there’s a complexity of the business. We generate revenue a lot of different ways. We provide a little many products and services. We serve different communities.

And our move to the disclosure of five segments we hope will start to provide clarity of how our various businesses are not only linked together but the overall economic output that they generate and have generated over time. As Vivek said earlier in the call, there’s now multiple years and nine smut quarters that you can look back at the performance. What I think is not fully appreciated is the other side of the complexity coin is the diversity coin. And because of the number of different ways that we generate revenue, because roughly 50% of revenue of the company is non advertising related, we’ve been able to weather various storms, including the digital media storm in 2022 and the beginning of twenty twenty three, maintain top line, maintain margin and produce roughly $500,000,000 of EBITDA on an annual basis. And to the extent some of the revenue pressure points within the company decline in aggregate like our B2B tech business and become smaller parts of the whole.

And certain of our businesses put up stronger growth like they did in the first quarter as compared to 2024. Our anticipation is the clarity that we’ve provided, the performance that we hope to provide start to answer some questions that are in the marketplace.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: All right, so let’s close on a bigger picture question. Either of you or both of you feel free to answer. What are the one or two things you’re most excited about and that you think could be most transformative to the business in the years ahead?

Vivek Shah, CEO, Ziff Davis: I’ll start and then Brett, please chime in. Look, so the flip of complexity is diversity. And that’s what we have. And so the degree to which we find ourselves in a difficult macro, I think we’re going to shine in that. And I think we did in 2020.

If you look back at our financials, this was a company that was able to manage through what was a really disruptive year in a really great way. If we don’t have that and my preference is that we don’t have a market downturn, I think we’re going to start to see an acceleration in all five segments of the business. We’re optimistic about all five. I think they’re lined up in various ways and for various reasons to perform and do well. So I think the return to organic growth will be very positive for the company.

I think the return of an M and A cadence consistent with our history will be very positive for the company. And I think the better appreciation of the pieces of the company I think get to an experience I think is pretty exciting. And so I can’t pick one of these businesses because each one I see things that I like and things that I think rhyme with value creation. And so that’s not always the case in a portfolio. You often have in a portfolio things that you love and maybe things you don’t love.

Right now I sit there and I say every one of our businesses has earned its place in this portfolio. Every one of these businesses has a potential to create value for our shareholders and that’s exciting. And I’m not sure I’ve ever actually been in a position where I felt I could say that about each one of these. And so that’s where we are right now. And I think it’s incumbent upon us to, as I like to say this, to use the Bill Parcells quote, the scoreboard is what you are what the scoreboard says you are.

And I think the scoreboard is going to improve.

Brett Richter, CFO, Ziff Davis: So the only thing I’d add is maybe metaphorically we are where our feet are. So we could look back over the last multiple years and our performance and analyze and we go through reasons and up downs and look at numbers. We could look at our guidance and our expectations and have our hopes and our fears and in some cases concerns about the future. But where our feet are is an income statement that produces about $1,400,000,000 of revenue and roughly $500,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA. A balance sheet that’s healthy with cash, with relatively low leverage both on an absolute standpoint and a relative standpoint and a cash flow statement that produces hundreds of millions of dollars of cash.

And if that’s where we’re starting our forward journey, that gets me excited.

Corey Carpenter, Internet Analyst, JPMorgan: Great. Well, think we’ll end it there. Thanks everyone for that. Thanks Corey.

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