- Q1 revenue hit $396.3M, a 7% beat on 49.9% year-over-year growth.
- Full-year 2026 revenue guidance raised $30M to $1.785B; FCF guided to $235M.
- Athena hit GA for all enterprise clients; drove 60% of platform AI usage in week one.
GAAP Net Loss -$13.2M
Zeta Global posted its 19th consecutive beat-and-raise quarter. Revenue of $396.3M cleared the $370.5M consensus by $25.8M. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $66.1M, a 16.7% margin. Free cash flow conversion hit 63%, generating $41.7M — the company called it above internal stretch targets. The stock entered earnings at $18.50 and traded near $18.97 post-print. At a $4.50B market cap, ZETA trades at roughly 2.5x its raised 2026 revenue guide.
The GAAP loss of $0.06 per share was driven by one-time Marigold integration costs management explicitly flagged as non-recurring. Strip those out and the operating trajectory is cleanly improving: operating margin moved from -6.1% a year ago to -4.8% this quarter. Billings of $398.3M grew 53.2% year-over-year, outpacing reported revenue — a healthy leading indicator. The company repurchased 1.5M shares for $25.7M, with $138M remaining on the authorization.
The Athena platform reached general availability for 100% of enterprise clients during Q1. In its first week of GA, agentic interactions rose 7x. Sixty percent of all AI usage on the platform is now attributable to Athena. Management claims Athena reduces client marketing labor by up to 70%. These are early metrics, but the direction is unambiguous.
The more durable signal is vendor consolidation. A global apparel retailer collapsed four separate vendor contracts into a single Zeta agreement. Super-scaled customers using more than one use case grew over 50% year-over-year. Super-scaled ARPU expanded 21% year-over-year to $1.7M, even as the sequential ARPU figure dipped slightly from Q4’s $1.8M — a mix-shift artifact from adding five new super-scaled accounts, not churn. Nine of ten top industry verticals posted revenue growth above 20% year-over-year.
The Marigold integration is delivering ahead of schedule. Cross-sell traction is above initial estimates, churn is declining, and loyalty products are being bundled with Zeta’s data cloud. Management baked in a conservative $47.5M per quarter from Marigold for the rest of 2026. The sales pipeline grew 40% year-over-year, weighted toward retail and hospitality. Notably, none of the guidance raise is tied to political candidate revenue, which management holds flat at $15M for the full year.
On the cost side, new agency wins introduced a higher initial mix of social-channel activity, which carries elevated cost of revenue. GAAP cost of revenue ran at 41%. Management expects agencies to migrate into Zeta-owned channels over time, which would compress that line. That migration pace is worth tracking.
The print is clean. Revenue, EBITDA, billings, and FCF all beat, and the guide went up — again. Athena’s launch metrics are real, not vaporware: measurable adoption rates and deal structures are already changing. The core bear case — that AI spend would fragment Zeta’s market — is losing ground quarter by quarter as enterprise clients consolidate onto fewer platforms, not more. The GAAP losses are integration noise, not structural. At current prices, the market is not paying a premium for 50% revenue growth with improving margins and a 63% FCF conversion rate.
Watch Item: Q2 2026 earnings — confirm super-scaled ARPU recovery above $1.8M and agency channel mix shift toward Zeta-owned inventory, both of which management explicitly flagged as margin inflection drivers for the back half of 2026.
Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. All investment decisions and their outcomes are solely the responsibility of the reader.