Viant’s (DSP) CEO, Tim Vanderhook, joined the show on a tough day for the stock – falling around 30% after earnings within a broader market sell-off – to talk about A.I. within advertising. The stock is up 64% over the past year, but down more than 20% year-to-date despite hitting a 52-week high in February.

Founded in 1999, Viant positions itself as a “leader in AI-powered programmatic advertising.” On its website, it touts an A.I. service that can create a “fully baked omnichannel media plan” based on client prompts. Viant also utilizes A.I. to provide advertising clients insights for their campaigns – on the earnings call, Vanderhook gives examples including “best performing markets,” or “which ad creatives have the highest conversion rate.”

It reported a mixed 4Q on March 3, missing EPS expectations with adjusted EPS of $0.15 but beating on revenue with $90 million. Vanderhook describes the quarter as “blowout,” highlighting a 6-quarter streak of strong revenue growth.

“What marketers love is streaming television,” he adds, “There’s $60 billion still spent in linear” that can move over into streaming. On the earnings call, he said connected TV, or CTV, is in “the very early innings,” and that advertisers shifting over are “overwhelmingly” choosing Viant’s buying platform.

Another big pull for streaming is live sports. Vanderhook says 2025’s continued addition of sports is huge: “about 40% of all ad spend in 4Q24 was focused on live sports.” He also notes that new markets like legalized sports gambling are bringing new advertisers like DraftKings (DKNG) to market along with the regular Fortune 100s like Procter & Gamble (PG).

Vanderhook says Viant’s uniqueness comes from the impact data it provides to marketers. Viant already offers audience targeting through its household ID system, but it is continuing to build its capabilities. To that end, it announced the acquisition of Lockr this month, a “first-party data collaboration platform,” or as described by AdExchanger, “a consumer and business service for managing email inboxes and data opt-ins.” This follows another acquisition, IRIS.TV, “the only data platform built for video and CTV.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Rivals like The Trade Desk (TTD) have struggled in recent monthly(months), with TTD taking a spectacular nosedive after its last earnings report. While Vanderhook says that almost all ad categories showed strength, retail was the weak outlier – and if that continues, he calls it a “canary in the coalmine” for consumer strength, and thus the economy overall. However, if Viant can keep a competitive edge within streaming advertising, it seems confident that it will continue to gain market share.

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