Digital Shift And Privacy Trends Will Unlock Global Opportunities

Key Takeaways

• Critical mass in privacy-focused targeting and rapid SDK adoption position Verve for dominant share and above-expectation revenue and margin acceleration in digital advertising.
  
• Early international expansion and AI-driven automation unlock new high-margin streams and cross-selling opportunities, supporting sustained premium growth and superior profitability.
  
• Increasing privacy restrictions, platform changes, and shifting ad budgets threaten Verve's revenue, margins, and growth, while integration dependencies heighten operational and earnings risk.

Catalysts

A digital media company, engages in the provision of ad-software solutions in North America and Europe.

• Analyst consensus expects Verve's ID-less targeting solutions to capitalize on privacy tailwinds, but the market may not fully appreciate Verve's first-mover advantage and rapidly scaling proprietary SDK (ATOM), which is already reaching critical mass, allowing the company to lock in dominant share as brands urgently seek effective targeting post-cookie deprecation, driving above-consensus revenue acceleration and durable margin expansion.
  
• While analysts broadly view the Jun Group integration as a source of cost synergies, the true upside lies in Verve's ability to rapidly cross-sell high-margin CTV and in-app formats across a unified, global customer base, unlocking operating leverage at an even faster pace and potentially pushing EBITDA margins toward the upper end of management's long-term guidance ahead of schedule.
  
• The ongoing, irreversible shift of advertising dollars from traditional to measurable digital channels is structurally expanding Verve's addressable market, and recent customer wins with blue-chip clients indicate Verve could secure a disproportionate share of that growth, boosting both top-line and customer lifetime value.
  
• Verve's deep investment in AI-driven automation and predictive analytics not only enhances campaign outcomes for advertisers and publishers, but also paves the way for new self-serve and agentic product offerings, creating incremental, high-margin SaaS-like revenue streams that are not yet reflected in street estimates for future earnings power.
  
• With unified global platform architecture nearing completion and a proven playbook for international go-to-market, Verve is positioned to enter high-growth emerging regions and new digital formats (audio, digital-out-of-home, retail media) ahead of slower-moving peers, supporting sustained premium organic growth and a structurally higher net profit trajectory.

Verve Group Future Earnings and Revenue Growth

Assumptions

• This narrative explores a more optimistic perspective on Verve Group compared to the consensus, based on a Fair Value that aligns with the bullish cohort of analysts.
• The bullish analysts are assuming Verve Group's revenue will grow by 19.2% annually over the next 3 years.
• The bullish analysts assume that profit margins will increase from 5.8% today to 13.9% in 3 years time.
• The bullish analysts expect earnings to reach €114.6 million (and earnings per share of €0.58) by about July 2028, up from €28.4 million today. The analysts are largely in agreement about this estimate.
• In order for the above numbers to justify the price target of the more bullish analyst cohort, the company would need to trade at a PE ratio of 19.3x on those 2028 earnings, down from 23.0x today. This future PE is lower than the current PE for the DE Media industry at 27.0x.
• Analysts expect the number of shares outstanding to grow by 0.45% per year for the next 3 years.
• To value all of this in today's terms, we will use a discount rate of 5.9%, as per the Simply Wall St company report.

Verve Group Future Earnings Per Share Growth

Risks

• Intensifying regulatory scrutiny and privacy legislation are increasingly restricting access to user data, leading to more ID-less advertising which Verve admits is less performant, likely pressuring long-term revenue growth and advertiser retention.
  
• Programmatic advertising faces ongoing headwinds from cookie deprecation and device identifier limits by major platforms, which threaten Verve's targeting capabilities and could dampen both demand and margins in its core ad tech offerings.
  
• The growing dominance of walled gardens like Google and Facebook is diverting ad spend away from open web exchanges; Verve specifically acknowledged that large customers like Google are shifting budgets internally, which risks both revenue and market share erosion over time.
  
• Verve's dependence on acquisition-led growth and a complex platform integration introduces ongoing operational risk; technical hiccups and delayed customer onboarding resulting from integration efforts could disrupt business, hurt efficiency, and increase integration costs, negatively impacting both net margins and earnings stability.
  
• The secular industry pivot toward higher-growth channels such as Connected TV, retail media, and digital out-of-home, alongside increased ad fraud and brand safety concerns, may shift budgets away from Verve's traditional mobile/web inventory and expose it to margin pressure and thinning demand, threatening sustained top-line growth.

Valuation

• The assumed bullish price target for Verve Group is €9.2, which is the highest price target estimate amongst analysts. This valuation is based on what can be assumed as the expectations of Verve Group's future earnings growth, profit margins and other risk factors from analysts on the bullish end of the spectrum.
  
• However, there is a degree of disagreement amongst analysts, with the most bullish reporting a price target of €9.2, and the most bearish reporting a price target of just €5.8.
  
• In order for you to agree with the bullish analysts, you'd need to believe that by 2028, revenues will be €824.8 million, earnings will come to €114.6 million, and it would be trading on a PE ratio of 19.3x, assuming you use a discount rate of 5.9%.
  
• Given the current share price of €3.26, the bullish analyst price target of €9.2 is 64.6% higher.
  
• We always encourage you to reach your own conclusions though. So sense check these analyst numbers against your own assumptions and expectations based on your understanding of the business and what you believe is probable.