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Good afternoon and welcome. Thank you for joining us to discuss Fluent's first quarter 2026 earnings results. With me today are Fluent's Chief Executive Officer, Don Patrick; Chief Financial Officer, Ryan Perfit; and Chief Strategy Officer, Ryan Schulke. Our call today will begin with comments from Don Patrick and Ryan Perfit, followed by a question-and-answer session. I would like to remind you that this call is being webcast live and recorded. Additionally, there is a slide presentation that accompanies today's remarks, which can be accessed via the webcast and is also available on Fluent's website. A replay of the event will also be made available following the call on Fluent's website. To access the webcast and slide presentation, please visit the investor relations page at www.fluentco.com.

Before we begin, I would like to advise listeners that certain information discussed by management during the conference call will contain forward-looking statements covered under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any forward-looking statements made during this call only speaks as of the date hereof. Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by such forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with the company's business. These statements may be identified by words such as expects, plans, projects, could, will, estimates, and other words of similar meaning. The company undertakes no obligation to update the information provided on this call.

For a discussion of the risks and uncertainties associated with Fluent's business, we encourage you to review the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. During the call, management will also present certain non-GAAP financial information relating to media margins, Adjusted EBITDA, and Adjusted Net Income. Management evaluates the financial performance of the company's business on a variety of indicators, including these non-GAAP metrics. The definitions of these metrics and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in the earnings press release issued earlier today. With that, I am pleased to introduce Fluent's CEO, Don Patrick.

Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining our call today. I'm here with Ryan Schulke, our Chief Strategy Officer and company co-founder, and Ryan Perfit, our Chief Financial Officer. We entered 2026 with a clear strategy, strong momentum, and a commitment to deliver. Our strategy is to aggressively invest in the high-growth, high-margin Commerce Media industry, leveraging the competitive advantages of our Owned and Operated Marketplaces as our foundation. We've built a leading, highly differentiated Fluent brand with a clear and compelling purpose, delivering superior measurable performance outcomes for our commerce partners and advertisers. We are establishing a leadership position in our industry, and we are just getting started. Q1 is proof that our strategy is winning. Let me take you through the quarter. Commerce Media is the lead story of this company and where we will deliver shareholder value.

Q1 gave us another powerful and strategic validating chapter. The consumer and our partners are verifying that Fluent's Commerce Media Solutions is redefining the industry performance standard. That is the foundation we can and will build upon. Commerce Media Solutions delivered revenue of $25.9 million, 104% growth year-over-year. Gross profit grew 78%. Commerce Media now represents 58% of our total consolidated revenue, up from 23% just 4 quarters ago. This is especially encouraging given that the first quarter is seasonally our slowest of the year. The first quarter marks our ninth consecutive quarter of strong double to triple-digit Commerce Media revenue growth in a market defined by an incumbent with a decade head start. Not an easy place to establish your equity, yet we are doing just that.

The consistency of that track record is what gives us confidence and what should give you confidence that this is not just momentum, it is the trajectory. Think about that for a moment. In 4 quarters, Commerce Media went from less than a quarter of our business to more than half. That is not incremental progress. This represents strategic transformation. Moreover, this is just the ground floor. Our strategic plan is revealing business adjacencies that our partners are leaning into because we are solving for unmet consumer needs that sit at the top of their boardroom agendas. That is the road to long-term strategic partnerships.

During the quarter, we entered into partnerships with Wyndham Hotels and Squire, a barbershop booking platform, two new verticals that validate the breadth of demand for what we are building. The platform is working, the partners are growing, the numbers prove it. Now we own a differentiated leadership position in the Commerce Media space. On a consolidated basis, our Q1 2026 results were as follows. Revenue of $44.9 million. That is down 19% versus Q1 2025. That figure includes $10.9 million from Call Solutions in 2025, which we divested in January. Excluding the impact of the divestiture, revenue is down 3% year-over-year.

Importantly, Commerce Media Solutions continued its strong revenue momentum in the first quarter with a 104% increase year-over-year, representing 58% of total consolidated revenue compared to 23% in the first quarter of 2025. Gross profit of $10 million, a decrease of 12% compared to Q1 2025 and representing 22% of revenue. Our Commerce Media gross profit grew 78% year-over-year. The growth engine of this company is performing. Gross profit on our aggregate continuing businesses declined 7% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA of negative $3.6 million compared to a negative $3.1 million in Q1 2025. Our cost discipline is holding. Excluding a $2.4 million benefit from the divestiture, operating expenses are down over $1.4 million year-over-year.

Slide 4 helps to visualize the growth of Commerce Media Solutions revenue over the last 2 years. As you can see in the graphs on this slide, Commerce Media revenue in the first quarter of 2024, 1 year after its launch, accounted for just 10% of our total revenue during that period. Fast-forward to the first quarter of 2025, Commerce Media Solutions contribution to total consolidated revenue increased to 23%, representing an increase of over 100% in Commerce Media Solutions revenue when compared to Q1 2024. In the fourth quarter of 2025, Commerce Media Solutions broke the 50% threshold as the primary driver of total consolidated revenue in the quarter. As of the first quarter of 2026, Commerce Media Solutions revenue accounted for 58% of the total consolidated revenue.

Our Commerce Media growth has been encouraging, to put it simply, and we expect this trend to continue as we scale. I'd like to take a moment to reiterate the market opportunity that we're seeing for Commerce Media and why this offering is at the core of our business and growth strategy. The U.S. Commerce Media market is expected to reach $100 billion by 2027 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 21% from 2023 to 2027. Our Commerce Media Solutions business demonstrated triple-digit growth in the first quarter and is currently operating an annual revenue run rate of $110 million, positioning us well to capture new opportunities and market share as the Commerce Media market continues to expand. At the core of our Commerce Media platform is our post-transaction solution.

In Q1 demonstrated we are entering a new phase of maturity and scale. Post-transaction is structurally one of the most valuable moments in a consumer journey. The consumer has just completed a purchase, they are engaged, their credit card is out, and they are receptive to relevant offers. That moment is premium real estate for advertisers. Fluent, through our post-transaction platform, has built meaningful scale at that moment across a growing network of commerce partners. What makes our post-transaction solution increasingly powerful is the network effect at its core. More commerce partners means more consumer touch points. More touch points means more value for advertisers. More advertising demand means stronger yields and performance for commerce partners. That flywheel is turning, and each quarter it turns faster, earning Fluent real market credibility. Q1 commerce media performance is the financial proof that our post-transaction platform is scaling correctly.

Revenue more than doubled. Gross profit grew 78%. The trajectory into Q2, Q3, and Q4 in the second half as our strongest seasonal period gives us strong confidence in the full-year outlook we have planned. As our post-transaction platform continues to scale, we are making targeted investments outside of traditional retail and in the Commerce Media adjacencies that deepen our value to the partners who know us best, as well as those potential partners that are seeking a differentiated outcome. During the first quarter, we welcomed Wyndham and Squire as new commerce partners, two well-recognized brands that chose Fluent because of our proven performance and the quality of our platform. These partnerships are in line with our broader strategy to expand beyond traditional retail platforms. We look forward to penetrating new verticals to expand our addressable market.

As demand for commerce media offerings grow, our commerce partners are asking us for more, and we are responding. We are currently developing and piloting adjacent opportunities that extend our commerce media platform beyond the post-transaction moment and into new stages of the consumer journey. These are demand-driven extensions validated by our existing partner relationships, not speculative bets. Our pipeline is strong, and we look forward to updating you on the new opportunities and partnership wins in future quarters. Before I turn the call over to our CFO, Ryan Perfit, I want to provide an update on our owned and operated business. Our Owned and Operated Marketplaces business has faced persistent headwinds, an uneven competitive landscape and inconsistent industry compliance standards that after three years, we are treating as a structural reality rather than a temporary condition. We are not managing to those headwinds, we are managing through them.

What I want to focus on is how we're responding strategically. We made a deliberate decision to reposition our Owned and Operated Marketplaces as the core enabler of our Commerce Media platform. The first-party consumer data, intent signals, and audience relationships that flow through our Owned and Operated properties are the exact assets that differentiate Fluent's Commerce Media offering in the market. That infrastructure takes years to build and it is proprietary. We have it, we are putting it to work. Our Owned and Operated Marketplaces is operating under two mandates. First, it is a disciplined gross profit contributor. We are managing it to margin. Second, it is a live test-and-learn engine that feeds consumer intelligence directly into Commerce Media, improving targeting, attribution, and yield across the platform. Bottom line, Owned and Operated is directly contributing to our aggressive Commerce Media growth.

We have consciously redeployed Owned and Operated demand to Commerce Media. The growth we are driving in Commerce Media is not just expected to offset Owned and Operated pressure, it is expected to more than replace it at better margins and with stronger long-term durability. I'll turn the call over to Ryan Perfit to take a deeper dive into our financial results in Q1.

Thank you, Don, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. I'll now provide a deeper review of our first quarter results. Total consolidated revenue was $44.9 million in the first quarter of 2026, compared with $55.2 million in the prior year period. The year-over-year decline primarily reflects the January 2026 divestiture of our Call Solutions business. As Don noted, revenue from our aggregate continuing businesses declined approximately 3% year-over-year, as Commerce Media Solutions growth largely offset the expected contraction in our Owned and Operated Marketplaces. As Don also noted, Commerce Media Solutions represented 58% of total consolidated revenue in the quarter, compared with 23% in the first quarter of 2025 and above 50% for the second consecutive quarter.

Commerce Media Solutions revenue of $25.9 million represents 104% growth compared with the first quarter of 2025. Revenue from our Owned and Operated business continued to decline in the quarter, which was in line with our expectations as we continued to prioritize Commerce Media. In the first quarter, Owned and Operated revenue decreased 49% to $15.7 million, compared to $31.1 million in the first quarter of 2025. media margin in the first quarter was $14 million, representing 31% of total consolidated revenue, compared with $13.7 million or 25% of revenue in the prior year period.

Commerce Media Solutions media margin in the first quarter of 2026 was $7.7 million or 30% of Commerce Media Solutions revenue, compared with $3.1 million or 25% of revenue in the first quarter of 2025. Commerce Media Solutions gross profit was $5 million in the first quarter of 2026, an increase of 78% compared to the first quarter of 2025 and representing 19% of revenue. As we said last quarter, we expect our gross margin on Commerce Media Solutions to return to the mid-20s over the course of 2026 as our newer partnerships and placements move beyond early term incentive periods. Total operating expense in the first quarter of 2026 totaled $12.3 million, compared with $16.1 million in the first quarter of 2025.

The reduction in operating expenses benefited from a $2.4 million non-cash gain on the sale of Call Solutions and a reduction of other operating expenses of $1.4 million, reflecting our continued cost discipline. Interest expense in the first quarter decreased 31% to $605,000 from approximately $880,000 in Q1 2025, reflecting a lower daily average outstanding loan balance on the new facility with Bayview. We reported a net loss of $5.4 million in the first quarter of 2026, compared with a net loss of $8.3 million in the prior year period.

Adjusted Net Loss, a non-GAAP measure, was $5.9 million or a loss of $0.19 per share, compared with an Adjusted Net Loss of $6.7 million or a loss of $0.31 per share in the first quarter of 2025. The acquisition-related line in our non-GAAP reconciliation reflects the $2.4 million non-cash gain on the Call Solutions divestiture, which is excluded from Adjusted Net Loss and Adjusted EBITDA, another non-GAAP measure, as a non-recurring item. We recognized Adjusted EBITDA loss of approximately $3.6 million in the quarter, compared with a loss of $3.1 million in the first quarter of 2025.

As we stated on our fourth quarter call, we believe that we are well positioned to deliver double-digit consolidated revenue growth on aggregate continuing businesses and improved full year Adjusted EBITDA in 2026, supported by the continued growth of our Commerce Media Solutions business. Shifting now to our balance sheet and cash flow. We had $10.3 million in cash and cash equivalents at March 31, 2026, compared with $12.9 million at December 31, 2025. Accounts receivable declined from $46.7 million at the year-end to $31.8 million at March 31, reflecting normal Q1 seasonal collections and the divestiture of Call Solutions. AR collections drove positive operating cash flow of $5.1 million in Q1 of 2026, compared with $2.1 million in Q1 of 2025, a $3 million improvement year-over-year.

That operating cash flow funded a net $6.3 million pay down on our revolving facility, driving a reduction in net debt from $30.8 million at year-end to $23.5 million as of March 31st, 2026. To recap, our first quarter results were in line with expectations and continue to reflect the ongoing transformation of our business mix. Commerce Media Solutions grew 104% year-over-year and represented 58% of total consolidated revenue, up from 23% in the first quarter of 2025. Although Q1 is our seasonally softest quarter, operating cash flow was positive and the continued growth of Commerce Media Solutions, coupled with OpEx discipline, will drive Adjusted EBITDA improvement as the year progresses. With that, I'll turn it back over to Don.

Our view on 2026 has not changed. First quarter demonstrated strong execution against our plan, and it gives us confidence in what the rest of the year will deliver. We enter Q2 with Commerce Media at 58% of revenue and growing, and we see Q2 revenue similar to Q1 with improving margins. This will represent Fluent returning to year-over-year revenue growth from aggregate continuing businesses in the quarter. The strongest seasonal quarters of the year are ahead of us in the second half with an adjacent solution pipeline that is responding to real partner demand. For full year 2026, we expect double-digit year-over-year consolidated revenue growth on our aggregate continuing businesses, driven by Commerce Media acceleration in the second half. We expect expanding gross margins as our highest margin business becomes an increasingly dominant share of the mix.

We expect an improvement in Adjusted EBITDA as that revenue growth and margin expansion flow through the P&L. Q1 is our seasonally softest quarter. The story of 2026 is written in Q2, Q3, and Q4. We are confident in what those quarters will show. Q1 delivered what we said it would. Commerce Media grew 104%. Revenue was nearly flat ex Call Solutions. Cost discipline continued. We are planning conservatively around strategic repositioning of our Owned and Operated Marketplaces while we focus our resources against our strategy and growth. Nine consecutive quarters of strong double to triple digit year-over-year Commerce Media growth. 58% of consolidated revenue and climbing. A post-transaction platform that is earning more partner trust every single quarter. Adjacent solutions being pulled by market demand. The strongest part of the year is still ahead. The strategy is right.

The platform is built. The numbers are beginning to show what this company is becoming. We are energized by what lies ahead, and we look forward to demonstrating it quarter by quarter. With that, we can now open the call for questions.

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. One moment for our first question. It comes from Maria Ripps with Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed.

Great. Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to ask about some of the pricing dynamics within your Commerce Media segment. I think you mentioned sort of extending price incentives to some of the newer clients. Can you maybe just talk about if those incentives have been stabilizing as clients sort of mature on the platform? Is that one of the key variables for the segment to return to the mid-20s sort of gross margins? What are some other puts and takes for you to return to that level of gross margin?

Great. Thanks, Maria. Thanks for the question. We did talk about that in the last earnings release, and the answer is yes, we did put incentives in place early on as we were scaling the Commerce Media business. Once we built up our brand, we stopped re-using those as part of our sales sales initiative. They have stopped in terms of how we win business, but we are seeing them roll off, and will see them roll off throughout 2026. What you're seeing as part of the margin is really three things. Some of the incentives that are left.

You're also seeing some of the investments that we're making in those adjacent Commerce Media Solutions that haven't scaled yet, and obviously are at lower margin while we get to scale. Some of the very small amount are some of the new partners that are coming on that have come on later in the quarter that we hadn't yet brought to the projected yield yet. Those are the 3 pieces that are in play. You're absolutely right. We used those incentives when we started launching in 2023, and they are not part of our sales strategy or portfolio right now.

Got it. That's very helpful. Secondly, you mentioned several newer verticals in addition to retail. Can you maybe talk about sort of the timeline of scaling those verticals? I know you mentioned that you added new clients across the different verticals here. I guess is that largely a function of expanding your media partners, or there are maybe other factors there? It just would be great to hear sort of your thoughts on how you see sort of that developing over the next couple of quarters.

Yes. Great. Thanks, Maria. As you know, retail has been our primary focus, and that is where we obviously spent most of our investment in terms of sales and marketing and winning those great partners. You can see the proof points in how we've been able to scale that business. We've gotten into ticketing. We're in early stage of grocery. With the Wyndham, that is our entry into travel, and Squire obviously into a more of a marketplace platform. We're excited specifically about Wyndham and Squire, not only because they get us into new verticals, but which is strategic and obviously proves that our platform can get outside of retail and start to scale.

Equally important, these partners already were in post-transaction, and they chose Fluent. That was very much a performance story of that then coming over to us. Our strategy on the sales side is very similar on retail. We land a premier partner like Wyndham. We prove out and demonstrate that we can provide superior results that exist in the market, and then we leverage that into broader wins across that category. You'll see us as we expand into 2026, you'll start to see the wins coming specifically around those other 2 verticals that we're in. You'll also see grocery starting to pick up also. That will also diversify a little bit of the seasonality that we have. We'll still for the next couple of years be heavily seasonal towards Q, towards the second half.

As we expand out into other verticals, some of that seasonality will go away.

Great. That's, that's very helpful. Thank you, Don.

Thanks, Maria.

Thank you so much. Our next question comes from Patrick Sholl with Barrington Research. Please proceed.

Hi. Thanks for taking the question. Just on some of the comments that you made around expanding the number of partners and how that kind of contributing to a flywheel on expanding, I guess, the roster of advertisers, could you maybe, like, talk about the additional scale you need and, like, maybe the categories of advertisers that are, you know, maybe not spending as much as you think, you know, would warrant for the types of inventory that you deliver?

Yeah. Hi, Pat. Yeah, thanks for the question. You know, heavily into retail is obviously, you know, cash back, streaming services, things that we've talked about before, you know, credit card offers, et cetera. As we start to expand in these other verticals, some of them are very much like retail, and they play into the retail bucket. Travel is not, which is one obviously we're very excited about. You're gonna start to see different verticals based on that audience, and also we'll have additional placements with Wyndham outside of the transaction. You'll also see us in other areas of their, of their commerce platform. That will also bring in diversification across that.

In, on the Squire side, you know, what's exciting about that is that it's, you know, a very much of a very specific age and demographic audience, which will open up a number of different verticals that we are just really sort of testing and learning right now. As you know, our advertiser base is diversified across. There's no one specific advertiser that has a high concentration that we have to report against. We do, from a retail perspective, heavily into cash back offers and into streaming that we'll start to diversify away from.

Okay. I guess just on the turnaround in the commerce media margins back into the mid-twenties. I guess, are you kind of seeing that shift in strategy away from the promotional margin kind of affecting the I guess client acquisition? Or I guess maybe just any comments on the general competitive environment customer acquisition?

Yeah. Yeah, Thanks. It's a great question, Pat. Specifically, and I think this is what we're most excited about, and you see a little bit on our investor presentation. We have proven our ability to drive superior results for our partners and advertisers compared to the competition, right? Companies that have partners that have left our competitors and have come to us, we've been able to do head-to-head tests, and we've been able to prove not only do we provide superior revenue to the media partners we're working with, but we'll drive better quality audiences to those advertisers, and better return on ad spend, which in turn brings them back to buy more onto the platform. Now that we've proven that out, you know, as you guys know, we started in 2023.

We have great results around, and case studies around proving that out, and that's how we lead. We lead specifically where we're looking we can drive the best results across the industry. If you're looking for a Commerce partner that can drive results and also help manage other places across your Commerce site and also just help you drive the strategy, we are the right partner for you. If you're looking for more of a tech play or a SaaS play with a SaaS-type play, obviously there are other competitors that are out there that are better in terms of how we position ourselves.

Regarding the competitive environment, this is where I think the adjacent solutions play significantly, you know, our partners are asking us to get, and it's a demand-driven, helping them get into other pieces and other adjacent sites. You know, the more we can get there, the stickier we are, and it becomes a much, you know, more strategic relationship. That is why we keep talking about those adjacent solutions and the importance to that. We have, you know, we have a very big competitor that is very aggressive. We have smaller competitors that sort of compete on price. We feel great about our brand and how we compete on results and can win when we're on our playing field and we're with someone who matches up to our solutions and our capabilities.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Bye.

Thank you so much. As a reminder, if you do have a question, simply press star 11 to get in the queue. Our next question is from Eric Martinuzzi with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Yeah, congrats on that, terrific triple-digit growth rate on CMS. That 104% was ahead of where I was modeling things. Wanted to ask a couple of questions on partners in particular, to the extent you can talk about it. The Wyndham implementation, just wondering if you're any lessons learned, sort of hot takes from your diving into travel/hospitality, in helping that partner ramp up.

Eric, welcome. It's exciting to have you here, thanks for the question. You know, this is where I'm gonna go back to our owned and operated strategy and why it's such a competitive advantage. If we didn't have that owned and operated business, I think your answer, Eric, would be there'd be a learning curve to understand that audience, understand how they behave, understand how we build a meaningful relationship and be able to provide the right, you know, the right offer at the right time. Having that owned and operated business and having 15 years of understanding how to curate audiences, you know, we assumed that, you know, Wyndham would take a little bit of a time to scale from a results perspective.

Actually, it launched right out of the blocks very strong. It is a different audience. It does react differently than a retail, but that's where the Owned and Operated comes to a huge competitive advantage to us. I'm going to stay on this topic for a second because it's so relevant. If we start to work with a partner like Wyndham and say we want to start to do creative testing, we want to start to do different offers, it takes time. It takes time for approval, it takes time to get the offer in, it takes time to get the results back. On our Owned and Operated, we can test within hours, and we can have results in days, and we can use those results to inform how we move our Commerce Media strategies.

That has been a huge competitive advantage as we get into new verticals there.

Okay. You know, penetrating a vertical, a lot of times people in the industry in the same vertical know each other. What's the dynamic as far as, you know, maybe using one account as a reference to penetrate another account? Is that sort of, hey, these people don't talk to each other, or is there a potential opportunity?

No, it is spot on, Eric. That is our best sales strategy, is to have our current partners talk to our prospects and partners. That is absolutely why we like our land and expand. We make sure we get the results. We make sure that partner is incredibly satisfied, and then we use them. They're actually sometimes they're willing to talk. Yes, they all talk to each other. You know, CMO, market retail, media network heads of that, they, you know, they can move around, and they do move around, and it is a very tight-knit group in terms of how they talk.

Okay. Then you talked about some of the, as far as the pressure on the current CMS gross margins. You talked about some incentives haven't run their course yet, some subscale adjacent solutions, and then some new partners later in the quarter. I was wondering, you know, the Rebuy was somebody that you signed up in 2025 and they're more of a, kind of a reseller-type margin. I was wondering if that also was a factor in the pressure on CMS gross margin.

Yeah, you know, it's You're absolutely right, Eric. We do, because of the partnership and strategic partnership, we do have a lower margin with the Rebuy, with what we're doing with Rebuy. It's not a major factor. We're very happy with that partnership. It continues to grow. And we think there's a lot of opportunity and road forward to continue to grow that relationship and revenue and both our strategic positions. That is not a big factor on the margin. The major factor in that margin was the fact that the incentive's rolling off and the new adjacent solutions that we are getting.

We have a specific number of adjacent solutions that are in, that are out there working with our partners, you know, they're lower margin as we scale up the business. Similar to the way post-transaction was when we launched in 2023.

Got it. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you, Eric.

Thank you. Thank you so much. As I see no further questions in the queue, I will conclude the Q&A session and conference for today. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.

Afternoon and welcome. Thank you for joining us to discuss Fluent's fourth quarter and year-end 2025 earnings results. With me today are Fluent's Chief Executive Officer, Don Patrick, Chief Financial Officer, Ryan Perfit and Chief Strategy Officer, Ryan Schulke. Our call today will begin with comments from Don and Ryan Perfit, followed by a question-and-answer session. I would like to remind you that this call is being webcast live and recorded. Additionally, there's a slide presentation that accompanies today's remarks, which can be accessed via the webcast and is also available on Fluent's website. A replay of the event will also be made available following the call on Fluent's website. To access the webcast and slide presentation, please visit the investor relations page at www.fluentco.com.

Before we begin, I would like to advise listeners that certain information discussed by management during this conference call will contain forward-looking statements covered under the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any forward-looking statements made during this call only speak as of the date hereof. Actual results could differ materially from those stated and implied by such forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with the company's business. These statements may be identified by words such as expects, plans, projects, could will estimates and other words of similar meaning. The company undertakes no obligation to update information provided on this call.

For discussion of the risks and uncertainties associated with Fluent's business, we encourage you to view the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarter reports on Form 10-Q. During the call, management will also present non-GAAP financial information relating to media margin, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income. Management evaluates the financial performance of the company's business on a variety of indicators, including these non-GAAP metrics. The definition of these metrics and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in the earnings press release issued earlier today. With that, I'm pleased to introduce Fluent's CEO, Don Patrick.

Good afternoon, thank you all for joining us today. I'm here with Ryan Schulke, our Chief Strategy Officer and company co-founder and Ryan Perfit, our Chief Financial Officer. Three years ago, we made a deliberate and decisive strategic choice to aggressively invest in pivoting our business into the high-growth Commerce Media industry, leveraging the competitive advantages of our owned and operated marketplaces as our foundation. We've made significant progress on this strategic pivot over the last 12 months, capped off by key milestones for this business. Commerce Media Solutions contributed 56% of total Q4 revenue, more than doubling from 26% in Q4 2024. Building on this success, we entered 2026 with strong momentum that is accelerating.

We have built a highly differentiated Fluent brand with a clear and compelling purpose, delivering superior measurable performance outcomes for our commerce partners and advertisers. In the process, we are being recognized as the market leader in our industry. We are no longer a company in transition. We are a company that has reached a transformative inflection point and we are confident our best days are ahead of us. In today's earnings release, we reported Q4 and full year 2025 results that reflect significant progress in our Commerce Media transformation. Commerce Media Solutions delivered nearly 2x revenue growth over 2024, a powerful demonstration of our market validation and competitive differentiation.

A recap on Q4 2025 consolidated financial results were as follows: revenue of $61.8 million, an increase of 31% versus Q3 2025. Media margin of $19.1 million, an increase of 49% versus Q3 2025. An adjusted EBITDA of $0.2 million, an increase of $3.6 million from Q3 2025 and representing 0.3% of Q4 revenue. Our Q4 performance achieved the roadmap we laid out in previous earnings releases. Commerce Media Solutions continued to accelerate, adding new commerce partners in the quarter and more than doubling revenue year-over-year, while also expanding our media margin on a sequential basis. That marks strong double to triple-digit year-over-year revenue growth for Commerce Media Solutions for eight consecutive quarters. That trend represents our strategic and financial trajectory and we expect strong double-digit year-over-year growth to continue throughout 2026.

Full year 2025 financial results were as follows: revenue of $208.8 million, reflecting a top-line decline of 18% versus 2024, consistent with our deliberate managed transition away from our legacy revenue streams. Gross profit of $51.2 million, a decrease of 15.8% versus 2024. An adjusted EBITDA loss of $9 million, representing -4.3% of revenue. The most powerful validation of the strategy is in the numbers. As I mentioned before, in Q4 2025, Commerce Media Solutions contributed 56% to total consolidated revenue, representing more than 50% of total company revenue for the first time since the launch of this business in the first quarter of 2023, compared to 26% in Q4 2024 and 10% in Q4 2023.

We expect that share to continue to grow in 2026. In full year 2025, Commerce Media Solutions delivered revenue growth of 99% year-over-year and media margin growth of 48% year-over-year. These results confirm three things. First, we are establishing our brand equity and operating in a large long-term growth market. Second, our differentiated approach is resonating with our commerce partners and advertisers who continue to join our proven business model. Third, the strong performance we deliver is real and repeatable as we continue to establish leadership credentials in our segment. Industry growth projections position us favorably for growth in the U.S. market. According to a recent McKinsey study, the U.S. Commerce Media market is expected to grow at a compounded average growth rate of 21% from 2023 to 2027 and reach a total market value of $100 billion by 2027.

As of 31 December 2025, Commerce Media Solutions is operating at an annual run rate of $105 million. As you can see, we believe there is significant opportunity to increase our market share as this high growth industry continues to evolve and we expand our geographical presence. Putting it simply, media partners and advertisers want to work with Fluent because Fluent delivers the best results. This is demonstrated by the impressive network of partners and advertisers that leverage our offerings. We continue to expand our relationships with leading names across diverse industries and market verticals. We deliver strategic validation by way of our financial performance. We continue to look and plan forward as we do so.

We are investing with discipline in Commerce Media strategic adjacencies that will further differentiate the Fluent brand, elevate our industry leadership position, earn us more partnerships, all while providing long-term margin accretion. We've discussed on previous earnings calls that we have existing partners who have a need to expand into loyalty and pre-checkout. Although it is early stage, these adjacent solutions open additional large market opportunities that not only strengthen our existing relationships but meaningfully raises the bar for new partners evaluating who in the Commerce Media truly understands the full customer journey and where the market is headed. In turn, we are making targeted, purposeful investments designed to extend our competitive moat in Commerce Media for years to come. We are very excited about these opportunities on our roadmap.

They represent significant upside to Fluent's strategic and financial growth plan. More to follow here in future investor updates. On our owned and operated businesses, we are clear-eyed and deliberate. Given our commitment to play an industry leadership role in traffic quality, coupled with the inherent compliance headwinds in that segment, we are repositioning owned and operated with a focused two-part mandate. Number one, gross profit generator, maintaining a profitable capital efficient contribution to the enterprise. Number two, a test and learn engine, a real-time proving ground that sharpens and feeds our Commerce Media strategy and product development. Narrowing our focus reflects our conviction that the Commerce Media market represents an enormous multi-year strategic opportunity, that concentrating our resources in our highest conviction business is the right decision for our shareholders.

In doing so, we are also quite excited in validating that our owned and operated business is not only a core asset but a competitive advantage in fueling our Commerce Media growth. Our Commerce Media growth continues to be validated by the strength of our partnerships with premier brands and companies and the addition of key talent that has helped us to maximize performance and efficiency as we continue to scale. During 2025, we added several new partners across a variety of exciting verticals. Among the highlights, we partnered with a number of world-class brands, including Authentic Brands Group, DICK'S Sporting Goods and Michaels. We also launched Rebuy Monetize, powered by Fluent, which brings Fluent's AI-powered advertiser marketplace and demand generation expertise to merchants on the Shopify platform. Our new business pipeline remains strong and growing.

We look forward to announcing additional partnerships throughout 2026. On the talent side, we have built a world-class product and tech team focused on accelerating AI innovation for our Commerce Media offerings. Adrian Stack, our Chief Product Officer and his team bring years of experience as strategic product management to the Fluent team and are driving Fluent's investments in data infrastructure and product innovation. Virginia Marsh joined Fluent in Q2 in conjunction with our partnership with Databricks to expand and enhance our data collaboration capabilities, coming on as head of data and agencies to scale our data monetization and further support our overall growth.

These partnerships and additions to our team reflect our commitment to earning an industry-leading position with Commerce Media and allowed us to nearly double revenue and scale from $60 million annual run rate to $105 million annual run rate at year-end. A commitment that required significant investments to build something durable and sustainable in a high-growth marketplace. The 2026 outlook we're sharing today is a direct payoff of that discipline and our strategic and financial resolve. With that, I'll turn it over to Ryan Perfit for a deeper look at our financials.

Thank you, Don and thanks to everyone for joining us today. I'll now provide a review of our fourth quarter results with some context on full-year trends where relevant. Total consolidated revenue was $61.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, compared with $65.4 million in the prior year period. Commerce Media Solutions delivered strong results. Revenue of $34.7 million represents 101% growth when compared with the fourth quarter of 2024, driven by continued strategic investments in the business and industry expansion. The 85% sequential growth from the third quarter was heavily influenced by a seasonal increase related to consumer spending around the holidays. CMS revenue contributed 56% of total consolidated revenue in the quarter, representing more than half of total consolidated revenue for the first time.

In the 4th quarters of 2024 and 2023, Commerce Media Solutions represented 26% and 10% of total consolidated revenue, respectively. For the full year, Commerce Media Solutions revenue totaled $82.3 million, 99% growth over 2024. As of year-end 2025, Commerce Media Solutions annual revenue run rate now exceeds $105 million, up from $85 million as of the end of the 3rd quarter. Looking ahead, we expect Q4 to be a tipping point as we anticipate Commerce Media Solutions will represent a majority of the consolidated revenue on a go-forward basis. As expected, revenue from our owned and operated business declined on a year-over-year basis as we continue to shift our focus towards scaling Commerce Media Solutions.

Media margin in the fourth quarter was $19.1 million, representing 31% of total consolidated revenue, compared with $16.5 million or 25% of revenue in the prior year period. Commerce Media Solutions media margin in the fourth quarter of 2025 was $10.4 million or 30% of Commerce Media Solutions revenue, compared with $6.8 million or 39% of revenue in the fourth quarter of 2024, up sequentially from 25% in the third quarter of 2025. Commerce Media Solutions gross profit margin of 33% was up from 22% in the third quarter and 18% in the second quarter of 2025, included a $4.3 million one-time benefit related to an early termination settlement with a media partner. Of note, that benefit is excluded from media margin, so that non-GAAP measure is a more useful alternative for comparing operations in prior and future periods.

We expect gross margin on Commerce Media Solutions to normalize in subsequent quarters and ultimately return to the mid-twenties over the course of 2026 as our newer partnerships move beyond early term incentive periods. On a GAAP basis, total operating expense in the fourth quarter of 2025 totaled $15.4 million, compared with $16.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. For the full year, operating expense totaled $61 million compared with $72.3 million in 2024, a decrease of 16% year-over-year. Interest expense in the fourth quarter decreased to $781,000 from $1 million in the prior year period, reflecting a lower daily average outstanding loan balance. We reported a net loss of $4.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, compared with the net loss of $3.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Adjusted net loss, a non-GAAP measure, was $2.8 million, equivalent to a loss of $0.09 per share, compared with an adjusted net loss of $3.3 million or a loss of $0.18 per share in the fourth quarter of 2024. We achieved adjusted EBITDA of approximately $200,000 in the quarter, compared with a loss of $1.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. This is consistent with our outlook of positive adjusted EBITDA in the quarter and reflects the progress of our strategic shift towards Commerce Media Solutions and continued focus on expense discipline. As Don stated earlier on the call, with our current visibility, we believe that we are well-positioned to deliver double-digit consolidated revenue growth on an aggregate continuing businesses and improved full-year adjusted EBITDA in 2026, supported by the continued growth of our Commerce Media business.

Shifting now to our balance sheet. We ended 2025 with $12.9 million in cash and cash equivalents, compared with $9.4 million at the year-end 2024 and total net debt of $30.8 million at year-end, compared with $31.9 million at the end of 2024. Throughout 2025 and into 2026, we've made significant progress on strengthening our balance sheet and enhancing our liquidity. We've also taken a hard look at our portfolio to ensure we're allocating resources towards our strongest growth opportunities. During 2025, we raised over $19 million in equity capital, including a $10.3 million placement in August that introduced several new institutional investors into our shareholder base. This capital supported our continued investment in the growth of our Commerce Media business. In November, we entered into a new financing agreement that replaced our previous credit agreement.

The new facility carries no financial covenants and provides expanded borrowing availability, which both significantly improved our financial flexibility. Most recently, in January 2026, we completed the sale of our Call Solutions business, a non-core subsidiary, which allows us to more effectively allocate our resources and invest further into the growth of Commerce Media Solutions. As noted previously, we are providing outlook on 2026 revenue from continuing businesses which do not include the Call Solutions business. As we move through 2026, we remain focused on maintaining financial flexibility and liquidity to support the continued growth of Commerce Media Solutions as we work towards improved profitability. With that, I'll turn it back over to Don.

We believe 2026 marks the year of our financial trend line will begin to shift, marked by double-digit growth on an aggregate continuing businesses. Our 2026 outlet reflects, One, return to year-over-year revenue growth driven by a strategic transition, validating our partners are recognizing our value and ending a multi-year period of managed top line decline. Two, we'll maintain gross margins in comparable periods increasing to the mid-20s over the course of 2026. We believe these are financial signatures of a business that has fundamentally repositioned itself for durable, profitable growth as a lead brand in a high-growth, high-margin marketplace. Taking into account the divestiture of our Call Solutions unit, we expect relatively flat year-over-year total company revenue in Q1.

From there, revenue will accelerate to double-digit year-over-year growth in the second half, with aggregate revenue from continuing businesses achieving double-digit revenue growth for the full year 2026. Concerning profitability, we've made the strategic decision to focus on investing more capital into our growth in the near term. As such, we are revising our adjusted EBITDA target for the full year. While we no longer expect to be adjusted EBITDA positive in 2026, we do expect improved adjusted EBITDA when compared to 2025. To summarize, we achieved a key milestone and surpassed a significant inflection point in 2025 for the growth of our Commerce Media Solutions business. We've built a highly differentiated brand and a platform that will deliver sustainable and measurable performance for our partners and for Fluent.

In 2026, with the continued strategic shift of our mix into Commerce Media, our financial results are beginning to reflect the potential of that strategy that we have been executing. The trend line has shifted. The momentum is real. We are energized by what lies ahead. We can now open the call for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. If you would like to remove yourself from the queue, press star one one again. We also ask that you wait for your name and company to be announced before proceeding with your question. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question of the day will be coming from the line of Maria Ripps of Canaccord. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks so much for taking my questions. You talked about sort of adding AI-based functionality to your Rebuy partnership. Can you maybe talk a little bit about that and sort of, will that be rolled out by default to all the merchants that you work with currently? Or what sort of the rollout process look like? How incremental can this be over time? Then maybe more broadly, can you talk about sort of this partnership for you and how sort of productive and successful it's been for you since you started working together?

Great. Thanks. Thanks for the question, Maria. Regarding AI, we have had AI embedded into our solutions here at Fluent for a, for a long time in terms of how does it continue to drive better performance for us. Underlying all those AI models has been our proprietary first-party data asset. That is really our, what I'll call our secret sauce to driving superior results. The AI models combined with that first-party data, obviously, is what we believe is our competitive advantage and why we drive superior results. What we rolled out to Rebuy was all the standard across all of our enterprise clients and also, the Rebuy clients. The great news is whatever we work on across the platform goes across all of our partners that we're working with.

The one area that we have been working more diligently on is sort of embedding AI into all our workflows, to create, obviously, competitive mode and drive more efficiency. I'm sure you read it and see it when you talk to all the companies you work with, Maria. It is just dramatic how fast things are changing and how quickly you can make huge productivity improvements and huge speed to market on new capabilities. With that has been sort of our focus on agentic AI with fast ROI, making sure that's embedded into our processes and so we can not only move faster and quicker and accelerate but also drive better operating leverage across our platform. Then you asked a question about Rebuy.

You know, Rebuy was our first strategic partnership that got us into the Shopify ecosystem. Our traditional sales and traditional focus had been on what I'll call enterprise partners, things like direct big brands like DICK'S Sporting Goods, Bath & Body Works, et cetera. Rebuy was our way to go indirect with them into their clients that are on the Shopify platform. We've integrated our technology. We've worked really well together from a marketing perspective, I think there's lots of opportunities to continue to grow that partnership. We're very pleased on the success that we've made there. Rebuy has been a fantastic partner to work with in terms of both product and technology but also in terms of evolving the strategic ability to drive better results for both our clients.

Got it. That's very helpful. Don, I also wanted to follow up on your point about convergence between your ONO and Commerce Media capabilities. Can you maybe talk about that a little bit? I guess, what are some sort of capabilities or functionality that would enable that? Is that sort of client-driven or just sort of how are you thinking about that? How incremental can this be over time for you?

It's a great question, Maria and it's obviously one that hopefully you heard a lot of excitement on this call about and also the previous call. you know, our legacy business, the owned and operated, has been interacting with consumers and connecting them world-class brands for 15 years. That amount of data that we have both on, what I'll call first-party self-declared data but equally important, what I'll call second-party, you know, campaign data, things that happen after we connected as a world-class brand and how those audiences react and how they are best used and how to best provide the right offer at the right time to the right audience. It really enables and opens up our ability to drive unique, very valuable audience sets across different types of media partners.

You obviously, staying obviously, if you're a DICK'S Sporting Goods consumer buying something and then you're a Belk consumer on the website, still retail but obviously very different audiences. That skill set that we've honed over 15 years in owned and operated allows us to move quickly to understand that audience, work with the advertisers to bid so they get the right return on ad spend and then drive the health of that marketplace for both our partners and for our advertisers. It has come to be a huge competitive advantage to us as we scale our platform. We have to get new advertisers into our network. That type of skill set has been an absolute competitive advantage this past year.

Great. Thank you for the call.

Thanks, Maria.

Thank you. One moment for the next question. Our next question is coming from the line of Patrick Sholl of Barrington Research. Your line is open.

Hi. Thanks for taking the question. Just a maybe kind of a clarification on your expectations for 2026 on the Commerce Media side. You know, I guess with the early contract termination that you called out in the release, I guess, can you provide a little bit more color on expectations around churn and retention and, you know, maintaining margins on the Commerce Media side, you know, just for the next few years, I guess?

Sure. Yep. Thanks, Pat. Thanks for the question. Where we've been very consistent is that, you know, we have said that from a consolidated revenue perspective, that Fluent will return to double-digit growth on aggregate continuing businesses, which means without Call Solutions, the sale of Call Solutions this year. We have been very consistent over the past couple quarters that we will return to double-digit growth on the top line. With that early termination, the growth in Commerce Media is still expected to be significant. It's very strong double-digit growth. We originally said we were gonna double that and we brought that down because of that, because of that early termination. We have a very strong pipeline. It's growing aggressively. We feel good that we can over-deliver on that.

As the visibility we see today, that's the expectations that we'll have very strong double-digit growth on Commerce Media year over year. On the margin perspective, we have talked about these adjacent solutions, Patrick. You know, we mentioned loyalty, we've mentioned pre-check. There's some significant bigger opportunities along with those that are existing partners and our new partners are asking us to get into. We are very diligently investing in those areas that will bring significant growth. It's gonna be more into the 2027 timeframe but we'll have pilots going on, we'll have growth and scale. As we scale that, the margins will improve. We'll see that in the 2027 timeframe. There's, you know, commerce media is evolving so fast. There's so many strategic and financial opportunities in front of us.

We are taking our what we believe is our leadership position in post-transaction, which is the hardest area to get into and most important area with, in terms of the consumer transactional moment. We're taking that and we're leveraging things in adjacent to continue to grow aggressively. We think the opportunity to build a very significant large company is beyond what we thought a year ago.

Okay. Maybe just, I guess, more along the lines of like the macro environment. Can you maybe talk about like how, you know, any how that's sort of impacting the ability to bring in additional advertisers and, you know, any issues around like, diversity of advertisers and frequency of, on customers or consumers, I mean.

Yeah. It's a good question, Pat. Obviously, given what's going on in the world with everything, there's a lot of change and a lot of things that are moving. Last year, we had to deal a lot with the tariffs and obviously with the war and the things like that, we obviously have a lot of changes. I'll hit the partner side first. On the partners, you know, you know the incremental benefit that this brings to a media partner. For any retailer or any strong vertical like ticketing or groceries that are looking for incremental revenue, this remains our top priority. That growth in the post-transaction business, we think is just gonna continue to accelerate. On the advertiser side, we have not seen any pushback on pricing.

We do see ROAS change, return on ad spend changes between different partners move at various points in time but we have not yet seen anything, even from our, you know, our gaming advertisers that are in Israel, any real pullback from a return on ad spend relative to what we saw in 2025.

Okay. thank you.

Thanks, Pat.

Thank you. One moment for the next question, please. Our next question is coming from the line of David Marsh of Singular Research. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Congrats on the quarter. Good job here.

Thank you.

Just wanted to start, you know, I would say particularly great job on the SG&A side. Is this, you know, is this a good run rate going forward that we could, we could kind of rely on, what you were able to print this year?

Hi, Dave. Yeah, this is Ryan Perfit. You know, we did a lot of work on kind of reducing costs and being efficient in 2025. I think we're gonna maintain that kind of outlook and perspective and try to minimize costs as much as possible. That said, as we expand Commerce Media Solutions, we're necessarily going to need to invest into development of new products that Don's been talking about and the management of that business. You know, we will expect costs to step up, you know, we've taken other steps such as divesting the Call Solutions business that will help us maintain kind of low OpEx over the year.

Right. That's, that's good to hear. On the gross margin side, really great job in the quarter. This is the highest gross margin you guys had in quite some time. I mean, when you look at the, you know, where the business is now and the run rate and, you know, as it grows, I mean, what do you think is a realistic kind of longer term goal for gross margins for the, for the business overall and, I guess, Commerce Media in particular?

I'll take this question again, Dave. I wanna point out that in Q4, per ASC 705, we booked the net settlement as a benefit to cost of revenue. The gross margins are not necessarily representative of what they were in prior quarters or future quarters. It was a good quarter for us overall. You can see media margin was up and that's, you know, another way to judge it because that does not include any one-time items because of its non-GAAP measure. Adjusted EBITDA and media margin are more representative. That said, you know, I think Don was earlier mentioning that we do believe there will be some tightening, as we kind of expand into different touch points in the commerce media environment but we expect for it to expand over time.

I would expect us to get up into the mid-20s% in gross margin towards, you know, the back half of the year and then further expansion in 2027.

Got it. Got it. Thanks. Then just on the competitive landscape, I mean, you know, you guys have, you know, you've talked about this, a good bit, you know, not really seeing, you know, a ton of major players in this space. I mean, do you have a sense that there are people that do wanna try to get into this space? You know, how heavy of a lift is it for someone to actually, you know, get into this space and compete with you guys?

Yeah. It's a great question, Dave. We have seen as we've talked in the past, there's us and one other competitor that obviously is really going after the enterprise clients, right? Which is a traditional enterprise sale, six-12 months. You know, you're selling it to the head of retail media networks or CMO. It's a very strategic sale. Then you get, you know, the equivalent of two-five year contracts that are very predictable and very long-standing. The ones that have come in tend to be more on the, what I'll call the Shopify ecosystem, the D2C, the smaller end range that quite honestly doesn't have the, what I'll call the enterprise-grade platform that you need, right?

If you, if you're gonna be with these large clients, you need SOC 2 compliance, you need ISO compliance, you need all sorts of significant investments from a platform to get there. The ones that have been coming in have been less of a concern for us. They've been sort of on the smaller end of and really competing when we go again, when we have the Rebuy partnership and where we are. There are a lot of players out there. I'm sure you've saw a little bit around The Trade Desk possibly working with ChatGPT.

There's people that are talking about how do you bring shopping into different environments and different services and that's sort of where we tend to, you know, that some of these investments that we're talking about and how do we continue to build our competitive moat around a solution that's not just post-transaction but also integrated across loyalty and other areas. We think that's gonna be our ability to not only enhance our competitive positioning but also create a moat against anyone else that could come in.

The biggest thing right now in the market is that, you know, most of the big, large ad tech companies wanna come at it, this in a what I'll call programmatic way, meaning they wanna buy advertisers on a, on a demand platform that's all programmatic and you're not working directly with the advertisers. You know, our business model is very direct. We work hand in hand with the advertisers because they're paying up, you know, a significant, sometimes as much as 5 to 10 times what they would pay in other digital advertising services because of the value of those consumers.

Proving out the value, the ROAS, how to best position, how to build the right audience right now has continued to been, is one of our core competencies of that legacy business and why we think we are gathering market share and growth here.

Great. Great color. Thanks so much. Appreciate you guys taking the questions.

Thanks, David.

Thank you. One moment for the next question. Our next question will be coming from the line of Bill Dezellem of Tieton Capital Management. Your line is open.

Well, operator, I'll help you out here. It's Bill Dezellem with Tieton Capital Management. Thank you. My first question, Don and Ryan is tied to the Commerce Media business. As you look out in 2026 versus 2025, what sort of revenue growth range are you thinking is reasonable at this point?

From a Commerce Media, Bill, yeah we doubled the business from 2024 to 2025. We are now saying that we are going to grow strong double digits from 2025 to 2026 for Commerce Media. That really comes down to the two things that we talked about. One, the difference between doubling it again this year and the strong double digits has been that early termination with that one media partner. I think that's the biggest impact that we see here in terms of what it could drive. It's also allowing us to some investments that we're making in some other area, adjacent areas that will certainly be creating longer term opportunities but it'll take some of the growth away in 2026.

Strong double digits, would you like to bracket that with some numbers?

Yeah. Greater than 50% and lower than 100, Bill.

All right. That's, that's certainly a number. That's, that's fair. Equally importantly tied to this, how would you characterize the pipeline of future opportunities, versus a year ago? I know in general you said it was strong but, would you compare versus a year ago, please?

Yeah. Great question, Bill. We talked about having a differentiated brand, right? There's another big large company that's been in this industry for a long time. We now have a differentiated position with clear, you know, competitive advantage around driving better results. That we not only do we believe how equally important our partners believe and also our prospects believe. That doesn't mean that we win every deal. Obviously, there's lots of growth for the other company has a very strong tech play. It's a very good SaaS play. If you're looking for that type of thing, there's room for them and there's lots of growth for both sides. I would tell you the big differentiated position is our brand and how our partners are looking at us.

When we come in the room, they know what we're known for, they know how we can drive better performance, they know how we can expand beyond post-transaction, where, you know, we've only started this business, you know, three years. The last year at this time, it still was proving out our results and how we perform. I think that's the biggest piece. I think the second is that we're, you know, a lot of our partners are now saying, "I need to continue to grow. Where else can you help me grow? And where can you bring, you know, a broader result across all of my Commerce Media in interaction with my consumer and how can I power that?" The ability to be much more strategic and to be much more relevant is the other big play.

When you're, when you're selling post-transaction, it's a great incremental, it's a very important incremental P&L for a company. When we start to get into the other side and we can start to give connections between how a consumer works on post-transaction versus loyalty versus other areas, that's when we start to become a much more strategic partner. It's, it's both our brand and also the strategic conversations and the opportunities that are in front of us.

You had alluded to, in response to a prior question that the market potential looks significantly greater to you today, than what you were thinking a year ago. Is that specifically tied to these adjacent opportunities that you were just referencing, or is there something else going on there?

I think it's a combination of both those adjacencies but also how fast Commerce Media is evolving, Bill. I think there's, you know, it's still a relatively low penetrated market, so we have a lot of tailwinds coming from more penetration across that. That's number one. Number two is you're starting to see these adjacencies that we can sell alongside of it, which obviously opens up our market share.

You alluded at a high level to these adjacent opportunities. Would you like to take this opportunity to talk in more detail about those opportunities and which ones are larger than the others and why?

I would love to Bill but I think these are, you know, huge opportunities that will strengthen our strategic and our financial position. We're being deliberately quiet on the details here because for competitive reasons, simplest form of formers is that. They're a couple of quarters away. We're gonna talk more about these things as we test and learn, we prove it out. It's a model that Fluent has done for 15 years. We understand, we test and learn, we understand how the consumer works, we figure out how the monetization and then we scale aggressively. That's, that's obviously where we're gonna go. We're very excited to talk about that.

When we do bring those up, you know, after the Q2, after Q2, we'll have much more to say in terms of the opportunities and the strength where we think we can grow here.

Great. Thank you. Then one additional question tied to that, if I may please. When you think about the revenue potential from some of these different areas, some of these different adjacent opportunities, not in aggregate the adjacent opportunities but individually, do you see any of them, that on their own would be, larger than the, than the post-sale as we know it today?

Yes. Yep. The ones we're going after Bill, some of them are equal to the size of post-transaction from a total available market in the U.S. and a couple of them are a magnitude of that.

Does the implication of that every one of these opportunities are at minimum as large as the post-transaction as we know it today?

I think it's I think generally yes, there's a couple, you know, there's maybe one that's a little bit smaller but where we're putting these together Bill is from the strategic perspective of the consumer and how can we inform our partners on the consumer experience across important parts of their Commerce Media where the moment is the most important. We believe that we will be able to do that in a way that's incredibly meaningful for the partner and create significant value for them and at the same time create significant growth opportunities for Fluent.

I'm really intrigued here, so my apologies for squeaking in another question. When you look at the sales cycle for these adjacent opportunities, do you anticipate it to be similar or is it going to take longer than the post-sale? Is the benefit so obvious and the trust that you're generating with the post-sale that it'll be a much faster cycle?

Great question, Bill. I'd be disappointed if you didn't sneak another question in. Number one is obviously we have a growing and large list of existing partners. Cross-selling our existing post-transaction into these other adjacent solutions. It does not take as long, right? It's not as long sales cycle, we have built up a brand, a relationship and results with them. That from existing partners, we think that we'll get a much shorter sales cycle. With our new partners that we're obviously bringing on, we anticipate bringing on a lot of new partners in 2026. We've already brought on 2 already that we announced in Q1. One was Wyndham which was our first entrance into travel. The other one was Squire which is a, it's a commercial marketplace.

As we bring on more, what we're finding is that, you know, we're obviously talking about the broader vision and where our solutions fit. The conversation then gets into where do I start? What's the best way to start up and how do I build this over time? There'll be ability to, you know, where now when we win a post-transaction clients for the most part, we get 100% of the market that they have immediately. What we're hoping is that with these additional solutions, we'll still get 100% of that post-transaction, then we'll be able to provide significant growth with amongst our existing partners beyond that post-transaction.

That's very helpful. Then relative to the owned and operated revenues were flat to slightly up this quarter versus the third quarter. What is that signaling to us?

You know Bill, I think as I, as we mentioned and I hope everybody hears this, is this, that owned and operated is our competitive advantage, right? That's how we win. That's how we drive better performance. That's how we, you know, enable our Commerce Media to be differentiated. As Maria said, there's a convergence happening around how you, how we can bring that rewarded and infrastructure and thought process into the Commerce Media. I would take nothing away from it being flat, Bill. We obviously continue to bring those resources into commerce to help drive the bigger, larger market that we're going after and quite honestly, a much more valuable market, right?

We divested Call Solutions for the exact same challenge which is we really needed to focus on this opportunity in front of us and on the owned and operated. We're not asking them to grow that business and we expect it to continue to decline. What you'll see is that asset being really brought into the Commerce Media to be a competitive advantage for us.

Great. Thank you. Congratulations on a solid quarter and for allowing all the questions.

Yeah, thanks, Bill.

Thank you. This does conclude the Q&A session. I would like to turn the call over to Don Patrick for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Okay. Thank you for joining the call today. As we discussed, we achieved a key milestone and surpassed a significant inflection point in 2025 with the growth of the Commerce Media Solutions being greater than 50%. You know, in three short years, we built a highly differentiated brand and a platform that delivers sustainable and measurable performance for our partners and to Fluent. We're very excited for 2026 and look forward to updating everyone after Q1. Thank you for joining.

This concludes today's program. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.