MAX

As the Q2 earnings season comes to a close, it’s time to take stock of this quarter’s best and worst performers in the advertising & marketing services industry, including MediaAlpha (NYSE:MAX) and its peers. The sector is on the precipice of both disruption and growth as AI, programmatic advertising, and data-driven marketing reshape how things are done. For example, the advent of the Internet broadly and programmatic advertising specifically means that brand building is not a relationship business anymore but instead one based on data and technology, which could hurt traditional ad agencies. On the other hand, the companies in the sector that beef up their tech chops by automating the buying of ad inventory or facilitating omnichannel marketing, for example, stand to benefit. With or without advances in digitization and AI, the sector is still highly levered to the macro, and economic uncertainty may lead to fluctuating ad spend, particularly in cyclical industries. The 7 advertising & marketing services stocks we track reported a strong Q2. As a group, revenues beat analysts’ consensus estimates by 1.7% while next quarter’s revenue guidance was in line. Thankfully, share prices of the companies have been resilient as they are up 7.8% on average since the latest earnings results. Powering nearly 10 million consumer referrals each month in the insurance marketplace, MediaAlpha (NYSE:MAX) operates a technology platform that connects insurance carriers with high-intent consumers shopping for property, casualty, health, and life insurance products. MediaAlpha reported revenues of $316.9 million, up 25.9% year on year. This print exceeded analysts’ expectations by 4.2%. Overall, it was a satisfactory quarter for the company with revenue guidance for next quarter beating analysts’ expectations but a significant miss of analysts’ EPS estimates. “We delivered record second-quarter results as demand continued to broaden across our marketplace,” said Steve Yi, CEO of MediaAlpha. Even though it had a relatively good quarter, the market seems discontent with the results. The stock is down 7% since reporting and currently trades at $12.84. Is now the time to buy MediaAlpha? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it’s free. Originally launched as a way to make grocery shopping more rewarding for budget-conscious consumers, Ibotta (NYSE:IBTA) is a mobile shopping app that allows consumers to earn cash back on everyday purchases by completing tasks and submitting receipts. Ibotta reported revenues of $88.91 million, up 3.3% year on year, outperforming analysts’ expectations by 4.7%. The business had an incredible quarter with a beat of analysts’ EPS estimates and revenue guidance for next quarter exceeding analysts’ expectations. Ibotta scored the biggest analyst estimate beat in the group. The market seems happy with the results as the stock is up 50.7% since reporting. It currently trades at $37.03. Is now the time to buy Ibotta? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it’s free. Often appearing as those "You May Also Like" or "Recommended For You" boxes at the bottom of news articles, Taboola (NASDAQ:TBLA) operates a digital platform that recommends personalized content to users across publisher websites, helping both publishers monetize their sites and advertisers reach target audiences. Taboola reported revenues of $476.8 million, up 2.4% year on year, falling short of analysts’ expectations by 4.5%. It was a disappointing quarter as it posted revenue guidance for next quarter missing analysts’ expectations significantly. Taboola delivered the weakest performance against analyst estimates, weakest guidance update, and slowest revenue growth among its peers. As expected, the stock is down 28% since the results and currently trades at $3.81. Read our full analysis of Taboola’s results here. With thousands of digital and traditional displays lighting up America's highways, city streets, and airports, Clear Channel Outdoor (NYSE:CCO) operates billboards, street furniture, and airport displays, connecting advertisers with millions of consumers across the US. Clear Channel Outdoor reported revenues of $438 million, up 8.7% year on year. This number topped analysts’ expectations by 3.4%. It was an exceptional quarter as it also put up EPS in line with analysts’ estimates. The stock is down 3.5% since reporting and currently trades at $2.35. Read our full, actionable report on Clear Channel Outdoor here, it’s free. Born from the 2020 merger of Rubicon Project and Telaria, Magnite (NASDAQ:MGNI) operates the world's largest independent sell-side advertising platform that automates the buying and selling of digital advertising inventory across all channels and formats. Magnite reported revenues of $192.8 million, up 11.2% year on year. This result came in 1.8% below analysts’ expectations. Overall, it was a softer quarter as it also recorded EPS in line with analysts’ estimates. The stock is up 13.9% since reporting and currently trades at $23.55. Read our full, actionable report on Magnite here, it’s free. Over the past year, investors have been forced to repeatedly answer the same question: what is the market’s biggest risk? The answer has changed several times, and each shift has reshaped market leadership. Late in 2025 and early 2026, artificial intelligence became the market’s primary uncertainty. Investors questioned whether AI would erode software pricing power and weaken competitive moats as AI made it easier to replicate once-differentiated products. By the spring, technology took a back seat to geopolitics. The U.S. conflict with Iran briefly became the market’s dominant narrative, raising concerns about oil prices, inflation, and global growth. But as energy markets remained orderly and fears of a prolonged supply disruption faded, investors quickly turned their focus back to fundamentals. Want to invest in winners with rock-solid fundamentals? Check out our Top 6 Stocks and add them to your watchlist. These companies are poised for growth regardless of the political or macroeconomic climate.

Image source: The Motley Fool. Wednesday, July 29, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. ET Investor Relations - Alex Liloia Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer - Steven Yi Chief Financial Officer - Patrick Thompson Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Angela, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the MediaAlpha, Inc. Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. I'd like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Alex Liloia. Please go ahead. Alex Liloia: Thanks, Angela. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. With me, our Co-Founder and CEO, Steve Yi, and CFO, Pat Thompson. On today's call, we'll make forward-looking statements relating to our business and outlook for future financial results, including our financial guidance for the third quarter of 2026. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for a fuller explanation of these risks and uncertainties and the limits applicable to forward-looking statements. All the forward-looking statements we make on this call reflect our assumptions and beliefs as of today, and we disclaim any obligation to update such statements except as required by law. Today's discussion will include non-GAAP financial measures, which are not a substitute for GAAP results. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the corresponding GAAP measures can be found in our press release and investor supplement issued today, which are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. I'll now turn this call over to Steve. Steven Yi: Thanks, Alex. Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We delivered record second quarter results as demand continued to broaden across our marketplace. Each quarter, additional P&C carriers are unlocking advertising spend, expanding their campaign, and leaning further into our marketplace. This is no longer just a story about concentrated growth among a handful of large partners. It's a widening base of carriers that keeps ramping. Although down from peak levels, underwriting profitability in personal auto remains historically strong. This is driving carriers to compete more aggressively by lowering rates and spending more on advertising to acquire new customers. We're seeing this intensified competition show up in a meaningful way across our marketplace. When we look at the current concentration of carrier advertising spend, we believe the inevitability of further broadening becomes clear. Since 2021, over 80% of P&C ad spend growth, both in our marketplace and others, has come from just 2 carriers. That leaves a wide segment of the market that has yet to meaningfully scale, and we're increasingly seeing those carriers begin to close the gap. To put this in perspective, our top 2 carriers spent a double-digit percentage of their total ad budgets with us in 2025, compared with the rest of our top 10 carriers, which collectively spent about 3% of their total ad budgets with us. We're seeing evidence that a growing number of carriers are preparing to allocate a meaningfully higher share of their advertising budgets to our marketplace. For example, our third, fourth, and fifth largest carriers nearly quadrupled their spend with us in the first half of 2026 as compared to the first half of 2025. We believe we're at the beginning of what we see as a massive growth opportunity in the years ahead, driven by the industry's ongoing transition from agent-based distribution, largely supported by brand advertising, to direct-to-consumer distribution supported by highly targeted performance-based advertising. Our scale and proprietary data allow carriers making this transition to target online insurance shoppers through our open marketplace with a level of precision that allows them to compete far more effectively than would otherwise be possible. As we continue to deliver significant value to these carriers, we're becoming more deeply embedded in their customer acquisition processes, resulting in stickier, higher-value partnerships. The better the outcomes we deliver, the more budget these carriers commit to us, and the wider pool -- then the wider that pool of active demand partners becomes. While we have long believed that most of the industry would transition to direct-to-consumer distribution over time, recent advances in AI suggest that the pace of this transition is likely to accelerate in the near term. On the carrier side, AI is making direct-to-consumer acquisition increasingly effective by allowing a greater percentage of consumers to purchase policies without interacting with the live agent, resulting in both higher conversion rates and lower acquisition costs. We believe these improved economics will make the online direct-to-consumer channel even more attractive to carriers, particularly those who have traditionally sold through agents. On the consumer side, AI-powered search has the potential to improve both the quality and quantity of online insurance shoppers by helping consumers become better informed before they begin their shopping process, which will result in higher-intent consumers entering the top of the funnel. Lastly, we're leveraging predictive AI throughout our marketplace to better target consumers and improve return on ad spend for our carriers and yield for our publishers. As a 2-sided marketplace, we believe these dynamics reinforce our competitive position by connecting carriers and shoppers more efficiently, accelerating the industry shift towards direct-to-consumer distribution, and expanding our long-term market opportunity. As we look ahead, we're optimistic about our near-term and long-term growth opportunities. In the near term, it's about broadening demand as additional carriers allocate a more meaningful share of their ad budgets to our open marketplace in order to stay competitive in a changing market. Over the longer term, it's about the shift from the legacy model where carriers use brand advertising to drive foot traffic to agents to a model where carriers leverage rich data to target consumers directly with precision through measurable online advertising channels like ours. With carriers still incurring more than $2 in agent commissions for every $1 they spend on advertising, and with only 40% of that advertising dollar currently allocated to digital, we believe we have a long runway ahead of us to grow our business and deliver significant value to our shareholders. With that, I'll hand it over to Pat. Patrick Thompson: Thanks, Steve. Before I begin, I wanted to highlight that we have posted an updated investor deck to our IR site with additional details on the themes Steve touched on. I'd encourage anyone who hasn't seen it to take a look. Turning to my remarks, I'll start by walking through the key drivers of our second quarter results, then cover capital allocation activity, before discussing our third quarter outlook. Revenue for the quarter was $317 million, up 26% year-over-year, above the high end of our guidance range, reflecting broader carrier participation in our marketplace. Contribution was $47.2 million, up 18% year-over-year, reflecting a modest mid-quarter dip in take rates that fully recovered by quarter end. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $29.3 million, just above the midpoint of our guidance range, up 19% year-over-year. Excluding under-65 health, our core business performance was very strong, with revenue and adjusted EBITDA each growing over 30% year-over-year. On capital allocation, we remain committed to creating shareholder value by returning capital to shareholders. In the second quarter, we repurchased approximately 2.2 million shares for $20 million, representing an average share repurchase price of $9.22. We've repurchased $41 million of stock year-to-date and $88 million over the past 4 quarters, representing approximately 13% of our outstanding shares. We also took a meaningful step to reduce our long-term obligations under our Tax Receivable Agreement, or TRA. In June, we repurchased $69 million of our total TRA liability for $31 million, representing a 55% discount, which generated a $38 million gain that we recorded in the second quarter. We funded this transaction with a $15 million draw on the revolver and the remainder with cash on hand. We expect the transaction will generate a mid-teens, unlevered IRR, making it an attractive use of capital beyond our share repurchase program. We ended the quarter with $23.7 million in cash and $30 million undrawn on the revolver. We expect to complete the vast majority of the $45 million remaining under our $100 million authorization by year-end. Looking to next year and beyond, we'll continue to evaluate share repurchases against other uses of capital to drive long-term shareholder value. Turning to guidance, for the third quarter, we expect revenue of $330 million to $355 million, up approximately 12% year-over-year at the midpoint. Contribution of $51.5 million to $54.5 million, up approximately 16% year-over-year at the midpoint. Adjusted EBITDA of $32 million to $35 million, up approximately 15% year-over-year at the midpoint, including an approximately $1 million year-over-year decline in contribution from under-65 health. Excluding under-65 health, we expect contribution to increase by 20% and adjusted EBITDA to increase by 21% year-over-year at the midpoint. For Q3, we expect the health vertical to be approximately 1% of total revenue. Looking at the remainder of 2026, we continue to expect to generate $90 million to $100 million in free cash flow for the year. Overall, we remain confident in the strength of our position and the long-term opportunity ahead. With that, operator, we are ready to take the first question. Operator: Your first question comes from the line of Maria Ripps with Canaccord. Maria Ripps: Congrats on the strong quarter. First, you've talked about broadening carrier demand across the marketplace for several quarters now. Could you maybe give us a little bit more color on where we are in that recovery today? And then for the carriers that have yet to meaningfully reengage, what do you see as the primary gating factors holding them back? Steven Yi: Maria, yes, this is Steve. I'll take that question. So I think really where we are in the broader insurance, the auto insurance cycle is that I think we're still firmly within a very robust growth-oriented soft market cycle. And so, first of all, I think if you look at overall industry profitability, it's well above historical norms. What that's spurring is our carriers to grow their policies in force by reducing the rates a bit to be more competitive, and then investing a lot more in advertising to really turbocharge their growth. And so, I think that's really what's driving the broadening of the carrier demand within our marketplace. What you're seeing is this broadening happening in particular with a lot of major agent-based carriers who are at various stages of really adopting direct-to-consumer distribution. And both leveraging our marketplace, both to support either their robust or nascent direct-to-consumer efforts, but then also tapping into our marketplace to connect their agents with online shoppers as well. Farmers Lead Marketplace that we're powering on behalf of Farmers is a really good example of that. And so what we expect to see, I think, going forward is just continuing -- continued broadening of this demand, you're going to see more carriers really start to spend meaningfully within our marketplace. We're seeing new carriers really come on board and ramping their spend every quarter. And we expect to continue to see this growth in this cyclical growth or cycle-driven growth really continue for the remainder of this year and I think well into 2027. In terms of the second part of your question, which went to gating factors for carriers, I think it's really -- a lot of it's about capability. I think a lot of these carriers are new to direct-to-consumer, new to performance-based online channels, and it's really about us working with them and sort of meeting them where their capabilities are in order to bring our capabilities to the table. And I think you've heard me talk a lot about our platform solutions efforts, where we're expanding our offerings and our services to these carriers beyond just being a marketplace, and becoming a true customer acquisition platform partner for them. And so we've had meaningful success with that. A lot of the carriers that I was referring to, we do a lot more for them than just creating a hyper-efficient marketplace. We're actually helping to build technology, doing integrations with them, hosting parts of the conversion process. We expect this part of the business to meaningfully scale as we start to work with more and more carriers who, again, are at various stages of the learning curve and adoption curve for direct-to-consumer distribution, particularly within the online space. Maria Ripps: Got it. That's very helpful. And maybe if I could ask you one more. Last quarter you flagged that LLM-driven sort of insurance shopping was beginning to generate incremental referral traffic. Could you maybe help us frame how the channel has evolved since then, whether it's beginning to move the needle for you? I guess, how's conversion characteristics compared to your more established acquisition channels? Steven Yi: Sure. And what I can share with you is what we're hearing from partners. Again, we rely on primarily third-party publishers to acquire traffic into the marketplace, and that's our model. So what we're hearing from our partners is that it continues to organically scale as a referral source. It's -- I think I mentioned last time that we're hearing from some partners that it's a source that is starting to become volume-wise on par with something like Google organic search. We're hearing similar things this quarter as well. We continue to hear that it's a high-quality source, typically higher quality than Google Organic. And this makes sense because of just how much more granular these searches tend to be. And I think that you're starting to see Google really talk about their LLMs as being something that's really incremental to their paid search and organic search, and that these LLM-driven searches are, in fact, far more valuable because of the level of granularity that they offer. And just in terms of overall impact in our marketplace, I think it's still relatively small. But we expect to continue to see that to grow and having the ad ecosystems really layered on top of these LLMs like Gemini is already doing and that I think OpenAI is doing. I think we would expect a lot more partners to tap into the advertising ecosystem to generate a lot more traffic from these LLMs going forward. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Tommy McJoynt with KBW. Thomas Mcjoynt-Griffith: I thought it was a pretty interesting data point that you gave around the growth in the top 3 to 5 P&C advertisers. As you continue to see this expansion of advertisers outside of the top 2, can you talk about the impact of how that will flow through specifically on your contribution margin or your gross profit margin? Just thinking about the economics of those relationships with those carriers outside of the top 2. Patrick Thompson: Yes, and Tommy, thanks for the question. This is Pat here. I would say that as you think about our business, we have, as you know, kind of 2 main models with which our partners transact. There's the private marketplace and the open marketplace. And the private marketplace is really a product for our top publishers with the top couple of advertisers. And those tend to be advertisers that have very deep in-house capabilities for how they manage spend, both with us and in our channel more broadly. And the 3, 4, 5 players, and then 6 through 10, and 11 through however many hundred we have, those folks overwhelmingly transact on the open marketplace with us. And as Steve alluded to, those partners are much more likely to utilize a lot of the tools that we have to offer. And so you can think of managed services where we do the bidding on behalf of the advertiser, or some of the tools where we manage some of the technology flow for them. And so, kind of given that, the take rates we have, so the percentage of transaction value that we recognize are markedly higher in the open marketplace. And one nuance that's important to note is that the revenue treatment in the open marketplace is gross. So, if an advertiser spends $100 with us, we recognize $100 of revenue and we would have a contribution margin, kind of typically in the teens on that. For the private marketplace, we recognize it on a net basis. And so if there's $100 of spend, we would have low single-digit dollars of revenue, and that would all drop down to contribution. Thomas Mcjoynt-Griffith: Got it. Patrick Thompson: Is that clear? Thomas Mcjoynt-Griffith: Yes, yes. No, that's a good refresher. And another question on the health side, the health segment side of the business. The decline in revenues there was a bit more than we expected. I understand the under-65 dynamic is going on, but was there anything else sort of unusual that happened in the second quarter and just remind me when we sort of lap the headwinds around that business. Patrick Thompson: Yes. And Tommy, we guided to it being around 1% of revenue in Q2, and it was around 1% of revenue in Q2. So I would say it was basically in line with our expectations, and we've guided to that same 1% in Q3. I think with each quarter, the comp gets easier for that business. And I think as we get into Q4 of this year and into Q1 of next year, the comp starts to get pretty clean for us. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs. Eric Sheridan: You talked a fair bit about AI in your prepared remarks. I mean just a little bit deeper in how you're utilizing AI in your business, both as a driver of productivity and efficiency gains in the business and also as a potential tool to improve conversions and attract more advertisers and attract more revenue into the ecosystem and just how you think about the priorities of investing behind those themes versus those themes building a momentum in the P&L looking out over the next 12 to 24 months. Steven Yi: Sure. Yes, I mean, I think primarily, I think you talked about us investing in AI. In some of the similar ways that you hear from other companies, obviously, our tech team has embraced it wholeheartedly to accelerate our product development efforts to allow us to gain more leverage from an outstanding technology team that we have up in Bellevue, Washington. In addition to that, the second thing I'd point out is really about the predictive AI that we've been leveraging for years and the machine learning capabilities that we have to leverage all of the data that's within our marketplace because we have millions of insurance shoppers coming through our marketplace every month. We see all the characteristics. We know a ton of attributes about them. We see exactly what they're doing, what carriers they're going to, who they're getting a quote from, who they're binding with. And so what we're able to do is really with a lot of machine learning and predictive AI, just do a much, much better job of matching consumers to carriers than we've been able to before. And that obviously, has a profound effect on the return on ad spend that we're able to deliver for carriers and the yield that we're able to deliver for publishers. And so I would say that, that's really a meaningful area of investment for us. And again, it's predictive AI. I have a feeling that you're asking more about sort of LLM and generative AI investments that we're making, but that's really an area of investment that's been very important for us and something that's allowed us to really outpace our competition. Just in terms of our leveraging predictive AI, I mean, our generative AI elsewhere, we're certainly leveraging that within our product suite to make a lot of the features a lot more intuitive. I think this has been really important for our newer efforts to work with agents. We've been able to scale the number of agents that we're working with geometrically while keeping that size of that team that's based in Phoenix, Arizona. It's an outstanding team. We've been able to keep the size of that team relatively lean. And again, we wouldn't have been able to do that without incorporating AI into a lot of the features that we're making available for agents. And so overall, I mean, we're absolutely just fundamentally just huge believers in the power of that technology to really create a ton of internal efficiencies and product development enhancements. Now, I will point out that we've always been very, very lean by nature. I always like to point out that we were 80 people when we went public. We're still only about 160, 170 people. So we're extraordinarily lean. And so you're not going to see a ton of headcount savings from us announcing just because we're adopting AI, but certainly, it's allowing us to grow and leverage our outstanding team in ways that we hadn't imagined before. And we continue to expect to be able to grow geometrically and exponentially with the size of the market opportunity ahead of us, with adding only meaningful or incremental additions to our headcount. And so we do look forward to continuing to embrace AI to be able to grow in that way. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Randy Binner with Texas Capital. Randy Binner: I think this one might be for Pat, but the -- and I apologize if I missed this, the responses have been very detailed, but the contribution margin was a little bit lower than modeled. You guided that higher, I think, for third quarter. But I think you mentioned a dynamic where there was a mid-quarter take rate dip. And then I guess what's been a pretty fast recovery. So I guess just trying to understand what the -- like what was the nature of the lower take rate and just kind of how you turned it around so quickly? Patrick Thompson: Yes, Randy. The -- yes, I would say in May and early June, we saw a bit of weakness on the take rate side and really what was -- what happened there was we made a couple of kind of partner-specific investments there. And they were investments that were obviously a short-term cost for us, but we believe had meaningful long-term benefits. And kind of what we saw is by the end of Q2, take rate was right where we wanted it. Q3 is off to a good start. The guide we have kind of, I think shows that it has recovered. And as we think about that short-term investment we made in Q2, we're starting to harvest some of that goodness here in Q3. And as we look forward into Q4 and beyond, we kind of like our positioning, both from a competitive standpoint and in terms of partner relationships. So we feel good right now. Randy Binner: Okay, and is that nature of that investment, like is that AI related or is it just bringing someone new on? Is it kind of in the AI funnel or is it just a new partner? Patrick Thompson: Yes, and Randy, I would say it was more with existing partners that we have -- we have the vast majority of our partner relationships are very long-term in nature. And I would say they were some short-term investments with long-standing partners that we believe will pay long-term dividends. Randy Binner: Okay, understood on that. And then I had another one, if you don't mind. So -- and I think this is for Steve. I guess I can use a little bit more explanation on -- you mentioned that -- I think you mentioned the customers are higher quality that are coming through the kind of the AI funnel broadly. And I guess it's not clear to me, is that because it's just better interface and technology or are they providing more data? What is making them higher quality? Steven Yi: Yes, it's because -- what they're doing with an LLM search is that they're expressing, they're just going deeper and expressing more nuances and more details around the insurance that they're looking for. And so what you have is a more targeted consumer. It's a consumer who didn't just search for auto insurance quote on Google. It's a consumer who has been researching auto insurance, told the LLM that they're married and they have 2 cars and 2 kids. And so what you have is a far more granular search. And that's really what I meant by quality is that you actually have a consumer coming through about whom you know a lot more. And typically, you see that these consumers are higher intent because they've actually taken a few steps in the process inside an LLM that they wouldn't otherwise do through Google search. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Michael Zaremski with BMO. Michael Zaremski: Okay. Maybe just one. On the TRA agreement, clearly a great IRR. Is there more potential for those to happen? I believe there are other counterparties other than Insignia or was that kind of a special one-off? I don't know if there's anything you can add to that. Patrick Thompson: Yes, Mike, I'm happy to cover that. I think following the Insignia transaction, the remaining recorded liability we have is about $55 million total. The remaining holders essentially break into 3 categories. There are the founders, there are some early employees, and there's an external third party. And I would say we would evaluate any further TRA repurchases the exact same way we evaluated the one that we completed in June with Insignia, where we look at the expected IRR versus alternative uses of capital. And I think like any transaction, there's no obligation for any holder to sell. So in order to do a deal, we'll need to have the double coincidence of wants where they want to sell at a price where we're willing to buy. But I think if -- we'd be very open to it if it makes sense for shareholders. Michael Zaremski: Got it. Okay. And Pat, maybe lastly, clearly you all have the cash flow to continue buying back shares. We know that you plan on continuing. Is there price sensitivity to the extent there was a -- the stock did continue to move north? Would you be price sensitive or should we just earmark it the full amount? Patrick Thompson: Yes, and Mike, I would say, we've kind of continued to reiterate our guidance of we expect to complete the vast majority of the outstanding buyback, which is $45 million is authorized today. And I think going forward over the longer term, we evaluate share repurchases alongside other uses of capital and we base the decisions around what we think represents the highest long-term return for our shareholders. But I think having said that we had -- the end of the quarter we had $24 million of cash, $30 million undrawn on the revolver, and we think we're going to generate $90 million to $100 million of free cash flow this year. So we feel good about our ability to fulfill the commitment that we've made. And I think we have been believers in the stock. I think we continue to feel like the stock is an attractive opportunity for us. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the question-and-answer session and that also concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect. Before you buy stock in MediaAlpha, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and MediaAlpha wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut are built for long-term growth and could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $397,405!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,344,091!* That performance is why people listen. With a track record of beating the S&P 500 by 4x, Stock Advisor offers a distinct advantage. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built for the long haul. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 7, 2026. 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This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Release Date: July 29, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Record second quarter revenue of $317 million, up 26% year-over-year, exceeding guidance. Broadening carrier demand beyond top partners, with 3rd-5th largest carriers nearly quadrupling spend year-over-year. Strong underwriting profitability in personal auto driving increased carrier advertising and competition. AI advancements improving conversion rates and lowering acquisition costs for direct-to-consumer channels. Aggressive capital return with $88 million in share repurchases over four quarters and $38 million gain from TRA liability repurchase. Contribution margin dipped mid-quarter due to partner-specific investments, impacting take rates temporarily. Health vertical (under-65) revenue declined, expected to be only 1% of total revenue in Q3. Revenue growth guidance for Q3 (12% year-over-year) decelerates from Q2's 26% growth. High concentration risk with over 80% of ad spend growth from just two carriers since 2021. Free cash flow generation of $90-100 million may limit flexibility for additional share repurchases or investments. Here are the key highlights from the MediaAlpha Inc (NYSE:MAX) Q2 2026 earnings call, focusing on the most significant Q&A exchanges. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Sign with MAX. Is MAX fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Q: You've talked about broadening carrier demand across the marketplace for several quarters. Where are we in that recovery, and what are the primary gating factors for carriers that have yet to re-engage? A: (Steve Yee, CEO) We are firmly within a robust, growth-oriented soft market cycle with industry profitability well above historical norms. This is driving carriers to lower rates and increase advertising spend. The broadening is happening with major agent-based carriers adopting direct-to-consumer distribution. The primary gating factor is capability; many carriers are new to performance-based online channels. We are meeting them where they are by expanding our platform solutions beyond just a marketplace, helping them build technology and integrate with our systems. Q: You gave a data point about the growth in the top 3 to 5 PNC advertisers. As you see this expansion outside the top 2, how will that impact your contribution margin or gross profit margin? A: (Pat Thompson, CFO) The top 2 advertisers typically transact on the private marketplace, where revenue is recognized on a net basis with low single-digit revenue. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th largest carriers, and others, overwhelmingly transact on the open marketplace. In the open marketplace, revenue is recognized on a gross basis, and take rates are markedly higher. As these carriers grow, the mix shift toward the open marketplace is a positive driver for our contribution margin. Q: You flagged last quarter that LLM-driven insurance shopping was generating incremental referral traffic. How has that channel evolved, and how do its conversion characteristics compare to your more established channels? A: (Steve Yee, CEO) We hear from our third-party publisher partners that it continues to organically scale as a referral source, with volume on par with Google organic search for some. It is a high-quality source, typically higher quality than organic search, because the searches are far more granular. Consumers provide more details (e.g., marital status, number of cars) to the LLM, resulting in higher-intent shoppers. While still a relatively small part of our marketplace, we expect it to grow as ad ecosystems layer on top of LLMs. Q: The contribution margin was a bit lower than modeled. You mentioned a mid-quarter take rate dip that recovered. What was the nature of that lower take rate, and how did you turn it around so quickly? A: (Pat Thompson, CFO) In May and early June, we saw a bit of weakness on the take rate side. This was due to a couple of partner-specific, short-term investments we made that we believe have meaningful long-term benefit. By the end of Q2, the take rate was right where we wanted it. Q3 is off to a good start, and we are starting to harvest some of the benefits from those investments. Q: You talked about AI in your prepared remarks. Can you go deeper into how you are utilizing AI as a driver of productivity and to improve conversions, and what your investment priorities are over the next 12-24 months? A: (Steve Yee, CEO) Our tech team has embraced AI to accelerate product development. More importantly, we leverage predictive AI and machine learning to match consumers to carriers more effectively, improving ROI for carriers and yield for publishers. We are also using generative AI to make our product suite more intuitive, which has allowed us to scale our agent-facing team geometrically without adding significant headcount. We are a lean company (160-170 people) and AI allows us to grow exponentially with only incremental headcount additions. Q: On the health segment, the decline in revenue was a bit more than expected. Was there anything unusual in Q2, and when do you lap the headwinds in that business? A: (Pat Thompson, CFO) The health vertical was about 1% of revenue in Q2, which was in line with our expectations. We have guided to the same 1% in Q3. The comps get easier with each passing quarter, and we expect them to become "pretty clean" by Q4 of this year and Q1 of next year. Q: On the TRA agreement, you completed a great transaction with a high IRR. Is there more potential for similar transactions with other counterparties? A: (Pat Thompson, CFO) Following the Insignia transaction, the remaining recorded liability is about $55 million. The remaining holders are the founders, some early employees, and an external third-party. We would evaluate any further TRA repurchases the same way, looking at the expected IRR versus alternative uses of capital. However, any deal requires a "double coincidence of wants" where a holder wants to sell at a price we are willing to buy. Q: You have the cash flow to continue buying back shares. Is there a price sensitivity to your buyback plan, or should we expect you to complete the full authorization? A: (Pat Thompson, CFO) We expect to complete the vast majority of the remaining $45 million authorization by year-end. Over the longer term, we evaluate share repurchases against other uses of capital based on what we believe represents the highest long-term return for shareholders. With $24 million in cash, $30 million undrawn on the revolver, and expected free cash flow of $90-100 million this year, we feel good about our ability to fulfill our commitment. For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.

Interested in MediaAlpha, Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. MediaAlpha reported record Q2 2026 results: Revenue rose 26% year over year to $317 million, while contribution increased 18% to $47.2 million and adjusted EBITDA grew 19% to $29.3 million, with revenue exceeding guidance. Growth is broadening beyond its largest carrier partners. The company said its third-, fourth- and fifth-largest carriers nearly quadrupled spending in the first half of 2026, supported by strong personal-auto underwriting profitability and increasing adoption of direct-to-consumer digital advertising. MediaAlpha expects continued growth and shareholder returns. It projects third-quarter revenue of $330 million-$355 million and reaffirmed full-year free cash flow guidance of $90 million-$100 million; it also repurchased $20 million of shares in Q2 and plans to complete most of its remaining buyback authorization by year-end. Space Investment: How to Invest in Space Exploration MediaAlpha (NYSE:MAX) reported record second-quarter 2026 results, with revenue, contribution and adjusted EBITDA rising from a year earlier as participation broadened among property and casualty insurance carriers using its marketplace. Revenue increased 26% year over year to $317 million, exceeding the high end of the company’s guidance range. Contribution rose 18% to $47.2 million, while adjusted EBITDA climbed 19% to $29.3 million, slightly above the midpoint of guidance. → Refiner Stocks Are Near Record Highs—Can Iran-Driven Margins Keep Them There? Terran Orbital’s New $2.4 Billion Contract is a Game Changer Chief Executive Officer Steve Yi said the company’s growth is becoming less dependent on a small number of large carrier partners. He said additional P&C carriers are increasing advertising spending and expanding campaigns as personal-auto underwriting profitability, though below peak levels, remains historically strong. “This is no longer just a story about concentrated growth among a handful of large partners,” Yi said. “It is a widening base of carriers that keeps ramping.” → Why SK hynix Could Be the Best AI Chip Stock to Buy Now Yi said that since 2021, more than 80% of P&C advertising-spend growth in MediaAlpha’s marketplace and elsewhere has come from two carriers. However, he said a broader group of insurers is beginning to increase its participation. The company’s third-, fourth- and fifth-largest carriers nearly quadrupled their spending on the platform during the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, according to Yi. MediaAlpha’s top two carriers devoted a double-digit percentage of their total advertising budgets to the company in 2025, Yi said. By comparison, the remainder of its top 10 carriers collectively allocated about 3% of their advertising budgets to MediaAlpha. → AMD’s AI Bubble Could Burst Into Explosive Upside The company sees a longer-term opportunity as insurers move from agent-based distribution and brand advertising toward direct-to-consumer sales supported by performance-based digital advertising. Yi said carriers still spend more than $2 on agent commissions for every $1 spent on advertising, while only 40% of advertising spending is currently directed toward digital channels. During the question-and-answer session, Yi said the company expects the insurance market’s growth-oriented cycle to continue through the rest of 2026 and into 2027. He said some agent-based carriers are using MediaAlpha both to support direct-to-consumer efforts and to connect agents with online shoppers. For carriers that have not yet substantially adopted the company’s marketplace, Yi said the primary constraint is often capability. He said MediaAlpha is expanding its work beyond operating a marketplace by offering technology integrations, managed services and support for portions of the conversion process. Yi said advances in artificial intelligence could accelerate the industry’s transition toward direct-to-consumer distribution. On the carrier side, he said AI can enable more consumers to purchase policies without speaking to a live agent, potentially raising conversion rates and reducing acquisition costs. MediaAlpha is also using predictive AI and machine learning to match consumers with carriers, Yi said. The company processes millions of insurance shoppers each month and uses consumer attributes and observed marketplace activity to improve advertiser return on ad spend and publisher yield. The company is also using generative AI in its product suite and in tools for insurance agents. Yi said these efforts have helped MediaAlpha expand the number of agents it serves while maintaining a relatively lean team in Phoenix. Yi said the company’s publishing partners continue to report that referrals from large language model-driven search are growing organically and can be comparable in volume to Google organic search for some partners. He said this traffic remains a relatively small part of MediaAlpha’s total marketplace activity but has been viewed as high quality because searches can include more detailed consumer information and reflect higher purchase intent. Chief Financial Officer Pat Thompson said the company’s core business, excluding Under-65 Health, posted revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth of more than 30% year over year in the second quarter. Under-65 Health represented about 1% of revenue in the quarter, in line with company expectations. Contribution growth trailed revenue growth during the second quarter, reflecting what Thompson described as a modest mid-quarter dip in take rates. He said the decline resulted from investments made with existing partners that carried near-term costs but were expected to provide longer-term benefits. Take rates had recovered by the end of the quarter, he said. Thompson also explained that a growing number of carriers outside the company’s top partners use its open marketplace and related services. Transactions in that marketplace are recognized on a gross-revenue basis and typically carry contribution margins in the teens, while private-marketplace transactions are recognized on a net basis. During the quarter, MediaAlpha repurchased about 2.2 million shares for $20 million, or an average price of $9.22 per share. The company said it has repurchased $41 million of stock year to date and $88 million over the past four quarters, representing about 13% of its outstanding shares. The company also repurchased $69 million of tax receivable agreement liability in June for $31 million, a 55% discount. The transaction generated a $38 million gain recorded in the second quarter. MediaAlpha funded the purchase through a $15 million revolver draw and cash on hand. MediaAlpha ended the quarter with $23.7 million in cash and $30 million available under its revolver. Thompson said the company expects to complete the vast majority of the remaining $45 million under its $100 million share-repurchase authorization by year-end. Third-quarter revenue is projected at $330 million to $355 million, representing about 12% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. Third-quarter contribution is expected to be $51.5 million to $54.5 million, or about 16% growth at the midpoint. Third-quarter adjusted EBITDA is projected at $32 million to $35 million, up about 15% at the midpoint. MediaAlpha reaffirmed expectations for $90 million to $100 million in free cash flow for full-year 2026. Excluding Under-65 Health, the company expects third-quarter contribution to rise 20% and adjusted EBITDA to increase 21% year over year at the midpoint of its outlook. MediaAlpha, Inc is a technology company that operates a real-time digital marketplace for the distribution of insurance and adjacent services. The company's platform connects buyers—consumers seeking insurance policies—to sellers, including insurance carriers and distribution partners, through programmatic bidding and data-driven pricing. By leveraging transaction-level data and proprietary auction mechanics, MediaAlpha enables carriers to acquire customers more efficiently and at scale. The firm offers a suite of products that help clients optimize marketing spend and improve conversion rates. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "MediaAlpha Q2 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for July 2026.

Symbotic Inc. SYM is set to report third-quarter fiscal 2026 results on Aug. 05, after market close. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues in the to-be-reported quarter is pegged at $714.76 million, indicating 20.7% year-over-year growth. The consensus estimate for earnings is pinned at 12 cents per share, remaining stable over the past 60 days and indicating a 340% surge from the year-ago quarter’s actual. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research SYM’s earnings surprise history is impressive. In the four trailing quarters, its earnings surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate thrice and missed on the other occasion. The average beat is 279.9%. Symbotic Inc. price-eps-surprise | Symbotic Inc. Quote Our proven model does not predict an earnings beat for SYM this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the odds of an earnings beat. This is not the case here. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. SYM has an Earnings ESP of 0.00% and a Zacks Rank #3 at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. In the second quarter of fiscal 2026, Symbotic reported a backlog of $22.7 billion. We expect backlog to have been high in the fiscal third quarter as well. SYM’s top-line performance in the fiscal third quarter is likely to have been driven by the conversion of this significant backlog. For the third quarter of fiscal 2026, Symbotic expects revenues of $700 million to $720 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $80 million to $85 million. Free cash flow is also expected to be strong in the fiscal third quarter. SYM’s overdependence on Walmart WMT raises concerns. The partnership with Walmart, SYM’s largest customer, accounts for a significant portion of its revenues, which is likely to have been the case in the fiscal third quarter as well. In January 2025, Symbotic completed the acquisition of Walmart’s advanced systems and robotics business. High costs are also likely to have pressured margins and bottom-line performance. Overall operating costs are likely to have escalated due to elevated research and development costs and selling, general and administrative expenses. The company has been investing heavily to maintain a technological edge and scale its operations, which in turn has pushed costs up. However, the acquisition of Fox Robotics earlier this year, which enhances SYM’s strategy of utilizing its software to orchestrate robots across the goods supply chain from the warehouse to the individual customer, is likely to have boosted operational efficiency. SYM’s shares have declined more than 31% over the past three months, underperforming its industry and fellow industry participant MediaAlpha MAX. Another industry player, Coherent Corp. COHR, has performed worse than Symbotic over the same time frame. While MediaAlpha has gained in excess of 51%, Coherent’s shares have declined in excess of 32%. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Symbotic Inc. (SYM) : Free Stock Analysis Report Walmart Inc. (WMT) : Free Stock Analysis Report Coherent Corp. (COHR) : Free Stock Analysis Report MediaAlpha, Inc. (MAX) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

MediaAlpha, Inc. (MAX) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.65 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.21 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.17 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +209.52%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this company would post earnings of $0.25 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.21, delivering a surprise of -16%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times. MediaAlpha, which belongs to the Zacks Technology Services industry, posted revenues of $316.88 million for the quarter ended June 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 5.69%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $251.62 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates three times over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. MediaAlpha shares have added about 6.5% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 8.5%. While MediaAlpha has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for MediaAlpha was unfavorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to underperform the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and the current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $0.28 on $341.72 million in revenues for the coming quarter and $0.97 on $1.28 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year. Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Technology Services is currently in the bottom 39% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. Another stock from the same industry, Zeta Global Holdings (ZETA), has yet to report results for the quarter ended June 2026. The results are expected to be released on August 4. This cloud-based marketing technology company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.20 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +42.9%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days. Zeta Global Holdings' revenues are expected to be $420.25 million, up 36.3% from the year-ago quarter. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report MediaAlpha, Inc. (MAX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

Insurance customer acquisition platform MediaAlpha (NYSE:MAX) reported revenue ahead of Wall Street’s expectations in Q2 CY2026, with sales up 25.9% year on year to $316.9 million. Guidance for next quarter’s revenue was better than expected at $342.5 million at the midpoint, 1.7% above analysts’ estimates. Its GAAP profit of $0.65 per share was significantly above analysts’ consensus estimates. Is now the time to buy MediaAlpha? Find out in our full research report. Revenue: $316.9 million vs analyst estimates of $304.2 million (25.9% year-on-year growth, 4.2% beat) EPS (GAAP): $0.65 vs analyst estimates of $0.23 (significant beat) Adjusted EBITDA: $29.27 million vs analyst estimates of $30.04 million (9.2% margin, 2.6% miss) Revenue Guidance for Q3 CY2026 is $342.5 million at the midpoint, above analyst estimates of $336.9 million EBITDA guidance for Q3 CY2026 is $33.5 million at the midpoint, above analyst estimates of $32.57 million Operating Margin: 6.3%, up from -8% in the same quarter last year Market Capitalization: $745.5 million “We delivered record second-quarter results as demand continued to broaden across our marketplace,” said Steve Yi, CEO of MediaAlpha. Powering nearly 10 million consumer referrals each month in the insurance marketplace, MediaAlpha (NYSE:MAX) operates a technology platform that connects insurance carriers with high-intent consumers shopping for property, casualty, health, and life insurance products. Examining a company’s long-term performance can provide clues about its quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but many enduring ones grow for years. With $1.22 billion in revenue over the past 12 months, MediaAlpha is a small player in the business services space, which sometimes brings disadvantages compared to larger competitors benefiting from economies of scale and numerous distribution channels. On the bright side, it can grow faster because it has more room to expand. As you can see below, MediaAlpha’s 12.7% annualized revenue growth over the last five years was excellent. This is an encouraging starting point for our analysis because it shows MediaAlpha’s demand was higher than many business services companies. Long-term growth is the most important, but within business services, a half-decade historical view may miss new innovations or demand cycles. MediaAlpha’s annualized revenue growth of 57% over the last two years is above its five-year trend, suggesting its demand was strong and recently accelerated. This quarter, MediaAlpha reported robust year-on-year revenue growth of 25.9%, and its $316.9 million of revenue topped Wall Street estimates by 4.2%. Company management is currently guiding for a 11.7% year-on-year increase in sales next quarter. Looking further ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 8.9% over the next 12 months, a deceleration versus the last two years. Despite the slowdown, this projection is admirable and indicates the market is forecasting success for its products and services. ONE MORE THING: The $21 AI Application Stock Wall Street Forgot. While Wall Street obsesses over who’s building AI, one company is already using it to print money. And nobody’s paying attention. AI chip stocks trade at ridiculous valuations. This company processes a trillion consumer signals monthly using AI and trades at a third of the price. The gap won’t last. The institutions will figure it out. You need to see this first. Read the FREE Report Before They Notice. Adjusted operating margin is a key measure of profitability. Think of it as net income (the bottom line) excluding the impact of non-recurring expenses, taxes, and interest on debt - metrics less connected to business fundamentals. MediaAlpha was profitable over the last five years but held back by its large cost base. Its average adjusted operating margin of 6.3% was weak for a business services business. On the plus side, MediaAlpha’s adjusted operating margin rose by 2.8 percentage points over the last five years, as its sales growth gave it operating leverage. This quarter, MediaAlpha generated an adjusted operating margin profit margin of 6.3%, up 11.1 percentage points year on year. This increase was a welcome development and shows it was more efficient. Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth — for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions. MediaAlpha’s full-year EPS flipped from negative to positive over the last five years. This is a good sign and shows it’s at an inflection point. Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a shorter period to see if we are missing a change in the business. For MediaAlpha, its two-year annual EPS growth of 174% was higher than its five-year trend. We love it when earnings growth accelerates, especially when it accelerates off an already high base. In Q2, MediaAlpha reported EPS of $0.65, up from negative $0.33 in the same quarter last year. This print easily cleared analysts’ estimates, and shareholders should be content with the results. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects MediaAlpha’s full-year EPS to shrink by 31.6% from $1.62 to $1.11. It was good to see MediaAlpha beat analysts’ EPS expectations this quarter. We were also glad its revenue outperformed Wall Street’s estimates. Zooming out, we think this was a good print with some key areas of upside. The stock remained flat at $13.79 immediately after reporting. Should you buy the stock or not? The latest quarter does matter, but not nearly as much as longer-term fundamentals and valuation, when deciding if the stock is a buy. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it’s free.

Second Quarter Revenue Growth of 26%; Record Revenue of $316.9 million Second Quarter Net Income of $41.8 million; Adjusted EBITDA(1)of $29.3 million Repurchased over $41 million of stock during the First Half of 2026 LOS ANGELES, July 29, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MediaAlpha, Inc. (NYSE: MAX) ("MediaAlpha" or the "Company"), today announced its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2026. “We delivered record second-quarter results as demand continued to broaden across our marketplace,” said Steve Yi, CEO of MediaAlpha. “Quarter after quarter, more of our carrier partners are unlocking advertising spend and leaning further into our marketplace. Looking to the future, the continued shift to digital advertising, ongoing migration of commission dollars to advertising spend, and our industry-leading scale position us well to continue to gain share in an attractive and growing market.” MediaAlpha CFO Pat Thompson added, “This quarter, we continued to deploy capital to drive long-term shareholder value. In June, we repurchased a portion of our TRA liability, which had a book value of $69 million, for $31 million. We also repurchased $20 million of stock during the quarter, bringing our cumulative stock repurchases to $88 million over the last year.” Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Revenue of $316.9 million, an increase of 26% year over year; Gross margin of 14.3%, compared with 15.0% in the second quarter of 2025; Contribution Margin(1) of 14.9%, compared with 15.8% in the second quarter of 2025; Net income was $41.8 million, compared with a net loss of $(22.5) million in the second quarter of 2025; Adjusted EBITDA(1) was $29.3 million, compared with $24.5 million in the second quarter of 2025; and Repurchased approximately 2.2 million shares for $20 million, bringing cumulative repurchases under the Company's $100 million share repurchase program to 5.4 million shares. (1)A reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP financial measures has been provided at the end of this press release. An explanation of these measures is also included below under the heading “Non-GAAP Financial Measures.” Financial Outlook Our guidance for the third quarter of 2026 reflects continued strength in our Property & Casualty (P&C) insurance vertical, driven by strong carrier growth investment and continued share gains. We expect our Health insurance vertical to account for approximately 1% of revenue. For the third quarter of 2026, MediaAlpha currently expects the following: Revenue between $330 million - $355 million, representing a 12% year-over-year increase at the midpoint of the guidance range. Contribution between $51.5 million - $54.5 million, representing a 16% year-over-year increase at the midpoint of the guidance range. Adjusted EBITDA between $32.0 million - $35.0 million, representing a 15% year-over-year increase at the midpoint of the guidance range, including an approximately $1 million year-over-year decline in Contribution from under-65 Health. Excluding under-65 Health, we expect Contribution to increase by 20% year over year and Adjusted EBITDA to increase by 21% year over year at the guidance midpoints. For the full year, we continue to expect to generate between $90 million - $100 million in free cash flow1 and expect to complete the vast majority of the $45 million remaining under our share repurchase program by the end of 2026. With respect to the Company’s projections of Adjusted EBITDA and Contribution under “Financial Outlook,” MediaAlpha is not providing a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to net income (loss), or of Contribution to gross profit, because the Company is unable to predict with reasonable certainty the reconciling items that may affect the corresponding GAAP measures without unreasonable effort. These reconciling items are uncertain, depend on various factors and could significantly impact, either individually or in the aggregate, the corresponding GAAP measures for the applicable period. For a detailed explanation of the Company’s non-GAAP measures, please refer to the appendix section of this press release. 1 Free cash flow is the Company's cash flow from operating activities less capital expenditures. Conference Call Information MediaAlpha will host a Q&A conference call today to discuss the Company's second quarter 2026 results and its financial outlook for the third quarter and full year of 2026 at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time (5:00 p.m. Eastern Time). A live audio webcast of the call will be available on the MediaAlpha Investor Relations website at https://investors.mediaalpha.com. To register for the webcast, click here. Participants may also dial-in, toll-free, at (800) 715-9871 or (646) 307-1963, with passcode 9381846. An audio replay of the conference call will be available following the call and available on the MediaAlpha Investor Relations website at https://investors.mediaalpha.com. The Company has also posted investor supplemental materials on its investor relations website. MediaAlpha has used, and intends to continue to use, its investor relations website at https://investors.mediaalpha.com as a means of disclosing material nonpublic information and for complying with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including without limitation statements regarding more of our carrier partners unlocking advertising spend and leaning further into our marketplace; our expectation that carriers will continue to shift to digital advertising and increase their advertising spend; our belief that we are well positioned to continue to gain share in an attractive and growing market; our expectations regarding the timing and amounts of share repurchases; and our financial outlook for the third quarter and full year of 2026. These forward-looking statements reflect our current views with respect to, among other things, future events and our financial performance. These statements are often, but not always, made through the use of words or phrases such as “may,” “should,” “could,” “predict,” “potential,” “believe,” “will likely result,” “expect,” “continue,” “will,” “anticipate,” “seek,” “estimate,” “intend,” “plan,” “projection,” “would,” and “outlook,” or the negative version of those words or other comparable words or phrases of a future or forward-looking nature. These forward-looking statements are not historical facts, and are based on current expectations, estimates and projections about our industry, management’s beliefs and certain assumptions made by management, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and beyond our control. Accordingly, we caution you that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, assumptions and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable as of the date made, actual results may prove to be materially different from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. There are or will be important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those indicated in these forward-looking statements, including those more fully described in MediaAlpha’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including the Form 10-K filed on February 23, 2026 and the Forms 10-Q filed on April 29, 2026 and to be filed on July 29, 2026. These factors should not be construed as exhaustive. MediaAlpha disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date of this press release. Non-GAAP Financial Measures and Operating Metrics This press release includes Adjusted EBITDA, Contribution, and Contribution Margin, which are non-GAAP financial measures. See the appendix for definitions of Adjusted EBITDA, Contribution and Contribution Margin, as well as reconciliations to the corresponding GAAP financial metrics, as applicable. We present Adjusted EBITDA, Contribution, and Contribution Margin because they are used extensively by our management and board of directors to manage our operating performance, including evaluating our operational performance against budget and assessing our overall operating efficiency and operating leverage. Accordingly, we believe that Adjusted EBITDA, Contribution, and Contribution Margin provide useful information to investors and others in understanding and evaluating our operating results in the same manner as our management team and board of directors. Each of Adjusted EBITDA, Contribution, and Contribution Margin has limitations as a financial measure and investors should not consider it in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP. About MediaAlphaWe believe we are the insurance industry’s leading programmatic customer acquisition platform. With more than 1,150 active partners, in addition to our agent partners, we connect insurance carriers with online shoppers and generated over 141 million Consumer Referrals in 2025. Our programmatic advertising technology powered $2.2 billion in spend in 2025 on brand, comparison, and metasearch sites across property & casualty insurance, health insurance, life insurance, and other industries. For more information, please visit www.mediaalpha.com. Contacts: InvestorsDenise GarciaHayflower [email protected] Key business and operating metrics and Non-GAAP financial measures Contribution and Contribution Margin We define “Contribution” as revenue less revenue share payments and online advertising costs, or, as reported in our consolidated statements of operations, revenue less cost of revenue (i.e., gross profit), as adjusted to exclude the following items from cost of revenue: equity-based compensation; salaries, wages, and related costs; internet and hosting costs; amortization; depreciation; other services; and merchant-related fees. We define “Contribution Margin” as Contribution expressed as a percentage of revenue for the same period. Contribution and Contribution Margin are non-GAAP financial measures that we present to supplement the financial information we present on a GAAP basis. We use Contribution and Contribution Margin to measure the return on our relationships with our Supply Partners (excluding certain fixed costs), the financial return on and efficacy of our online advertising costs to drive consumers to our proprietary websites, and our operating leverage. We do not use Contribution and Contribution Margin as measures of overall profitability. We present Contribution and Contribution Margin because they are used by our management and board of directors to manage our operating performance, including evaluating our operational performance against budget and assessing our overall operating efficiency and operating leverage. For example, if Contribution increases and our headcount costs and other operating expenses remain steady, our Adjusted EBITDA and operating leverage increase. If Contribution Margin decreases, we may choose to re-evaluate and re-negotiate our revenue share agreements with our Supply Partners, to make optimization and pricing changes with respect to our bids for keywords from primary traffic acquisition sources, or to change our overall cost structure with respect to headcount, fixed costs and other costs. Other companies may calculate Contribution and Contribution Margin differently than we do. Contribution and Contribution Margin have their limitations as analytical tools, and you should not consider them in isolation or as substitutes for analysis of our results presented in accordance with GAAP. The following table reconciles Contribution with gross profit, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP, for the three and six months ended June 30, 2026 and 2025: Adjusted EBITDA We define “Adjusted EBITDA” as net income (loss) excluding interest expense, income tax expense (benefit), depreciation expense on property and equipment, amortization of intangible assets, as well as equity-based compensation expense and certain other adjustments as listed in the table below. Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure that we present to supplement the financial information we present on a GAAP basis. We monitor and present Adjusted EBITDA because it is a key measure used by our management to understand and evaluate our operating performance, to establish budgets and to develop operational goals for managing our business. We believe that Adjusted EBITDA helps identify underlying trends in our business that could otherwise be masked by the effect of the expenses that we exclude in the calculations of Adjusted EBITDA. Accordingly, we believe that Adjusted EBITDA provides useful information to investors and others in understanding and evaluating our operating results, enhancing the overall understanding of our past performance and future prospects. In addition, presenting Adjusted EBITDA provides investors with a metric to evaluate the capital efficiency of our business. Adjusted EBITDA is not presented in accordance with GAAP and should not be considered in isolation of, or as an alternative to, measures presented in accordance with GAAP. There are a number of limitations related to the use of Adjusted EBITDA rather than net income, which is the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP. These limitations include the fact that Adjusted EBITDA excludes interest expense on debt, income tax expense (benefit), equity-based compensation expense, depreciation and amortization, and certain other adjustments that we consider to be useful to investors and others in understanding and evaluating our operating results. In addition, other companies may use other measures to evaluate their performance, including different definitions of “Adjusted EBITDA,” which could reduce the usefulness of our Adjusted EBITDA as a tool for comparison. The following table reconciles Adjusted EBITDA with net income (loss), the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP, for the three and six months ended June 30, 2026 and 2025: (1) Transaction expenses for the six months ended June 30, 2026 consist of legal and other fees of $1.1 million and a loss on extinguishment of debt of $0.2 million incurred by us in connection with the 2026 Credit Facilities.(2) Write-off of intangible assets for the six months ended June 30, 2025 consists of a charge related to the write-off of customer relationships and trademarks, trade names, and domain names intangible assets acquired as part of the acquisition of Customer Helper Team, LLC.(3) Changes in TRA related liability consist of adjustments to the TRA liability to reflect probable future payments under the agreement.(4) Legal expenses for the three and six months ended June 30, 2026 were immaterial. Legal expenses for the three and six months ended June 30, 2025, consist of increases of $33.0 million and $38.0 million, respectively, to the loss reserve established in connection with the FTC Matter and legal fees and costs incurred in connection with such matter.