What's happening: Shares of Zillow Group Inc (ZG 0.02%) rose as much as 9.5% early Wednesday, then settled to trade up around 0.4% as of 1 p.m. after the online real estate company issued better-than-expected second-quarter results.

On a pro forma basis -- which provides perspective by assuming Zillow's February 2015 acquisition of Trulia closed at the start of last year -- revenue rose 20% year over year to $171.3 million. That includes 29% growth in Marketplace revenue to $145.5 million, 44% growth from Mortgages to $10.4 million, and a 21% decline in Market Leader revenue to $12.5 million. Keep in mind Zillow previously announced it is conducting a strategic review to determine whether to divest or integrate the Market Leader business, a software platform it inherited as part of the acquisition.

Meanwhile, adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose 277% to $21 million, and translated to an adjusted net loss of $0.01 per share, up from a $0.05-per-share adjusted net loss in the year-ago period.

Analysts, on average, were anticipating an adjusted net loss of $0.25 per share on revenue of just $168.8 million.

Finally, for the full year, Zillow reaffirmed guidance for pro forma revenue of $690 million, and raised its pro forma EBITDA outlook to a range of $85 million to $90 million. Consensus estimates had called for full-year 2015 revenue of $666.5 million, and a net loss of $0.05 per share.

Why it's happening:  "Zillow Group had a strong second quarter," added CEO Spender Rascoff, "beating our own expectations for revenue and EBITDA. We've been very focused operationally on the integration of Trulia, and made great progress on a number of fronts."

To be sure, last quarter Zillow told investors it had already completed the integration of Trulia's and Zillow's Rentals and Mortgage products, and set a goal of finishing the more ambitious integration of their larger agent advertising businesses by the end of 2015. But now, according to Rascoff, Zillow is on track to combine the agent advertising business by the end of the third quarter, "setting us up to fully realize the potential of Zillow Group's huge and growing audience."

With that in mind -- and even though Zillow stock has pared its early gains today as the broader market did the same -- I think this solid report gives Zillow investors more than enough reason to look forward to what lies ahead.