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DATE
Thursday, May 7, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET
CALL PARTICIPANTS
- Chief Executive — Gary Nugent
- Chief Financial Officer — Daniel T. Noreck
TAKEAWAYS
- Total Revenue -- $106 million, a 2% increase year over year, driven by gains in the Brand to Demand segment despite macroeconomic headwinds.
- Adjusted EBITDA -- $7.4 million, up 27% year over year, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 6.9% versus 5.6% last year, reflecting improved cost discipline and operational streamlining.
- Brand to Demand Segment Revenue -- Accounted for approximately 70% of total revenues with 5% year-over-year growth, led by the unified demand product suite.
- Intelligence and Advisory Segment Revenue -- Made up about 30% of total revenues, declining approximately 4% year over year, mainly from reduced go-to-market consulting.
- Net Loss (GAAP) -- $70.8 million, including a $45 million non-cash goodwill impairment and other non-cash integration expenses.
- Cash and Liquidity -- Cash and cash equivalents stood at $47 million, with $178 million total liquidity including $130 million undrawn on a $250 million credit facility.
- Net Debt -- $72 million as of March, with leverage unchanged at 0.8x adjusted EBITDA over the preceding twelve months.
- Full-Year 2026 Adjusted EBITDA Guidance -- Maintained at $95 million to $100 million, as management reiterated confidence in meeting these targets.
- Large Customer Focus -- Revenues from the largest industry customers rose double digits, attributed to targeted product and sales investments.
- Membership Trends -- Overall permissioned membership grew in the low single digits; active membership for priority personas, including Chief Information Officers and Chief Information Security Officers, increased at a high single-digit rate despite lower web traffic.
- Operational Efficiency -- Time to first lead for core demand products improved significantly, decreasing by 30% year over year.
- New Product Launches and Partnerships -- The BrightTALK Nurture demand product was piloted by 12 customers; integration with Demandbase ABM for NetLine was announced; Omnia AI Search Assistant launched to enhance content discoverability and multilingual support.
- Omnia Business KPIs -- Users, engagement, and Net Promoter Score rose by double digits in the quarter.
- International Expansion -- Acquired four UK financial media brands, expanding first-party permissioned data in the financial services and fintech verticals.
- Award Recognition -- Editorial teams won three Neal Awards and were shortlisted for 15 ASB Nationals.
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RISKS
- Management acknowledged, "churn is still higher, clearly because our portfolio accounts have grown," with more pronounced churn at the lower end of the SME client range.
- Revenue from the Intelligence and Advisory segment decreased approximately 4% year over year due to a reduction in go-to-market strategic consulting.
- International business in the Middle East and Africa experienced customer investment slowdowns and delayed decisions "as a result of the ongoing situation in Iran."
- Gary Nugent noted ongoing "geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty," and clients are currently prioritizing R&D over go-to-market spending, subduing near-term demand in marketing services.
SUMMARY
TechTarget (TTGT +8.74%) reported modest top-line improvement and a substantial increase in adjusted EBITDA, reflecting solid cost controls and successful execution on its integration strategy even as market demand remains muted. Segment performance diverged, with Brand to Demand driving a majority of growth and Intelligence and Advisory offsetting this with a decline. The company highlighted investments in AI-driven product innovation, new integrated offerings, and expanding verticals, including financial services via recent acquisitions. Management maintained its full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance, signaled continued discipline on operational costs, and emphasized a focus on large customers and accelerating efficiency in lead generation and service delivery. The call detailed plans for further leveraging AI automation across business lines and pointed to positive early adoption and engagement metrics in key product areas, while noting that increased churn and isolated regional slowdowns present headwinds. Liquidity and leverage remained stable, supporting a committed stance on growth targets.
- Brand to Demand’s unified demand portfolio emerged as a key contributor, with segment revenue up 5% and no evidence of cannibalization from NetLine’s down-market push.
- New products, including Omnia AI Search Assistant and ongoing AI-driven pilots, are being rolled out to improve customer experience and scalability of services across global markets.
- Management observed that answer engine traffic now converts at higher rates to membership, partially mitigating losses in traditional search traffic caused by the rise of AI-powered discovery.
- The company’s $178 million in available liquidity and consistent net debt ratio of 0.8x adjusted EBITDA provide operational flexibility through 2026’s ongoing macroeconomic challenges.
INDUSTRY GLOSSARY
- Brand to Demand (B2D): Segment focused on services and solutions that move customers from brand awareness through to targeted demand generation and lead development.
- Intelligence and Advisory (I&A): Segment providing subscription-based market intelligence products, analyst research, and bespoke advisory services for strategic support.
- ABM (Account-Based Marketing): Strategic approach that targets specific high-value accounts with tailored marketing efforts, often leveraging data integration across sales and marketing platforms.
- BrightTALK Nurture: A demand-generation product aimed at nurturing leads for conversion, recently piloted among select clients.
- NetLine: Lead generation and content syndication platform integrated with Demandbase for ABM capabilities, serving both upmarket and down-market client segments.
- Omnia AI Search Assistant: Proprietary AI-driven tool that enables clients to use natural language queries to access synthesized company content, available in multiple languages.
Full Conference Call Transcript
Gary Nugent, our Chief Executive, and Daniel T. Noreck, our Chief Financial Officer. Before turning the call over to Gary, we would like to remind you that in advance of this call, we posted a press release to the Investor Relations section of our website and furnished it on an 8-K. You can also find these materials on the SEC's website at sec.gov. A replay of today’s conference call will be made available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Following the opening remarks from Gary and Dan, they will be available to answer questions. Any statements made today by TechTarget, Inc. that are not historical, including during the Q&A, may be considered forward-looking statements.
These forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties, are based on assumptions and are not guarantees of our future performance. Actual results may differ materially from our forecast and from these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including those discussed in the Risk Factors section of our most recent periodic report filed on Form 10-Q and the forward-looking statement disclaimer in our earnings release filed earlier today. These statements speak only as of the date of this call, and TechTarget, Inc. undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events that may arise after this conference call, except as required by law.
Finally, we may also refer to certain financial measures not prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of certain of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, to the extent available without unreasonable efforts, accompanies our press release. And with that, I will turn the call over to Gary.
Gary Nugent: Thank you, Charles, and good afternoon, everyone. As always, we appreciate you taking the time to join us today. I am pleased to share our Q1 2026 results which demonstrate continuing progress with our strategy and our commitment to delivering top- and bottom-line growth on an ongoing sustainable basis. In Q1 2026, we delivered revenues of $106 million, representing a 2% increase year over year, whilst achieving an adjusted EBITDA of $7.4 million, an increase of 27% year on year. These results reflect the durability of our business model, a model that is built upon our proprietary first-party market data and our permissioned member data.
They are also the reflections of the early returns of our combination program completed in 2025. For today, we also report the results of our two operating segments, Intelligence and Advisory and Brand to Demand, offering deeper insight into the makeup of the business and the key drivers of growth. I see durability as Q1 results and I suspect the remainder of this year are set against a backdrop of ongoing geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty, in addition to the broader digital transformation that is accelerating across B2B markets as AI changes how buyers are informing their buying journey and how sellers are reaching out and trying to stand out to prospects and customers.
I spent much of Q1 and April on the road meeting with clients and colleagues. It is always my favorite thing to do. In the main, our clients, who are B2B technology vendors, are in good health. However, they continue to prioritize capital to R&D investment as they seek to stay current with the AI arms race. This is subduing investment elsewhere for now, specifically in go-to-market. However, as future indication, demand for our businesses is incredibly positive. And ultimately, they will need to seek a return on those R&D investments. Our story of the indispensable partner with the breadth and scale to enable our clients and address their ambitious growth objectives resonates loudly.
And it is clear that we are only just scratching the surface in terms of how and where we can help them accelerate their growth and in doing so drive our own growth. The trends we are observing and the needs and wants of our clients directly correlate to our strategic focus. First, our clients are themselves experiencing the impact of the shift from a search engine economy to an answer engine economy. And as such, their ability to raise awareness and generate demand by and of themselves is becoming more difficult.
And with that reality, they are increasingly recognizing the value of working with a partner that itself has direct reach and relationships and influence with the prospects and customers. Second, there is a growing realization that better marketing outcomes are achieved when the marketing efforts are aligned and integrated across the lifecycle from strategy through to execution, and that the breadth and scale of TechTarget, Inc. makes us one of the few companies that can deliver value across that lifecycle. This is encapsulated in our unified demand playbook that we launched at the beginning of Q1 and which has been very well received in the marketplace.
And finally, we are seeing clients prioritize working with partners that can integrate seamlessly with their sales and their martech landscape and join the dots in terms of attribution to demonstrate measurable performance and return on investment from their marketing investments. Again, that is something that we can provide and are getting increasingly good at, further differentiating us from others. In numbers, revenues from our strategic focus on our largest customers, who are the largest players in the industry we serve, were up double digits as a result of this focus and the investments in products, sales, delivery, and customer success in Q1.
Daisy Golota, our new CMO, has gotten her feet well and truly under the table, launching our bold and ambitious marketing strategy designed to raise awareness and generate demand in the broader $20 billion addressable market. As a part of this, we recently leveraged the Forrester B2B Summit in Phoenix to showcase how we are leveraging the breadth and scale of TechTarget, Inc. to partner with our clients and transform their go-to-market and deliver tangible results. One example of this was the work that we have been doing with Tanium. Tanium are a cybersecurity company that helps enterprises manage and protect mission-critical networks.
Tanium partnered with TechTarget, Inc. to move beyond a fragmented, siloed marketing approach towards a fully integrated, always-on go-to-market model, choosing us not just as a vendor, but as a strategic partner for our unmatched audience access, high-quality intent data, and ability to influence buying groups before their sales teams are engaged. By activating our platform across Portal, BrightTALK, content syndication, and targeted editorial environments, they were able to precisely identify and engage in-market accounts at scale. The results were substantial. Over 5 thousand leads delivered, equating to $1.2 billion of influenced pipeline, and ROI of over 2.8 thousand x. And importantly, this has translated directly into real revenue growth.
As a result, they signed a new two-year deal immediately following the program, representing over a 50% increase in their annual investment. On the subject of our membership, our audience members, as buyers increasingly rely on AI-powered research and zero-click search behaviors, we fundamentally adapted our operational approach to meet them where they are. Our content creation and distribution strategy is now prioritizing AI discoverability while maintaining the editorial excellence and thought leadership that our audiences have come to expect.
With a focus on quality over quantity, and engagement over acquisition, this dual focus continued to deliver for us in Q1, with our permissioned membership continuing to grow in low single digits, and our active membership in priority personas such as Chief Information Officers and Chief Information Security Officers up high single digits in the quarter, this all being despite ongoing disruption to traffic. In addition, we added four leading UK media-based brands to our portfolio through the period: Accountancy Age, The CFO, Bob’s Guide, and The Global Treasurer.
This expands our first-party permissioned members in the financial services and fintech space, and it is in line with our strategy to grow by extending our vertical audiences into new geographical markets. We are already seeing strong engagement from these new community members. And in recognition of the power and the value of our authoritative, trusted, and original content in the age of AI, our editorial teams recently won three coveted awards at the B2B industry’s Oscars, the Neal Awards, and we have also been shortlisted for 15 awards at the forthcoming ASB Nationals. On the product front, investment in the product pipeline continues to bear fruit.
By popular demand, we launched the new BrightTALK Nurture demand product, with 12 customers piloting this new offering in Q2. We also announced to the market the commercial partnership and technical integration of our NetLine demand product with the Demandbase ABM platform. In direct response to the shift from a search-based to an answer-based economy, we have leveraged all of our experience as a digital publisher to launch our AI LLM content audit and consulting services, designed to help clients understand how discoverable and citable content is and to work with them on how to improve upon it.
And only last week, we launched the Omnia AI Search Assistant, a further example of how we are leveraging AI technology to improve our products, to improve upon how our customers discover and consume our original authoritative content, and extract maximum value from their subscriptions. The Omnia AI Search Assistant enables our clients to submit natural language queries to the Omnia Knowledge Center and receive answers that are an intelligent composite of all Omnia’s data and analysis. They can also return those answers in over 70 languages, increasing the global applicability of our product.
This launch builds upon what were already very encouraging KPIs in the Omnia business, with users, user engagement, and the Net Promoter Score all up double digits in the first quarter. And as we move through to the second and the third quarters, you will see more examples of how we are applying AI technology, specifically conversational interfaces, to our data and content that will improve discoverability, ease consumption, and unlock value for our clients and our members. And in June, our AI search for our audience members will undergo a significant upgrade based upon the lessons learned from the pilot of the past six months.
Rather than improving the audience experience, we are also leveraging automation and AI technology and tools extensively across the business to improve upon our productivity and quality in marketing and sales and research and editorial and operations, and our experience is that this is a game of continuous improvement, and we are already banking clear benefits. By way of example, in Q1 our time to first lead for our core demand products decreased by 30% year on year, accelerating time to value for our customers and accelerating time to revenue for ourselves.
I think Q1 demonstrates delivery to our plan—financially, strategically, and operationally—growing our revenues and adjusted EBITDA, simplifying and focusing the business, embracing and capitalizing upon the opportunities that AI presents. Our priorities for 2026 are clear: deliver value to our customers and growth for our shareholders. This will give us the momentum and put us in a strong position to continue to invest in innovation and build upon our core strengths of trusted expertise, proprietary market permissioned audience data, and a unified portfolio of products with the breadth and scale to deliver for customers across their lifecycle. We are wholly committed to this plan and to growing revenues and adjusted EBITDA in 2026.
I look forward to updating you on our continued progress in the quarters ahead, and now I will turn the call over to Dan to discuss our financial results and guidance in a little more detail, and then we will be happy to take your questions.
Daniel T. Noreck: Thanks, Gary, and good afternoon, everyone. In Q1 2026, we delivered revenue of $106 million, representing approximately 2% year-over-year growth compared with 2025. While market demand remains subdued and the environment cautious, our results reflect solid execution and early benefits from our sharpened operating focus following the combination and organizational realignment. As Gary mentioned earlier, we are now reporting our results through two operating segments.
In Brand to Demand, or the B2D segment, which represented around 70% of total revenues and is where we generate revenues by providing clients with services that help them raise brand awareness, engage with buyers, and target more qualified potential customers, we saw good revenue growth of around 5% year over year, with particular strength in our unified demand offering.
In Intelligence and Advisory, or the I&A segment, which represented around 30% of total revenues and is where we generate revenues primarily through subscription services to our intelligence products including first-party data and specialist analyst research content, as well as advisory services that provide clients with strategic support and bespoke solutions, our revenues were around 4% lower year over year, primarily reflecting a decrease in our go-to-market strategic consulting. Both segments improved profitability in terms of segment operating income, which we define as being revenue less allocated direct and indirect costs but prior to unallocated costs such as central functions, facility, and related overhead expenses. Operating margin also improved for both segments.
Encouragingly, we delivered company adjusted EBITDA growth of 27% year over year to $7.4 million, an adjusted EBITDA margin of 6.9% compared with 5.6% in the prior year. This improvement reflects continuing cost discipline, the streamlining of operations, and the initial realization of integration efficiency following last year’s combination plan, even as we continue to invest selectively in growth, product innovation, and go-to-market capabilities. On a GAAP basis, our net loss narrowed to $70.8 million. This included $45 million of technical non-cash impairment of goodwill, as well as ongoing acquisition and integration costs and other non-cash charges. Turning to the balance sheet and liquidity, we are in a strong financial position.
We ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $47 million and had almost $130 million undrawn on our $250 million revolving credit facility, giving us liquidity of approximately $178 million. Our net debt at March of around $72 million represented around 0.8x adjusted EBITDA for the prior twelve months, similar to the leverage level at 2025 and 2024. Our free cash flow in the quarter reflected the seasonal dynamics of the business as well as the phasing of integration and restructuring activities from 2025. On an adjusted basis, we delivered meaningful cash flow, demonstrating the attractive underlying cash generation characteristics of our business model. Turning to guidance, we are reiterating our commitment to deliver growth in 2026.
To this end, we are maintaining our full-year 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $95 million to $100 million. We are pleased with the progress we have made simplifying the business, improving operational efficiencies, and positioning the company for growth. While the macro environment remains uncertain, we continue to see opportunities to expand customer engagement, increase wallet share, and improve margins as the year progresses. In summary, Q1 represented a solid start to 2026 with revenue growth, adjusted EBITDA improvement, and continued progress integrating the business and sharpening our operating focus. We believe we are well positioned to execute through the remainder of the year and deliver on our financial objectives.
As a reminder, our financial model is built to scale efficiently. As we return to growth, every additional dollar of revenue delivers substantial incremental margin, giving us the ability to grow profitability and free cash flows significantly over time. And with that, we are now happy to answer your questions. Operator, will you please open up the line for Q&A?
Operator: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will now open the call for questions. Once again, that is star one should you wish to ask a question. Your first question is from Bruce Goldfarb from Lake Street Capital. Your line is now open.
Bruce Goldfarb: Hi. It is Bruce. Congratulations on the solid quarter, and thanks. So the first is, are there any inflationary pressures in the business that would put your $95 million to $100 million EBITDA guide at risk?
Daniel T. Noreck: Bruce, thanks for the question. I do not think we are seeing any out of the ordinary from inflation that would put that at risk right now. We are still very confident, which is why we reiterated the $95 million to $100 million adjusted EBITDA target.
Bruce Goldfarb: Great. Thank you. And then how are growing AI search volumes impacting your membership sign-ups and paid subscriptions?
Gary Nugent: I will take that one, Bruce. Nice to talk to you. We have certainly seen the shift in traffic and the mix of traffic that we receive as a business as searches become disrupted and answer engines are becoming more prominent. We continue to see that answer engine traffic converts at a much higher rate to membership than search traffic used to. But interestingly, we are also seeing search traffic conversion rates improve as well. I think that is largely as a result of the fact that what we are now getting from search is more qualified.
Effectively, what you are beginning to see in an answer engine environment is that it qualifies out people who are not really serious researchers and serious buyers. So whilst traffic may be disrupted and down, because conversion rates are up, we are still seeing solid membership, and therefore our membership is modestly growing. And in particular, the membership and the activity of members who are the key personas is growing quite nicely.
Bruce Goldfarb: Thank you. And my next one, how are churn rates trending in the small to medium enterprise market segment?
Daniel T. Noreck: Hi, Bruce. So from a churn perspective, we obviously do not show those metrics, but what I would say is that churn is still higher, clearly because our portfolio accounts have grown. So we are seeing a bit more churn at the lower end of the range. But what I would say to that is we are starting to see a stabilization of that, and so it gives us confidence as we look out for the rest of the year as it relates to those particular client segments.
Bruce Goldfarb: Great. And my last question, how is business trending internationally in EMEA and APAC?
Gary Nugent: I will pick up a little bit of highlights. I spent a couple of weeks on the road; I was actually in APAC traveling through Singapore and then through Shenzhen and Beijing in China before finishing off in Seoul in Korea. I would say that the actual environment was encouragingly optimistic and building. The vast majority of our business in that part of the world is the Intelligence and Advisory business, and there is certainly a huge amount of demand from APAC companies to grow their business internationally and to expand into markets such as the United States and Europe, and that is a great opportunity for us.
And similarly, there is still an appetite from big American brands to build their business, particularly in markets like Japan and Korea. So generally speaking, I was actually really encouraged by the demand there, and I would say that the business has been trading in line with the rest of the business in the first quarter, no sort of material in-pattern. The one obvious exception to that is the Middle East and Africa region as a result of the ongoing situation in Iran. There we have definitely seen customers begin to slow down their investments and slow down their decisions. That would make sense.
Bruce Goldfarb: Well, thank you. Congrats again on a solid quarter. Thanks for taking my questions.
Operator: Thank you. Your next question is from Jason Michael Kreyer from Craig-Hallum. Your line is now open.
Analyst: Hey guys, this is Thomas on for Jason. Thanks for taking my questions. I know you touched on it a little bit, but could you give a little more commentary on the environment you are seeing for software sales, particularly like a Priority Engine that has more of a recurring nature to it? Do you feel like tech companies are still sort of hesitant to lock in longer-term deals?
Gary Nugent: I might actually pick up on that subject more broadly. I would certainly say that we have definitely seen the multiyear environment is not as strong as it was two years or so ago. That is definitely true. We are seeing customers—and we have said for some time that customers were shortening their contractual commitments—really through 2025, and I do not think that has really picked up in 2026. It is interesting enough in what is potentially an inflationary environment, because usually there is a bit of tension in the marketplace between customers wanting to lock in pricing for multiple years vis-à-vis making those long-term commitments, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out.
I think generally in terms of commitments to software in the end of course of the marketplace, I have not really seen a lot of change in the customers’ appetite. But one of the things that we have spoken about is the need for us to actually integrate our data directly into our customers’ platforms, especially in the intent space. As customers’ martech stacks and sales tech stacks have become more mature and more settled, it is absolutely imperative that you are able to play nicely with their environment.
So you heard us talk about this a lot when we are talking about the investment in the intent product: a lot of our investments are now on the subject of integration, and integration not just with API but also increasingly with MCPs in the AI world. And that is really where I think the game is being played now and the game will be played in the future in 2027.
Analyst: Great. That is helpful. And then maybe just one follow-up. With the moves you made to position NetLine in a more down market, does that carry any incremental churn or volatility? Or do you still have pretty good visibility into NetLine production?
Gary Nugent: NetLine continues to perform incredibly well for us. It is a very exciting story within the company, and it is going from strength to strength. As we have said, we have done a very thorough, forensic analysis to see whether it was cannibalizing any of the business elsewhere, and actually that is not the case. These are different customers. They are different personas within our existing customers. They are different budget pools. It forms part of the unified demand portfolio, and in actual fact the unified demand story that we are now telling, where we have I think the broadest portfolio of demand products to meet any demand problem a customer might have, is playing really nicely for us.
Analyst: Great. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now ended.
Operator: Thank you all for joining.
Operator: You may now disconnect your lines.
