In this article, we will look at the 10 Worst Marketing Stocks to Buy.
Overview of the Marketing Sector
The marketing and advertising industry is a vital part of our economy, playing multifaceted roles in facilitating market efficiency, nurturing creativity and innovation, and driving growth. According to a report by Solomon Partners, global advertising growth for 2024 is expected to fall between 4.6% and 7.2%. This amounts to nearly double the anticipated growth rate of 2%- 5% for 2023.
The Paris Olympics and impending US elections are the primary reasons behind this surge in growth anticipation. The report further highlights that out-of-home advertising is expected to have the highest ad spending growth year over year, at 7.2%. Digital ad spending takes the second spot, at 6.3%. On the other hand, print ad spending is expected to fall by 4.6% year over year.
Trends in the Marketing and Advertisement Sector
Macroeconomic improvement in the second half of 2023 and a positive economic outlook for 2024 are further expected to drive this growth. Inflation is also cooling down in 2024. In addition, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates recently by 0.5 percentage points. Since economic instability is typically cited as a primary reason behind advertisers’ spending cuts, the expectation of rising economic stability and growth is highly likely to fuel advertising spend.
A study by Dentsu revealed that the top twelve global markets are highly likely to increase their advertising spending by 13% as a percentage of GDP in 2024. This suggests that advertising spending exceeds macroeconomic growth.
According to estimates from IBISWorld, industry-wide revenue in the advertising sector has been growing at a compound annual growth rate of 2.7% over the past five years. It is expected to reach $70.1 billion by 2024, increasing by 1.9%. Profit is also anticipated to grow by 6.6%. According to a report by Mordor Intelligence, the online advertising market is valued at $257.97 billion as of 2024. It is expected to increase to $431.76 billion by 2029, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 10.97% in the forecast period.
However, with the market becoming increasingly saturated with political content, the landscape is anticipated to become more challenging for non-political companies attempting to get their message across.
Artificial Intelligence and Marketing
Similar to other areas of life, AI is changing the marketing industry at unprecedented speed. According to a January 2024 Foundation AI Survey, nearly 84.8% of the marketing pros respondents claimed to use AI in their workplace. In addition, a significant majority said that they use AI to improve their performance on a daily basis. The most common usage of AI in the industry is content creation, as cited by around 87% respondents. Other popular applications of artificial intelligence among marketing respondents included keyword research (42%), email marketing (39%), social media (39%), and note-taking (36%). When asked about the importance of AI to their job, 32% voted in favor of it being “very” important. 33% claimed it to be “Moderately” important, while 9% said that it was “very” important.
According to a report by McKinsey, around 75% of the value delivered by generative AI use cases could fall across four key areas: marketing and sales, customer operations, software engineering, and R&D. A suitable marketing use case is the application of generative AI to generate creative content, including personalized emails. The measurable outcomes of this application are likely to slash the expenditure of generating such content, along with an increase in revenue by using specially curated creative content with high efficiency. McKinsey identified 63 generative AI use cases across 16 business functions, calculating a total value of economic benefits in the range of $2.6 trillion and $4.4 trillion per annum when applied across industries. This is one of the primary reasons why marketers across the globe are scrambling to advance their AI capabilities. Marketers are increasingly leveraging AI-powered tools to personalize content for higher engagement, automate tasks, and expedite content generation, all adding to efficiency and cost-reduction.
With the value of marketing and advertising expected to skyrocket, here are the 10 worst marketing stocks to buy.
10 Worst Marketing Stocks to Buy
Our Methodology
To list the 10 Worst Marketing Stocks to Buy, we used the Finviz screener, ETFs, and related articles to compile a list of 20 marketing stocks. Next, we narrowed our list of stocks by selecting those with high short percentage of float. Finally, we ranked the stocks in ascending order of their short % of float. We also included the number of hedge funds for each stock for additional insight.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
10 Worst Marketing Stocks to Buy
10. Hubspot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS)
Short % of Float: 1.71
No. of Hedge Funds as of Q2 2024: 80
HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS) is an American developer and marketer of software products for inbound marketing, customer service, and sales. provides a customer platform for businesses to grow and connect. Its unified platform offers prime connection for customer-facing teams, and includes artificial intelligence-powered engagement hubs, a connected ecosystem with more than 1,500 app marketplace integrations, a smart customer relationship management product (CRM), a community network, and educational content.
The company’s engagement hubs include Sales Hub, Marketing Hub, Operations Hub, Service Hub, Content Management System Hub, and Commerce Hub. These hubs allow companies to engage and attract clients through the customer lifecycle. Smart CRM is HubSpot’s primary layer of operations that brings customer data to AI, powering the customer platform with unified customer profiles and tools to manage and govern teams and business processes. It specializes in relating and selling to mid-market business-to-business (B2B) companies. HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS) functions on a subscription basis.
The company is running on strong fundamentals. Its revenue grew by 21% year over year in Q2 2024, with the number of total customers growing to 228,000. 11,200 net customers were added to the company’s circle in Q2 alone. The primary drivers of this growth are product enhancement and pricing improvements. In addition, it has also eased and streamlined the checkout process, allowing consumers to make clear decisions about the seats and functionality of their choice.
HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS) introduced its pricing model changes in March, lowering the price point to get started, removing seat minimums, and creating a core seat for customers who wish to edit CRM records. In turn, it recorded solid expansion trends with a multi-point net revenue increase in the third month of use. Customers on the new pricing model have the power to purchase precisely what they need, expanding as they go. This is one of the primary reasons behind its increasing popularity.
It is also delivering value for business owners looking for better visibility on customer trends and driving growth. As a result, the company is experiencing strength in starter ads and free sign ups, with more customers expanding into and starting with multiple hubs resulting in more substantial deals.
9. Yext, Inc. (NYSE:YEXT)
Short % of Float: 2.1
No. of Hedge Funds as of Q2 2024: 19
Yext (NYSE:YEXT) promotes companies’ information on websites and online search directories as part of digital marketing strategies. This AI-powered company operates an answer platform and organizes business facts to deliver actionable and relevant answers to consumer questions throughout the digital ecosystem. Specializing in Search Engine Optimization, the platform allows businesses to structure information about their brands into a database called the Knowledge Graph. The company then leverages the structured knowledge stored in the database to deliver a search experience on an organization or business’ own website. Apart from that, it also offers the same experience across more than 200 application and service providers. Yext (NYSE:YEXT) refers to them as the Publisher Network, including Apple Maps, Amazon Alexa, Bing, Facebook, Google, Cortana, Google Assistant, Google Maps, Yelp, and Siri.
Yext’s (NYSE:YEXT) platform offers several features, including Search, Pages, Listing, and others. It also offers field user support, which includes reviewing content, keeping brand guidelines in view, one-on-one training, and other support services. The company’s Q2 fiscal 2025 results shed light on its considerable margin expansion. This was driven by its focus on operational efficiency, positioning the company for continued growth and profitability. It is continuing to work on its strategic initiatives to strengthen the company in the long run.
During Q2 fiscal 2025, Yext (NYSE:YEXT) completed the acquisition of Hearsay Systems. The integration of Hearsay solutions into its portfolio increased the company’s market leadership, paving the way for the company to use its combined capabilities to accelerate and promote innovation. Hearsay Systems’ compliance-driven solutions can uniquely optimize customer interactions, expand reach, and ensure brand and regulatory compliance. Integrating Hearsay’s text, social media, voice, and compliance features with Yext’s AI technology and digital presence management is expected to give the company an exceptional tools kit. This kit is expected to help boost performance across all channels and manage customer touchpoints.
Yext (NYSE:YEXT) now holds a competitive advantage in the industry, with its boosted value enabling solid CRM integration, including systems such as Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM). To further enhance value, the company will track client interactions, synchronize contact information, and automate workflows to provide businesses with performance improvement recommendations and customer journey insights.
Yext (NYSE:YEXT) recently announced the launch of Yext Social, an AI-powered social media management solution that metamorphoses local customer engagement at scale globally by brands. Yext Social offers personalized, data-driven content on a single platform, enabling brands to connect with customers locally. This marks a significant expansion of the Yext platform, further establishing its position in the industry. Using advanced AI technology, Yext Social delivers actionable insights, optimizes engagement strategies, and simplifies content creation. This helps brands easily manage their local and corporate social media segments using just the Yext platform.
8. LiveRamp Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:RAMP)
Short % of Float: 2.38
No. of Hedge Funds as of Q2 2024: 32
LiveRamp Holdings (NYSE:RAMP) is a marketing technology company that offers online marketing, digital transformation, data foundation, and analysis services. It services clients worldwide. The company’s enterprise platform provides data collaboration, allowing companies to share first-party consumer data with business partners in a privacy-conscious manner. It supports several data collaboration use cases within organizations, brands, and its global network of partners by offering collaboration flexibility where data lives.
The LiveRamp (NYSE:RAMP) data collaboration platform allows organizations to unify prospect and customer data, including first, second, or third-party. They can then build a single view of the customer, keeping consumer privacy concerns in view. First-party data refers to first-hand data collection managed through a company’s controlled channels. In contrast, second-party data collection is data directly shared by a company with a business partner. In contrast, third-party data is data sold or collected by a company by leveraging an online data marketplace. This is usually conducted with companies with which it does not share a direct relationship.
The company’s Q1 fiscal 2025 exceeded analyst expectations, becoming the second consecutive quarter of double-digit subscription revenue and total revenue growth. In addition, the company’s marketplace revenue also increased by 28%, showing strong consumer demand across digital advertising tactics, including CTV. These trends highlight its strong profitability model in an uncertain macro environment.
Two of the company’s key performance indicators were especially strong: annual recurring revenue and subscription net retention. Annual recurring revenue experienced an increase of $11 million quarter on quarter, making Q1 fiscal 2025 the third consecutive quarter of double-digital millions net new ARR. Subscription net retention also grew by 2 points quarter on quarter, reaching 105% and highlighting its strong standing among existing customers.
LiveRamp Holdings (NYSE:RAMP) also focuses on developing deeper relationships with system integrators and cloud hyperscalers. It is continuing to pursue its Embedded Identity, Activation, and Clean Room capabilities across all major cloud providers. It is also working with an array of specialized firms and full-service IT consultants with the SIs. The stock takes the eighth spot on our worst marketing stocks to buy list.
Meridian Contrarian Fund made the following comment about LiveRamp Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:RAMP) in its Q2 2023 investor letter:
“A holding that warranted an additional investment during the quarter was LiveRamp Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:RAMP), a developer of a data connectivity platform that sharpens targeted advertisement placements while shielding consumer data privacy. The company’s technology allows improved advertising targeting and measurement across internet-based, streaming, and traditional verticals while meeting the ever-shifting data privacy regulations being enacted globally. We initially invested in the first quarter of 2023 following a difficult 2022 in which advertising spending slowed and LiveRamp rolled out new products and brought on new salespeople—which all combined to drive down earnings. In addition to the investments in future growth, however, management also reduced legacy products, which has lowered costs and improved earnings and cash flow through the first part of 2023, despite a still-tough advertising environment. We added to our position during the second quarter as the company’s internally driven earnings turn appeared to take hold, emphasizing our approach to opportunistic value and gaining access to one of the fastest-growing advertising verticals such as streaming television.”
7. Perion Network, Ltd. (NASDAQ:PERI)
Short % of Float: 3.14
No. of Hedge Funds as of Q2 2024: 22
Perion Network (NASDAQ:PERI) is an Israel-based digital advertising company. It provides publishers, brands, and agencies a holistic ability to identify and resonate with their customers across all channels through high-impact creative units. These units are managed by the company’s proprietary Intelligent Hib (iHUB), which also offers cross-sell.
The company operates in three primary segments of digital advertising: social media, ad search, and display, video, or CTV. SORT technology is another technological solution from the company. SORT alternative technology operates as a machine learning model that examines millions of data combinations to develop cookieless targeting groups. These groups consist of people who react to and think about ads like one another. The company thus provides the very technology that fits a brand’s goals, fitting the brand strategy like a globe.
Perion (NASDAQ:PERI) is on the path to tackling the labyrinthine digital advertising industry using technology. It identifies, connects, delivers, and measures compelling messages across various platforms and screams, utilizing its clients’ advertising budgets to the fullest. The company made significant advancements for growth and expansion in its recent quarter, securing crucial partnerships and integrations. Powered by a strong double-digital growth rate, its core growth engines are running on positive momentum.
Last year, it acquired Hivestack, a programmatic digital out-of-home technology, and is reaping positive results from the acquisition. The company also expanded its global footprint, improved its ability to allow advertisers to deliver omnichannel experiences, and added a solid growth engine. Perion’s (NASDAQ:PERI) CTV Solutions are especially bringing out positive results. The company is leveraging its advanced location-based capabilities to drive meaningful results for advertisers. For instance, its CTV Golden Corral Campaign directs viewers to their closest restaurants, by using locations of the restaurants and integrating them into brand creatives by employing advanced dynamic creative technology.
Apart from hungry customers, commerce and retail advertisers also benefit from the company’s initiatives to drive meaningful results from retail campaigns. For example, it rolled out the click-to functionality, allowing advertisers to embed a direct-to-cart CTA inside the ad. This creates an expedited path to consumer purchase, benefitting advertisers and establishing Perion as a significant force in the field.
6. Sprinklr, Inc. (NYSE:CXM)
Short % of Float: 3.2
No. of Hedge Funds as of Q2 2024: 25
Sprinklr (NYSE:CXM) is an AI-powered marketing and advertising platform. It operates Unified Customer Experience Management, an AI-powered platform that allows customer-facing functions across the front office. The company’s specializations range from marketing to customer service, allowing collaboration across internal silos, communication across digital channels, and delivering human customer experiences by leveraging an array of capabilities.
The company’s platform builds connections between organizations and customers through around 30 digital channels. These include messaging, text, live chat, social media, blogs, news, review sites, and hundreds of millions of forums. The company’s single-codebase platform is specifically designed to manage unstructured data, offering a variety of digital use cases across the front office. The unified platform also allows customer-led governance, seamless collaboration throughout the customer journey, broad-based listening, and timely decision-making.
Sprinklr (NYSE:CXM) boasts several building blocks that are expected to support its growth and profitability. It operates in a growing and attractive market and facilitates its gold-star list of customers via an AI-powered unified customer experience management platform. It holds a differentiated leadership position in its core product suites, and also holds the position of an emerging disruptor in the CCaaS space.
During Q2 fiscal 2025, Sprinklr (NYSE:CXM) added several new customers and expanded partnerships with existing ones across all its product suites, including Ford, UBS, Planet Fitness, Grupo Bimbo, and T-Mobile. Its platform also managed to replace multiple-point solutions and social tools, including a vendor that held its place for 12 years.
Sprinklr (NYSE:CXM) has promising growth plans in place. It unifies AI-powered marketing, engagement, listening, customer service, and publishing across all its social channels. This allows the company’s teams to collaborate better, improving customer experiences in the long run. A suitable example is a global EV company that uses Sprinklr’s core product suite to facilitate its aggressive launch in several countries. Leveraging Sprinklr’s insight suite, the EV company realizes market opportunities and social capabilities to market on different channels in popular channels across various countries. The stock ranks sixth on our list of the worst marketing stocks to buy.
5. Ziff Davis, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZD)
Short % of Float: 5.17
No. of Hedge Funds as of Q2 2024: 20
Ziff Davies (NASDAQ:ZD) is a digital media and internet company with a portfolio encompassing brands in shopping, technology, gaming and entertainment, Martech, cybersecurity, connectivity, and health. The company operates in segments, namely Digital Media and Cybersecurity and Martech. The Digital Media segment offers services, content, and tools to customers, specializing in shopping, connectivity, gaming and entertainment, technology, and healthcare. This segment operates a portfolio of apps and Web properties, including Mashable, IGN, RetailMeNot, Humble Bundle, BabyCenter, Offers.com, PCMag, MedPage Today, Black Friday, What To Expect, and others.
The Martech and Cybersecurity segment offers cloud-based subscription services to businesses and consumers, including marketing technology, privacy, and cybersecurity. The company markets its Martech and cybersecurity offerings to prospective business customers. Ziff Davies (NASDAQ:ZD) is reaffirming its financial guidance based on the growth of the digital media segment, expecting increased growth in connectivity, gaming, and health and wellness.
Furthering its compound growth and strategic expansion objectives, Ziff Davies (NASDAQ:ZD) recently acquired Gamer Network and announced the signing of an agreement to acquire CNET pending customary closing conditions. Both these acquisitions add powerfully established brands to the company’s portfolio and enhance its leadership positions in their respective categories.
As part of the deal with CNET, ZDNet would return to Ziff Davies (NASDAQ:ZD). ZDNet was established by Ziff Davies 31 years ago and sold to CNET in 2000. The pending deal with the company will result in a homecoming of sorts, positioning the company to unlock further value with people and platforms and plans to grow monetization, traffic, and free cash flow.
4. Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC)
Short % of Float: 5.93
No. of Hedge Funds as of Q2 2024: 31
Omnicom (NYSE:OMC) is a global marketing and corporate communications company. It specializes in several domains and offers services to more than 5,000 clients in around 70 countries. Its services span advertising, precision marketing, strategic media planning, and buying, public relations, commerce, and branding, customer relation marketing (CRM), and other specialty communications services. The company also offers specialized services in digital marketing, direct marketing, digital transformation consulting, interactive and mobile marketing, social media marketing, and post-production services.
Its other areas of specialization include investor relations, crisis communication, public affairs, in-store design, search engine marketing, promotional marketing, custom publishing, and other services. Omnicom (NYSE:OMC) also offers services in e-commerce operations, media execution, and market intelligence by operating Flywheel Digital as its digital commerce.
The company continued its strategic expansion strategies throughout the quarter, growing its market-leading e-commerce capabilities and retail media. At Cannes, it announced a collaboration with Amazon Ads, enabling its media teams to access Amazon’s shopping, browning, and streaming insights to directly tie CTV and linear investments to purchases made on Amazon.
Similar to other sectors across the globe, the company is focusing on expanding its generative AI solution. It expanded its e-commerce offerings and launched Omni 3.0 at Cannes in 2023. Omni 3.0, the upgraded version of AI-powered Omni, is helping the company expand its operations in precision marketing, media, and production. It also announced first-mover collaborations with Gett, Google, Adobe, Amazon, and Microsoft’s OpenAI to attain early access to their LLMs. The results of these generative AI partnerships and tools are starting to get activated in every segment in the company’s business, ranging from strategy to production to creative, precision marketing, and media.
The company announced the formation of Omnicom Production in June, which is a new practice area that amalgamates its global production units. Omnicom production operates through a collection of studios powered by latest technologies and data-driven insights to deliver best-in-class content production services. This centralization is continuously improving the company’s delivery of content to clients, making it simpler, more effective, and more integrated. In addition, it now holds the breadth of capabilities to pursue a substantial amount of incremental production revenue growth. The group boasts more than 3,000 people across major markets worldwide.
3. National CineMedia, Inc. (NASDAQ:NCMI)
Short % of Float: 6.1
No. of Hedge Funds as of Q2 2024: 12
National CineMedia (NASDAQ:NCMI) is a media company that operates in the American cinema advertising sector. It boasts 18,400 screens in more than 14,400 theaters in 190 Designated Market Areas nationwide. The company presents several formats of The Noovie Show, depending upon its theatre circuit of operation. This includes Post-Showtime advertising inventory after the advertised showtime, and the selling of advertising on its LEN, a series of screens in movie theatre lobbies.
National CineMedia’s (NASDAQ:NCMI) platform also manages other kinds of advertisements and promotions in theatre lobbies. These include digital online advertisements managed through its Audience Accelerator, which functions across several Noovie complementary out-of-home venues, such as restaurants, convenience stores, and even college campuses. It also functions across Noovie digital properties.
The company shows positive consumer engagement trends, with the cinema industry thriving in 2024 and the box office landing $1.9 billion. The company managed to reach its primary target audience, comprising Millenials and Gen Z, who accounted for nearly 70% of its total viewership in Q2. This translates to around 30 million individuals. National CineMedia (NYSE:NCMI) added 11 new advertisers with significant major cinema advertising campaigns year-to-date. In addition, its platinum advertising offering in Q2 fiscal 2024 made the quarter its second-best quarter ever, standing right behind Q4 2019.
Its sales also increased by more than 15 times in the Q2 fiscal 2024 as compared to the same period in 2023, highlighting the company’s strong profitability model. Public interest in this exclusive offering is continuing to grow, with advertisers from several premier categories planning to include their campaigns in the coming quarter. These categories include entertainment, government, and dining. In addition, an increasing interest in experiential marketing is also driving demand and opening up new opportunities for the company.
2. Thryv Holdings (NASDAQ:THRY)
Short % of Float: 6.9
No. of Hedge Funds as of Q2 2024: 18
Thryv Holdings (NASDAQ:THRY) is a marketing services and software company that serves small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It services more than 350,000 SMBs through four segments: Thryv US Marketing Services, Thryv US SaaS, Thryv International Marketing Services, and Thryv International SaaS.
The Thryv US Marketing Services segment encompasses its US digital and print solutions business. In contrast, the Thryv International Marketing Services segment includes its digital and print solutions business outside the US. More than 65,000 businesses use the company’s software as a service (SaaS) platform to manage their end-to-end operations. Its solutions allow SMB clients to execute daily operations, manage customer relationships, and generate new business leads. Its US SaaS segment covers its SaaS flagship all-in-one small business management platform in the US, while the International SaaS segment manages the same outside the country.
SaaS revenue in Q2 2024 increased by 25% year over year to $77.8 million, standing within the company’s guidance range. SaaS EBITDA significantly outperformed, experiencing a 60% year-over-year growth to $10 million, the highest point it has reached as a public company. The company also delivered strong subscriber growth, growing by 52% with 85,000 clients. It is also successfully upgrading its marketing services clients to its SaaS platform, highlighting the robust profitability model the company is running on.
Thryv (NASDAQ:THRY) also streamlined its sales process to incentivize and prioritize high-margin product sales while undertaking initiatives to boost spending from its existing customer base. As a result, SaaS subscribers grew to 85,000 in Q2 from 70,000 in Q1 fiscal 2024. This 21% sequential increase was achieved by continuously migrating marketing services clients to the SaaS platform.
A key factor driving the company’s success in this strategic transition is its recently launched marketing center. The center empowers businesses by managing their advertising campaigns, augmenting their online presence, and making insightful decisions backed by data. This product has proved highly effective in elevating the company’s market standing, positioning its clients for success in a digital-first world.
Its center strategy is continuing to take ground, as more than 10% of its current clients have two or more paid centers. This translates to a sequential growth of 200 basis points and a growth of 800 basis points from the same time last year. These trends show that more clients are benefitting from the company’s marketing center and experiencing tangible results in their business growth. The stock’s current price target of $18.84 implies an upside of 51.27%. It ranks second on our list of the worst marketing stocks to buy.
Laughing Water Capital stated the following regarding Thryv Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:THRY) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Thryv Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:THRY) – Thryv, our growing SMB software business that is milking its declining Marketing Services business for cash flow, grew SAAS customers 30% YoY, increased full-year guidance, announced that seasoned net dollar retention improved by 300 bps, refinanced their debt on better terms, and initiated a share repurchase program during the quarter. These are all undeniably positive developments, but on the negative side of the ledger, the decline of their Marketing Services business has accelerated a touch, and shares have sold off sharply.
Last quarter, under separate cover I included a longer writeup on THRY where I explained what I think is happening under the surface at THRY with the Marketing Services business and the new Marketing Center SAAS product, and how I believe the economics of Marketing Center will prove to be wildly superior to the economics of the Marketing Services business. Thus far the market not only does not care, but in fact seems to be punishing THRY for what I believe will be a positive evolution of their business.
Management has indicated that revenue from the SAAS business will eclipse revenue from the Marketing Services business around this time next year, at which point THRY should start to trade more like the software business it is than the marketing business it was. Unsurprisingly, insiders at THRY once again bought shares in the quarter.”
1. Cardlytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:CDLX)
Short % of Float: 17.31
No. of Hedge Funds as of Q2 2024: 19
Cardlytics (NASDAQ:CDLX) specializes in operating a digital advertising platform across the United States and the United Kingdom. This includes online, email, mobile applications, and various other real-time notifications. This platform enables marketers to deliver advertisements to customers and earn rewards, which are, in turn, funded by the fees they pay the company. It thus helps marketers connect with their potential customers across several financial institutions (FI) partners through their digital banking accounts.
Bridg also falls under the company’s operations. This customer data platform uses point-of-sale data to help partners undertake analytics and targeted loyal marketing while also calculating the impact of their marketing endeavors.
Cardlytics (NASDAQ:CDLX) operates a digital advertising platform with its partners and its own digital channels. These include mobile applications, online, email, and various real-time notifications. The Cardlytics platform allows marketers to deliver advertising content to customers and earn rewards, funded with a portion of the fee collected from them. The platform equips marketers to reach their potential customers across various financial institutions (FI) partners through their digital banking accounts.
The company has significant expansion and growth plans in place and is releasing new technology in three primary areas. These include the refinement and adoption of its Ad Decisiioning Engine (ADE), its Dynamic Marketplace launch, and its Automated Insights Dashboard. The Automated Insights Dashboard allows access to on-demand insights by advertisers, while the Dynamic Marketplace includes a transition to engagement-based pricing models. In addition, over 80% of the company’s banks are already jumping on the ADE bandwagon, with the rest expected to follow suit. These advancements are expected to offer the company a higher industry standing, appeal to advertisers, and boost growth.
Overall, CDLX ranks first among the 10 worst marketing stocks to buy now. While we acknowledge the potential of marketing companies, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CDLX but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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