And then on the expense front, yes, I mean, we certainly are investing and expenses will grow quarter-over-quarter at this point. When we look into next year, we would think, one, you have the annualization of the investments we made in 2023 and the annualizing the impact of that 24 will impact expenses. But the clear focus is to grow expenses slower — quite a bit slower than we’re growing our top line. So, that’s how we’re looking at it. We will continue to make selected investments going forward into ’24, but you will see somewhat of an increase in OpEx different. Obviously — this year, we did significant cuts last December. So ’23, you’re seeing a decline, but we will see modest increases next year.
Operator: And our next question will come from Jason Kreyer with Craig-Hallum.
Cal Bartyzal : Thank you. This is Cal Bartyzal on for Jason. So just a couple for me, I guess, to start. Can you just kind of talk about the CTV growth potential as Direct Access continues to gain adoption?
Tim Vanderhook : Yes. I would just say specifically within CTV, that’s where our Direct Access Program is focused — it’s not something that we’re looking to take fees on. We’re really just trying to give the most optimized path and the most direct path for our customers to get more working media dollars to premium content owners and probably the most exciting channel in many years. So that’s really the focus, and it’s definitely — it’s in every single conversation that we’re having with marketers. Especially, this was a great year to be able to launch that and really drive it because the budgets are a lot more demanding, especially if you think about coming out of Q4 last year — it really started to turn heads. We’ve been really pleased with the growth of that.
So as we stated, it’s more than 25% of CTV spending. We see that, and we expect it to continue to grow. One of the — one is just — it makes complete financial sense. It’s more working media dollars to the publisher that’s more reach and more potential new customers for our clients. That’s a big one and really just the directness nature of it, market and the savings there. Marketers really see the value in that. There’s also some, I think, some more exciting things that will come out of Direct Access. As these premium content owners are continually looking to get more and more access to our clients’ demand, I think that’s going to open up a lot more opportunities things around data driven. Disney came out recently last week with an announcement that included us all around more data-driven products and bidding.
So a more biddable supply. I would say, this time last year, there was a concern in the market that CTV was all going to be kind of direct IOs and it’s not data-driven. We didn’t — we expected the opposite and we’re seeing that. You’re seeing the largest content owner in the world there. opening up data-driven, biddable inventory. So we expect that to continue to grow. So we think that Direct Access is really going to play a huge role in us keep outpacing industry CTV growth.
Cal Bartyzal : Perfect. And then just last 1 for me. As these AI tools continue to roll out, how do you expect that to manifest in the P&L? Are these discrete revenue drivers? Or are they more so differentiators to drive more share gain and wallet gain, things like that?
Tim Vanderhook : Yes. No, they are revenue drivers. So Bid Optimizer has been producing revenue. We launched it in June. The way we drive revenue there, is we keep 20% of the CPM savings that we produce. So it’s based off the value that we create. And they’ve been big drivers, all these products in aggregate, drive our contribution ex-TAC up ultimately if they’re adopted. Larry, would you add anything from there?
Larry Madden : Yes. I would also add, the direct revenue drivers, but they also help us win incremental business with our customers as well, putting more dollars to work based on certain elements of our product line. So we’re winning incremental business, but we’re also seeing a modest increase in the revenue and contribution ex TAC as a result of using these products as well.
Operator: And that is all the time that we have today for questions. So Chris and Tim, I’ll turn it back to you for closing remarks.
Chris Vanderhook : Thank you, everyone, for joining our third quarter call, and thank you to all the Viant employees that produced a terrific quarter. Thanks a lot, and we’ll see you at our next quarterly earnings.
