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Zeta Global (ZETA) Q2 FY26 earnings call: guidance and Q&A

Earnings call· Jun 2026 (Q2 FY26)· Information Technology· Aug 4, 2026

Source: earnings call transcript

Executive summary

Zeta Global Q2 FY26 — 20th Consecutive Beat & Raise, AI Infrastructure Platform

Zeta Global delivered its 20th consecutive beat and raise quarter, showcasing accelerated revenue growth and expanding profitability. The company is transforming into an intelligent AI infrastructure platform, leveraging strategic partnerships with OpenAI, Palantir, and Snowflake to expand market opportunities beyond traditional marketing. Rapid AI adoption is translating into higher customer engagement and net revenue retention, driving increased full-year guidance and strong operating leverage.

Highlights

6

  • Revenue grew 44% year-over-year to $443 million, beating guidance by $23 million.

  • Adjusted EBITDA increased 56% year-over-year to $92 million, with margin expanding 170 basis points to 20.7%.

  • Free cash flow surged 73% year-over-year to $58 million, achieving a 13.1% margin and 63% conversion.

  • GAAP net income turned positive at $8.2 million, resulting in GAAP EPS of $0.03.

  • Super-scaled customer count grew 17% year-over-year to 197, more than double the 2028 model growth rate, driven by Athena demand.

  • Sales pipeline increased over 60% year-over-year, with pipeline creation per seller up over 100% year-over-year.

Guidance & targets

CategoryTargetConfidence
Full Year 2026 Revenue
$1.818 billion
high materiality
High
Full Year 2026 Adjusted EBITDA
$405 million
high materiality
High
Full Year 2026 Free Cash Flow
$255 million
high materiality
High
Full Year 2026 GAAP EPS
$0.10
high materiality
High
Q3 2026 Revenue
$471 million
high materiality
High
Q3 2026 Adjusted EBITDA
$115 million
high materiality
High
Q3 2026 Political Candidate Revenue
$7 million
medium materiality
Medium
Q4 2026 Political Candidate Revenue
$8 million
medium materiality
Medium
Free Cash Flow Conversion
65%
medium materiality
High
Super-scaled Customer Growth Rate
4% to 8%
medium materiality
High
Super-scaled ARPU Growth Rate
12% to 16%
medium materiality
High
Net Dilution
3% to 4%
low materiality
High

ZETA operating KPIs by quarter

ZETA operating KPIs stated on its earnings calls, by fiscal quarter
KPI Dec 2025 Q4 FY25 Mar 2026 Q1 FY26This call Jun 2026 Q2 FY26Change vs prior quarter
Customers above an annual spend threshold Super-scaled customers
184 We ended the quarter with 184 super-scaled customer customers, up 24% year-over-year, well above our target of 4% to 8%. Source: earnings call transcript
189 Total super-scaled customer count grew to 189, up 19% year-over-year and an addition of 5 customers sequentially. Source: earnings call transcript
197 Super-scaled customers grew to 197, up 17% year-over-year, more than double our 4% to 8% 2028 model growth rate, driven by demand for Athena. Source: earnings call transcript
+4.2%

Operating figures the company stated on at least two of the calls shown, checked against each call's transcript. Click a figure to read the sentence. A dash means it was not stated that quarter.

Product announcements

ProductTypeDetails
Zeta Livemilestone
Athena for agencieslaunch

Deals & partnerships

OpenAI Collaboration to enhance Athena's capabilities and create new commercial opportunities.

OpenAI powers the voice component of Athena. Zeta has a ubiquitous enterprise agreement with OpenAI, giving all global employees access to OpenAI's products with baked-in usage costs.

Snowflake Deepened existing partnership, reinforcing Zeta's role in the enterprise data ecosystem.

Over 100 shared customers, connecting data environments with intelligence and activation.

Palantir Significantly expands Zeta's enterprise opportunity. Palantir provides ontology, governance, and enterprise AI infrastructure, while Zeta contributes proprietary customer intelligence, data, identity, decisioning, and activation.

The Palantir relationship is seen as a major entry point into large advertisers, with Zeta's data cloud now built on Foundry.

Gap Selected Zeta to architect its next-generation marketing stack with Athena at the center, unifying decision-making across its iconic brands. multiyear agreement

Zeta is helping Gap remove silos, build a more intelligent marketing engine, and has become Gap's system of record, displacing Salesforce and three other vendors.

What to watch in Q3 FY26

AI-specific revenue contribution from partnerships

next quarter
Current not baked into current guidance
Target meaningful revenue contribution

Why it matters

Management stated that revenue from OpenAI and Palantir partnerships is not yet included in guidance, implying potential upside.

I will tell you that if I put the numbers of the deals we're working to into our pipeline, it would artificially skew our pipeline up too much at this point. it is that big an opportunity... as Chris said, is not baked into the numbers just yet.

Find out whether ZETA delivers this. Inve re-checks your case every morning.

Q&A highlights

How will One Zeta and Athena continue to drive multi-use case adoption and channel usage, and what's the outlook for ARPU growth?

Management expects continued runway for multi-use case adoption (up 90% YoY) and 5+ channel usage (up 50% YoY), with cross-sell/upsell deals up 43%. Athena is seen as a powerful tool for cross-selling, contributing to ARPU growth above the long-term model.

“And we're seeing Athena really just the tip of the spear it's just getting started. It's one of the single most powerful tools we've ever had for cross-selling against use cases and channels, Jason.”

asked by Jason Kreyer · answered by David Steinberg

2 min read 5 chapters

Detailed narrative

Transformation to Intelligent AI Infrastructure

Zeta is evolving beyond a marketing technology company to an intelligent AI infrastructure platform. This platform combines proprietary data, AI (Athena), workflow automation, and activation into a single operating system. The foundation is a data cloud built on proprietary data covering over 535 million individuals globally and trillions of signals. This transformation is accelerated by strategic partnerships and the expansion into new use cases like Zeta Business Intelligence (ZBI).

Athena's Impact and OpenAI Partnership

Athena, powered by OpenAI for voice interactions, is fundamentally changing how customers interact with the Zeta platform. It enables natural language queries, allowing customers to focus on outcomes rather than navigating dashboards. This has led to 500% higher interaction rates for voice users and 90% of new code generation being automated internally, significantly accelerating product development and platform enhancements. The OpenAI partnership validates Zeta's AI strategy and creates new commercial opportunities.

Strategic Partnerships and Market Expansion

Deepened partnerships with Snowflake (over 100 shared customers) and Palantir (data cloud fully integrated with Foundry) are significantly expanding Zeta's enterprise opportunity. These collaborations enhance data governance, provide enterprise AI infrastructure, and enable Zeta to act on data, not just store and analyze it. These partnerships are driving new commercial opportunities, including multiple joint sales agreements with Palantir, and are not yet fully reflected in current guidance.

ZBI Use Cases and Rapid Productization

Zeta Business Intelligence (ZBI) is emerging as a fourth use case, helping enterprises predict and act on business insights in real-time, moving beyond static dashboards. Examples include optimizing sports broadcasting rights negotiations and quantifying brand value for retail partners. The ability to auto-generate 90% of new code allows for rapid productization of client requests, building out vertical-specific solutions within ZBI and creating a flywheel effect for incremental revenue and deeper client engagement.

Sales Productivity and Market Position

The company is experiencing significant improvements in sales productivity, with pipeline creation per seller up over 100% year-over-year and average contract values up over 40%. This is driven by the 'One Zeta' initiative, Marigold cross-selling, and a hyper-focus on vertical expertise. Zeta is well-positioned to capitalize on a marketing cloud replacement cycle, offering a natively integrated data and AI platform that provides superior return on marketing spend compared to competitors, as evidenced by a major win with Gap.

Summary of the company's earnings call; see how call summaries are prepared. Not investment advice.