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DATE
Wed, Oct. 28, 2026
CALL PARTICIPANTS
- Chief Executive Officer - Steve Yi
- Chief Financial Officer - Tigran Sinanyan
TAKEAWAYS
- Revenue -- $375.9 million, representing a 22.7% increase year over year driven by broader carrier participation and increased spend.
- Net Income -- $29.4 million, increasing 66.4% year over year as growth accelerated through the income statement.
- Adjusted EBITDA -- $39.5 million, up 35.8% year over year and representing a conversion rate of 69% from contribution.
- Contribution -- $57.4 million, rising 25.8% year over year due to a mix shift toward the higher-margin open marketplace.
- Auto Insurance Revenue -- 17% growth year over year, remaining the primary driver of the property and casualty insurance vertical.
- Home and Renters Revenue -- $66 million, a record for the company and an increase of 116% year over year reflecting increased carrier capacity in major states.
- Agent Revenue -- $21 million, up 46% year over year as the company expanded its footprint to over 3,000 active agents.
- Annualized P&C Advertising Spend -- Over $2.5 billion, providing a scale advantage that management noted makes predictive algorithms more effective.
- Diluted Net Income Per Share -- $0.46, increasing from $0.26 in the prior year period.
- Share Repurchases (Third Quarter) -- 800,000 shares for $9 million, representing an average price per share of $11.25.
- Post-Quarter Share Repurchases -- 1.8 million shares for $18 million as of Oct. 26, at an average price of $10.38 per share.
- Cumulative Repurchases -- $115 million since Sept. 2025, resulting in a reduction of approximately 11.2 million shares or 16% of shares outstanding.
- TRA Liability Repurchase -- $23 million of total liability repurchased for $12 million, representing a 47% discount and generating an $11 million gain.
- Q4 Revenue Guidance -- $355 million to $375 million, representing 25% year-over-year growth at the midpoint.
- Q4 Contribution Guidance -- $54 million to $57 million, representing 18% growth year over year at the midpoint.
- Q4 Adjusted EBITDA Guidance -- $36 million to $39 million, representing a 22% increase year over year at the midpoint.
- Full Year Free Cash Flow Guidance -- $90 million to $100 million, supported by low capital expenditure requirements.
- Cash Balance -- $18.7 million at the end of the third quarter, with an additional $30 million in undrawn revolving credit capacity.
- Conversion Rate Improvement -- 80% improvement in a recent test using proprietary optimization models, driving lower costs per policy for carriers.
- Carrier Concentration -- Three carriers each represented more than 10% of revenue, with a fourth carrier contributing 9.6%.
- Health Vertical Guidance -- Approximately 4% of total revenue in the fourth quarter, reflecting seasonal enrollment periods.
- Gross Margin -- 14.7%, compared with 14.2% in the third quarter of 2025.
- Operating Cash Flow -- $62.6 million for the nine months ended Sept. 30, compared with $73.0 million in the prior year period.
- Revolving Credit Draw -- $10 million drawn post-quarter to support the pace of share repurchases.
- Contribution Margin -- 15.3%, compared with 14.9% in the prior year period.
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RISKS
- Sinanyan stated, "In 2026, cash taxes will be approximately 1%. Going forward in 2027, you can expect that to be in the mid single digits. And then in the mid teens thereafter," indicating a projected increase in future cash tax obligations as existing shields are utilized.
SUMMARY
MediaAlpha, Inc. (NYSE:MAX) reported record quarterly results across all key financial and operational metrics, driven by an expansion in carrier participation and increased competition for policy growth. Management reported that the marketplace is currently benefiting from a growth-oriented underwriting cycle in the property and casualty sector, which has led to higher advertising budgets from major carriers. The company is actively diversifying its revenue streams through the growth of its agent-based business and expansion into the home insurance vertical. Strategic capital allocation remains a priority, with significant investments in share repurchases and the reduction of tax receivable agreement liabilities. Management indicated that the platform's scale and predictive AI capabilities provide a data advantage that improves conversion efficiency for advertising partners.
- Management indicated that digital advertising remains underpenetrated in the property and casualty sector at 40%, compared to 80% in other industries.
- CEO Yi stated, "We expect quoting and binding to largely stay in carrier controlled systems whether the shopper is a person, or an AI agent," dismissing concerns that personal AI agents would disrupt the carrier relationship.
- The company noted a secular shift toward direct distribution, with carriers expected to migrate a portion of $35 billion in annual agent commissions into digital marketing.
- The home insurance vertical is benefiting from carriers returning to large states including Florida, California, and Texas after periods of restricted capacity.
- Sinanyan noted that the repurchase of tax receivable agreement liabilities will retain approximately $5 million a year of incremental cash flow that previously went to agreement holders.
- CEO Yi stated, "The second quarter of this year was the most profitable period by some measures within the P&C industry in 25 years," fueling current competition for market share.
- The agent-based business, which was started from scratch in the first quarter of 2021, now powers programmatic purchasing for all Farmers Insurance agents.
INDUSTRY GLOSSARY
- Adjusted EBITDA: A non-GAAP financial metric that excludes interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, and other specific items such as equity-based compensation and transaction expenses.
- Contribution: Revenue minus revenue share payments and online advertising costs, used to measure the return on supply partner relationships.
- Open Marketplace: A segment of the company's platform where carriers compete for leads through transparent bidding and optimization.
- P&C: Property and Casualty insurance, covering risks such as auto, home, and renters insurance.
- Programmatic Advertising: The automated buying and selling of digital advertising space using algorithms.
- TRA: Tax Receivable Agreement, a contract that typically requires a company to share a portion of its tax savings with its pre-IPO owners.
Full Conference Call Transcript
Operator: And thank you for standing by. My name is Lacey, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the MediaAlpha Inc. Third Quarter 26 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Alex. Please go ahead.
Jeffrey Coyne: Thanks, Lacey. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. With me are Cory, Founder and CEO; Steven Yi; and CFO, Tigran Sinanyan. On today's call, we will make forward looking statements relating to our business and outlook for future financial results. Including our financial guidance for the fourth quarter and full year of 2026. These forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for a fuller explanation of those risks and uncertainties and limits applicable to forward looking statements.
All the forward looking statements we make on this call reflect our assumptions and beliefs as of today, and we disclaim any obligation to update such statements except as required by law. Today's discussion will include non GAAP financial measures, which are not a substitute for GAAP results. Reconciliations of these non GAAP financial measures to the corresponding GAAP measures can be found in our press release and investor supplement issued today which are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. I will now turn the call over to Steven.
Steven Yi: Thanks, Alex. Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining us. The third quarter was the best quarter in MediaAlpha's history across all of our key metrics. During the quarter, our revenue base continued to broaden as multiple carriers stepped up their budgets meaningfully driven by intensifying competition for policy growth. This resulted in strong volume for our supply partners, who delivered more high quality consumer referrals into our marketplace. We continue to execute very well in these favorable market conditions, which we expect to continue for the foreseeable future. Auto insurance revenue grew 17% year over year and remains the largest driver of growth in our property and casualty insurance vertical.
We are also seeing more carriers put real ad dollars behind home insurance where we have historically had a much smaller footprint. In home and renters, revenue hit a record $66 million in the third quarter, up 116% year-over-year. That growth was driven by strengthening market conditions and wallet share gains, as both traditional and natively online direct to consumer digital carriers allocated more of their budgets to us in pursuit of efficient growth. As carriers evolve towards more multichannel distribution, we are uniquely positioned to help them acquire customers effectively across both their direct to consumer and agent based channels.
As a reminder, started our agent business from scratch in Q1 of 21 to help captive and independent insurance agents acquire customers efficiently and directly on our platform. Using the same programmatic capabilities we offer to our carrier partners. We invested in automation to serve a growing number of agents with a much smaller, leaner team, which enables us to scale efficiently. Today, we work directly with over 3 thousand active agents, up from approximately 2,000 a year ago. In the third quarter alone, agent revenue was $21 million, up approximately 46% from $14 million a year ago. Agents continue to represent a significant share of insurance and an attractive growth driver for MediaAlpha. Complementing our direct-to-consumer capabilities.
Our platform powered over $2.5 billion of annualized P&C advertising spend in the third quarter. We believe this scale which is the largest in our industry, makes our predictive algorithms more effective at delivering unique insights, and superior value to carriers. For example, in a recent test, a carrier that opted into our proprietary optimization models, conversion rates improved by roughly 80% which drove far greater sales at a lower cost per policy. We love these kinds of tests because they demonstrate to carriers the value of our data scale advantage through real measurable efficiency gains. As we keep delivering such results, we expect carriers to shift more budget into our higher margin open marketplace.
This drives the flywheel of our 2-sided market by further increasing our scale advantage, which allows us to deliver even more differentiated insights and greater efficiencies over time. As we look ahead, we expect consumers to increasingly leverage AI to help them shop for insurance. While no 1 can predict exactly how this will unfold, we remain confident that major carriers will retain a high level of control over how their policies are advertised, distributed, and sold. We are also confident that advertising will emerge as the dominant monetization paradigm for consumer AI companies, creating a new acquisition channel for our supply partners. We have seen ChatGPT aggressively roll out to free tier subscribers.
In September, according to SimilarWeb, 43% of free tier ChatGPT users in The United States were shown ads. While the impact of Agent-based commerce as enabled by personal AI agents like Muse, will vary widely across consumer products and services, large brands and merchants are already signaling that they intend to retain control over how AI agents access their system and interact with customers on their behalf. Earlier this month, Meta and Sierra, with partners including Shopify, Stripe, and Walmart, announced the personal agent protocol, an emerging standard designed to let businesses verify who an AI agent represents and sets rules for what an agent is allowed and not allowed to do. That reflects a simple reality.
Companies want to control how third parties access and interact with their website systems and customer facing experiences. Insurance carriers are no different. And we expect quoting and binding to largely stay in carrier controlled systems whether the shopper is a person, or an AI agent. As we look ahead to 2027, we are confident in the momentum we are seeing as broader carrier mix reflects the wider demand in the market. We are continuing to operate in a growth oriented auto insurance market cycle and our marketplace delivers the scale and efficiency that carriers need to compete. That competition is driving higher carrier budgets, and more of those dollars are flowing through our marketplace.
Longer term, the shift towards direct distribution will continue. With carriers expected to shift a growing portion of their $35 billion of spend in insurance agent commissions into digital marketing over time. As we wrap up 2026, we believe our business has years of durable double digit growth to come and that will translate into real value for our shareholders. With that, I am excited to welcome Tigran back as our CFO. Tigran, I will hand it over to you to take us through our numbers.
Tigran Sinanyan: Thanks, Steven. it is great to be back, and I am proud to share these results with you and the team. Our record results exceeded the high end of our guidance ranges for revenue, contribution and adjusted EBITDA. I will cover what drove our results, then cover capital allocation, and our fourth quarter outlook. Revenue for the third quarter was $376 million, up 23% year over year, reflecting broader carrier participation and increased spend in our marketplace. That broadening also showed up in our customer mix. And we are pleased with our progress in diversifying demand. 3 carriers each represented more than 10% of third quarter revenue, and our fourth largest carrier was just under that mark at 9.6%.
Contribution was $57 million, up 26% year over year and outpacing revenue. That reflects a mix shift toward our open marketplace. Led by carriers that rely on us as a trusted partner for optimization and account management. Adjusted EBITDA, was $39 million, up 36% year over year. Excluding Under-65 Health, revenue and adjusted EBITDA grew 26% and 42% year over year, respectively. Reflecting very strong performance in our core business. Growth accelerated as we move down the P&L. Revenue grew 23%, contribution grew 26%, and adjusted EBITDA grew 36% year over year. Reflecting the operating leverage in our model. As contribution grew, a higher share of each incremental dollar flowed through to adjusted EBITDA.
Contribution margin, by contrast, can fluctuate from quarter to quarter, with deployment mix, product mix, and partnership dynamics. This quarter, we converted 69% of contribution into adjusted EBITDA. Our highest since 2024. That operating leverage drives strong cash generation and enables us to deploy capital aggressively to create shareholder value. Cash generation continues to be strong. In the third quarter, we deployed $21 million of capital across share repurchases and reductions to our obligations under the Tax Receivable Agreement or TRA. We repurchased approximately 800 thousand shares for $9 million representing an average price per share of $11.25 We also continue to reduce our long term obligations under the TRA.
In September, we repurchased $23 million of our total TRA liability for $12 million. Representing a 47% discount which generated an $11 million gain that we recorded in the third quarter. We funded this transaction with cash on hand. Since quarter end and as of October 26, we have repurchased an additional 1.8 million shares for $18 million an average price of $10.38 per share. Utilizing $82 million of our $100 million authorization. This brings our total repurchases since September 2025 to approximately $115 million, a reduction of approximately 11.2 million shares, or 16% of our shares outstanding. We ended the quarter with $18.7 million in cash, and $30 million undrawn on the revolver.
To support the pace of repurchases early in the fourth quarter, we drew $10 million on our revolving credit facility after quarter end. Which we view as an attractive use of capital. Turning to guidance. Our philosophy and approach remains unchanged. For the fourth quarter, we expect revenue of $355 million to $375 million, up approximately 25% year over year at the midpoint, contribution of $54 million to $57 million, up approximately 18% year over year at the midpoint, and adjusted EBITDA of $36 million to $39 million, up approximately 22% year over year at the midpoint. For Q4, we expect the Health vertical to be approximately 4% of total revenue.
Our adjusted EBITDA guidance includes a decline in contribution from 65 Health of approximately $900 thousand year-over-year. Excluding under-65 health, we expect contribution to increase 21% and adjusted EBITDA to increase by 26% year over year at the midpoint. For the full year 2026, we continue to expect to generate $90 million to $100 million in free cash flow. We are proud of the progress the team has made this year and we are excited about what is ahead. Overall, we remain confident in the strength of our position and the opportunity ahead of us. With that, operator, we are ready to take the first question.
Operator: Remind everyone, in order to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Maria Ripps with Canaccord. Please go ahead.
Maria Ripps: Great. Good afternoon, and congrats on the strong results. And welcome back as CFO. it is great to hear your voice on the on the call again. Well, thanks for taking my questions. First, I just want to ask about your expectations for double digit growth in 2027 and beyond. Just you maybe talk about whether that is revenue or contribution? And then can you maybe help us bridge that between industry growth and share gains from carriers beyond the top 2? And does that assume that your top 2 carriers hold the spend, the 2026 spend levels?
Operator: Thank you for your question.
Tigran Sinanyan: it is good to be back. I think when it comes to bridging the double digit growth, I will say that first, our top 2 carrier partners, you know, the leaders in direct consumer customer acquisition continue to invest in the platform and continue to invest in our marketplace. And so what we are seeing and. Is a continuation of what we saw in Q3. Which is an acceleration in the velocity of spend from carriers 3 to 5. I would say that we expect that double digit growth to carry across all of the metrics, particularly because a lot of the growth is coming from our open marketplace, where we have higher contribution margin.
And so just kind of stepping through the industry dynamics, as a starting point, you know, premium KU and P and C, over a long period of time has been roughly 6%. Digital advertising remains under penetrated in PNC. You know, our latest stats show about 40% online digital ad penetration relative to other industries, which are at 80%. We are starting to see that catch up. And of course, there is the secular shift to direct to consumer. And that, along with that broadening that we have seen in Q3 and where we are seeing into Q4, it is not hard to bridge from that to a double digit CAGR and expectation for us going forward.
Maria Ripps: Got it. that is, that is very helpful. And then, just in terms of AI agents and of what is going on in the industry, so it feels like as AI agents like Muse can now fill out forms and sort of complete purchases on behalf of users. Are you seeing sort of any agent-driven shopping sort of already happening in the marketplace? And then if shopper. Sort of your shopper becomes an agent rather than a person, how does how does your sort of pay per click model change as a result?
Steven Yi: Yeah. Maria, I can handle that question. No, we have not seen any impact of personal AI agent shopping on behalf of consumers. Certainly, we have seen some of the demos that people have been talking about. I think, you know, I think that this is I think something that is going to foreseeably shape the early part of the consumer shopping experience. But I think, ultimately, when it comes to quoting and binding, the carriers are going to retain control of those aspects of the consumer experience. First of all, you know, consumers have invested, you know, tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars in building brand awareness.
And getting consumers to interact with them directly, be it 1 of their agents or through their website. You know, the carriers are not gonna relinquish that control easily or lightly, by allowing an AI agent to dictate and control how a consumer is gonna access their site and systems. And that is not a position that is inconsistent with a lot of other brands in the space. I mean, you saw companies like Amazon and Delta airlines, Charles Schwab, JPMorgan. All block attempts by personal AI agents like Muse, to actually crawl their sites, and I think for a good reason. A lot of these companies are big incumbents.
Who have a lot more to lose than to gain by allowing for personal AI agents to access systems without their permission. In addition to that, these are highly regulated industries, so they wanna control exactly what the user sees and what is disclosed to the user before participating. And, certainly, that applies to insurance carriers. And so historically, there have been other attempts to try to use an agent or a crawler to go and shop on behalf of the consumer and aggregate a bunch of rates You know, those types of business models have been attempted for the past, you know, 10 to 15 years I will say that they were very unsuccessful in this regard.
And, certainly, AI technology makes this a little easier but it does not really change the reasons why it did not work the first time, which is really largely dependent, largely because the carriers have a lot vested in controlling the consumer experience. And so what we expect to happen is that, you know, protocols like the personal agent protocol, right, to really allow brands and companies to be able to control exactly how personal AI agents can interact with their websites and systems.
And once they do that, we think that the dynamics will remain largely similar where the large branded carriers again, will really want to have the porting and the binding happen on their sites and not through a third party personal AI agent or through an LLM.
Maria Ripps: Got it. that is very helpful. Thank you both.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Kligerman with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Andrew Kligerman: Hey. Good afternoon. I was interested in the part about the $21 million in agent revenue. And perhaps you could share with us what you see as your share of that market right now and how big that market can be for you? What are the KPIs around that and how do you see that you know, 5 years down the road?
Steven Yi: Sure. I will start with that with that answer, which is that, I mean, the agent business, keep in mind, you know, close to 50% of all policies are still written through agents. So when you break down the market opportunity, although we expect to see a continuing secular shift to direct to consumer sales versus agent based sales. Agent based sales are still gonna remain a huge part of the overall distribution channel for this industry. And these agents, I think, still need to be connected to the direct online the online shopping ecosystem. And so what we see is the long term opportunity here, you know, being comparable to what the market share is for agents in general.
And so it is an enormous market opportunity. In terms of where our market share is compared to others, you know, we started this business the agent business from scratch. In 2021, and we are growing this business. And so our footprint here is smaller than that of some of our other competitors who have been in this business for, you know, 10 plus years. And so what we expect that we can gain market share because 1 of the things that we have been able to do is bring a lot of programmatic efficiencies to how agents buy leads.
We are seeing that in just better ROI that they are getting from the lead and call purchases that they are making through our ecosystem and using our platform. We are seeing that lead to these partnerships like the pharmacy marketplace where we are powering you know, the purchasing. Programmatic meat purchasing for all Farmers agents. And so the ability to really support that on behalf of carriers, like farmers is really leading to us having lot of momentum behind our agent business.
And so we expect, you know, this business to be a very large 1 for us going forward and 1 where we have a lot of market share gains that we can expect in the upcoming years. that is awesome. And just as we think about shopping and the pricing cycle, Stephen, Where are we in terms of the level of shopping right now? You know, how do you see that playing out over the next year or 2? Have we kind of peaked out in terms of this activity? And what MediaAlpha will see? Or do we still have a few more years of it? Yeah.
I mean, I think in terms of so I think you are asking about just maybe where we are in the underwriting cycle and what that. You know, how that may impact shopping. And then they are slightly different. And so let me just try to answer you know, 1 is that, you know, so I think shopping remains at elevated level. Now shopping spikes when carriers raise rates. And they raise rates during these hard market cycles when we emerged from, you know, back in 2024, 2025.
And so, so I think what you are seeing is that the rates of shopping have come down since that period when people's prices were getting increased by 30, 40%, and that led to increased shopping But I think because insurance has seen overall inflation, of, you know, 40, 50% over the last few years, I do think that you are gonna see heightened levels of shopping persist over the next several years. And so now we have always said that, yes, ambient shopping behavior does have an impact. On the volume in our marketplace. But what has a far greater impact is carrier demand and carrier growth appetites.
And, really, where we are in the insurance underwriting cycle is still in the very early stages of what is a growth oriented soft market cycle. The second quarter of this year was the most profitable period by some measures within the PNC industry in 25 years. And what that is doing is it is really fueling a market share growth competition between all the major carriers. You see a lot of the carriers talking about how competitive the market is. And during these competitive market cycles, what happens is that carriers tend to lower rates to have their policies be more competitive, and they spend a lot more in advertising.
This has the effect of actually lowering their overall profitability from peak levels right, obviously, all of this competition and increasing ad spend has a strongly beneficial effect for our marketplace. And you are really seeing that play out with the broadening of demand in our marketplace. And I think that you can continue to expect these tailwinds to persist for the foreseeable future just because the industry remains at very, very strong profitability position. Super helpful. Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Brian Smilek with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Analyst: Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Looks Steve, great to see the execution on. I believe the 4Q guide does imply solid P&C acceleration. Can you just help me parse out the drivers there and just, like, more specifically by vertical as well? I thought home and renters, growing quite nicely in triple digits. Can you just elaborate a bit on what is going on there? Is it really more macro driven or share of wallet driven? Thank you.
Steven Yi: Yeah. On the home. So on the home insurance side, I think it is it is a lot more macro-driven. I think what you are seeing is a recovery of the homeowner which is a lot more state driven than auto tends to be. And so what you are seeing is, in part, because we just have not had a lot of catastrophic events happen, like, in Florida, or in California over the past year and a half to 2 years. I think what that is leading to is a lot of carriers going back into those large states that had in the past been problematic states.
And so states like Florida, California, and Texas, so as you see these carriers going back into those states and increasing capacity there, you are obviously seeing them now starting to advertise in those states. And so as those budgets go up, the advertising budgets go up, you are seeing our supply partners really reacting to that by expanding the amount of volume that they can make available to these carriers. And so I think that a lot of the growth there is based on just increasing capacity for homeowners insurance and the growth appetite that you are starting to see among homeowner insurers, and just seeing that demand reflect in the overall volume in our marketplace.
I think overall in Q4, going to continue to see growth being driven by just the increased growth appetites of our auto insurance carriers. Again, you know, that marketplace is in a very, very good position profitability wise. that is really, resulting in carriers investing a lot into direct-to-consumer and direct advertising. Again, you are seeing that being reflected with how broad. You know, how much broader the demand is within our marketplace versus 2 to 3 years ago. I think you are just gonna continue to see those trends in Q4. Great. Thank you, Steven.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Tommy McJoynt with KBW. Please go ahead.
Thomas Mcjoynt-Griffith: Hey. Good evening. Thanks for taking our questions. Going back to the subject of personal AI agents, Is that a risk, Steven? When you talked a little bit about your response to 1 of the earlier questions, Is there a risk that MediaAlpha worries about that the largest direct to consumer carriers do establish formal personal agent protocols with popular personal agents, and that cuts out MediaAlpha. Or do you view your marketplace as still having a solution to provide in those types of arrangements to the extent they do become somewhat commonplace?
Steven Yi: No, it is a good question. I think that both I mean, first of all, I mean, I think that it is I guess my position is that what you would have to expect is that then what the carriers really do not want Right? They do not want an environment where their rates are displayed outside of their own websites or through someone other than their own agents. And that is, you know, not true for independent agent carriers, do not have control of the consumer experience as they sell. Their products, you know, primarily through agents and brokers. But that is certainly the case for direct to consumer carriers and the captive agent carriers.
And it is really those carriers who represent the vast majority of the overall industry that we expect to really be resistant to efforts by personal AI agents to pull in their rates into an environment so that it can be, you know, easily matched against rates from other smaller carriers. That level of high spend certainty is not something that the big carriers want for a variety of reasons. And so the. I think the premise that you think that a carrier would do a deal directly with the personal AI agent to show their rates in those environments. I mean, that is the premise I would question.
You know, certainly, I think that you can I think you it is foreseeable that a user will start their shopping experience on a personal AI agent through a personal AI agent or through an LLM? But, ultimately, they are gonna have to go over to the carrier side to complete that process. And that type of a direct referral is something that you see through Google, etcetera. But keep in mind just the ecosystem that is gonna arise around these personal AI agents and LLMs. They are gonna be advertising. And so just like Google, you can go on Google, search for insurance go directly to GEICO to buy a policy. Right?
Or you can or you can go directly to a price-comparison site or lead generation site. To shop for insurance, and then that is where we have to make that referral right, that connection between 1 of our publishers, and the carriers. And I think that number 1, our supply base is gonna really tap into the advertising ecosystem. That ChatGPT is creating and that you are likely to see with something like Immuse. And then in addition to that, even if people do end up searching for insurance and starting their experience in. at an LLM or through a personal AI agent.
We fully expect our publisher base to remain resilient happen to other media channels to, to really generate a lot of strong shopping volume for the foreseeable future that we can then direct to the right carriers. Got it. Thanks for all those comments.
Thomas Mcjoynt-Griffith: And then switching over, it is good to see you on track to hitting your buyback goals for this year. And as you think about heading into next year, talking about double digit increases across the various financial metrics, Can you talk about your expectations for free cash flow conversion into next year? And specifically how the recent tax receivable transactions will impact that going forward. And then with that strong free cash flow generation, what are your plans in terms of buybacks and other forms of capital deployment next year?
Tigran Sinanyan: Thanks, Tommy. I will handle that. With respect to the TRA acquisitions, the effect of that on cash flow is that we will be retaining around $5 million a year of incremental cash flow that have gone out to the TRA holders. And now that we have retired that liability, that money stays in the company. And we continue to benefit from the cash tax shield. Right? In 2026, cash taxes will be approximately 1%. Going forward in 2027, you can expect that to be in the mid single digits. And then in the mid teens thereafter. And so there is a lot of cash savings and return that we are generating from those TRA acquisitions.
I would say, you know, roughly mid teens in terms of an IRR. And the cash flow conversion for us will remain high. We remain a low CapEx business And so as we continue to generate contribution growth which flows down to adjusted EBITDA at the midpoint of our guidance at 68%. Really, the major kind of outflows on cash or networking capital and a little bit on service. Right? So we will have plenty of opportunity to deploy capital efficiently, and I will say that the bar remains high for us. You know, we are trading it effectively mid teens free cash flow yield, and so that is kind of where we are gonna measure ourselves.
In terms of the returns we can generate. At current prices, I think we have demonstrated over the last 5 quarters that we are bullish on the stock and believe that it. it is an attractive investment. And we have deployed capital fairly consistently. Quarter to quarter. Between TRA acquisition and share repurchases, last quarter, we deployed $21 million. The quarter prior was $20 million on share repurchases. Again, the quarter prior was $20 million. And so you can expect us to continue to look at know, the opportunities ahead of us in terms of generating return and making the most prudent decision. Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of line of Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Eric Sheridan: During the prepared remarks, you talked about 1 partner running an optimization test that saw a much higher conversion. I am curious if we could maybe pull on that thread a little bit. When you think about your platform and the potential scope for evolution of it, how are you thinking about conversion improvements greater scale of optimization, and how that may result in either a higher return profile from the spend that is already on the platform or the means possibly attract more net advertising dollars to the platform as you prove out of scale and ROI on the back of some of those initiatives?
Steven Yi: Yeah. Hey, Eric. I would a good question. I mean, I think yeah. I mean, I think you summarized kinda how we think about it, which is that which is that as we have the scale advantage, we are the largest marketplace within the industry, in some way several times that of some of our competitors.
That data scale advantage is really translating itself into the ability to leverage predictive AI to deliver better outcomes better matching for our advertisers, and then higher yield for our publishers And so, ultimately, because we can leverage the data and apply AI against the data provide better outcomes for both the participants in that marketplace, As you can imagine, what that results in is just the attraction of more budget and more advertisers and then more supply because publishers understand that the yield that they can get and the money that they can make by exposing their advertising inventory through our marketplace is better than what they can get anywhere else.
And so it is it is a virtuous cycle. It is a it is a flywheel effect, that real. You really see taking effect here. And it really has to do with our scale. And the data advantage that is giving us, and our AI and the data science capabilities that we have internally, and then doing just an outstanding job of optimizing campaigns on behalf of our advertisers and doing that in a way that is better than any of our competitors can do and better than any carriers can do directly for themselves. Great. Thank you.
Operator: Your final question comes from the line of Mike Zarmuski with BMO. Please go ahead. Go ahead.
Michael Zaremski: Hi. Thanks. Maybe I will start with just a bigger picture question, sticking with the conversation about the evolution of AI and shopping experiences and obviously, a lot of directions things here can settle out. But, you know, is it reasonable Is there a reasonable scenario, I guess, in which shopping habits push the industry to either your industry and or the carriers to consolidate in a much bigger way? To the extent shopping habits do meaningfully change towards increased shopping on the Internet? Yeah. I am not sure how shopping habits and feel free to elaborate, Mike, because I might be missing the question.
But I am not sure how shopping habits and increased shopping habits by insurance consumers, and the evolution of shopping habits to an AI-driven platform or an ecosystem. Could lead to consolidation within the industry. I would say that certainly, I think, as I mentioned, I think you are gonna continue to see elevated shopping patterns among consumers just because the price of auto insurance is so much higher than it was before. And so there is just a built in incentive by consumers to really try to get the best price.
Now in terms of the AI's impact on the insurance shopping experience, you know, what we talked about is really that having an impact and potentially disruptive impact on the upper funnel of that shopping experience where instead of going to Google and searching for auto insurance, they start off in ChatGPT or with a personal AI agent and try to get some information, through 1 of those sources leveraging AI to become better informed about shopping but that ultimately the shopping experience is gonna have to be, you know, the quoting process at least. And then certainly, the binding process will have to be hosted by the carriers themselves.
And so and so I am not sure whether or not those trends will lead to consolidation, you know, within the space. If there is a some aspect of that question I was missing, feel free to feel free to clarify that. No. You got it. that is helpful. My premise was just that, you know, there is there is a number of carriers in the universe that, you know, are just kind of watching and do not really play much in direct to consumer and our low cost providers, etcetera. So just accelerate the longer-term shift towards D2C. that is the premise. that is absolutely the case.
And so what you have seen is you know, 15 or 20 years after auto insurance was shoppable online, you still have, you know, roughly half of consumers buying auto insurance through an agent. that is just because insurance is a more complicated product. Right? Things like homeowners, small business commercial insurance, you know, slightly more complicated, like life insurance.
You know, those are products that are smaller within our ecosystem and within the online advertising ecosystem because the more complicated products that really require human intervention and human explanation And now 1 exciting thing that we foresee is that when people start off their shopping experience, in an AI environment, or they leverage AI capabilities that are offered by a carrier themselves in an online interface that they are going to become much better informed about these complicated purchasing decisions and we will have less of a need to actually have a human intervene in the shopping process for them to, you know, before they are ready to make a purchasing decision.
And so I think it will certainly have an impact in the auto space. and I think it is going to have a pretty big impact in the homeowner and small business commercial space. And what I am trying to say is that AI has the potential to actually have a far more beneficial impact on unassisted direct-to-consumer to consumer enrollment channels where a consumer can just go and start the process and finish the process really without having to resort to turning to an agent for assistance, again, with the more complicated insurance products.
And so we do see AI as a potential strong tailwind for these nonauto insurance verticals, which, again, right now primarily are closed by offline you know, agents and call centers. Got it. that is a good perspective. And, I guess just lastly, in terms of contribution margin trend line, we can kind of see the guidance I think historically, there is a little bit of 4Q seasonality from health, but health is just much smaller. Right? So I just. It looks like we should continue to kind of think about the contribution margin trending down a bit, unless you did make some remarks earlier that might contradict that in the in the future.
Tigran Sinanyan: Thanks, Mike. No, I think with respect to contribution margin percentage, you can expect that to be relatively stable. And what we have guided to is a good indication of where that is. Now that could move about depending on partnership dynamics, mix, But you are right to point out that, you know, in Q4, there is a little bit of seasonality with P&C seeing a little bit less supply in a normal kind of seasonal period and health seeing an uptick. Overall, I would say our open marketplace take rates across those 2 verticals are steady and seeing some growth and stable.
And so, you know, something that could impact the contribution margin percentage would be movements in our private marketplace, which would lift contribution margin percentage. Yeah. But overall, I think what you are seeing in the guide is indicative of what you should be modeling. Okay. Thanks for the clarification. Thanks.
Operator: There are no further questions at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.
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