Innovid Corp
NYSE:CTV
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Innovid Corp
Earnings Call Analysis
Q4-2023 Analysis
Innovid Corp
The company wrapped up 2023 with record-breaking revenues in both the fourth quarter and the entire year. Specifically, Q4 revenue saw a 15% increase from the previous year, amounting to $38.6 million. This impressive revenue boost was accompanied by a double-digit surge in adjusted EBITDA margin, marking the third consecutive quarter of margin expansion, and a positive free cash flow for the second quarter in a row and the full year.
Within the revenue streams, ad serving and personalization soared up by 15% while measurement grew by 14%. Ad serving and personalization dominated revenue share in Q4 at 78%, with the remainder 22% attributed to measurement. This growth notably reflects an emerging recovery in advertising expenditures and the continued transition to Connected TV (CTV), a segment in which revenue soared by 14% compared to the previous Q4. The shifting trend was also evident in the 16% increase in CTV impressions, which now represent 52% of all video impressions.
The company also reported enhancements in operating efficiency, with revenue less cost of revenue climbing to 78% from 75% year-over-year in Q4. Such improvement indicates growing margins as the company scales and leverages its business model. Operating expenses showed a modest 3% rise, amounting to $37 million – a spend that still supported a 15% larger revenue base compared to 2022. The company also finished the year with a leaner structure, reducing employee count by 12% from the previous year-end.
Q4 ended with a net loss of $1.7 million or a $0.01 loss per share. Nonetheless, an adjusted EBITDA of $8.3 million was realized, equating to a remarkable 21% margin, a considerable climb from 9% in the last Q4 and sequentially higher throughout 2023. The full year witnessed a total revenue of $140 million, up 10% from 2022. The company sustained a net loss of $31.9 million for the year, nearly half of which was due to non-cash intangible asset impairment, and showcased an adjusted EBITDA of $19.4 million, a significant positive shift from the $1.2 million in 2022.
The company serviced 177 core clients in 2023, slightly up from 174 in 2022. Even with downturns in advertising spending, the overall net revenue retention was 101%, and client retention improved to 91%, highlighting strong core client relationships and stability.
Looking ahead at 2024, the business anticipates 10%-16% annual revenue growth, projecting $154 million to $162 million in total revenue and adjusted EBITDA between $22 million and $28 million. The first quarter is expected to start with revenue in the range of $34 million to $36 million, marking 11%-18% year-over-year growth, and an adjusted EBITDA of $3 million to $4 million. With this trajectory, the company is positioning itself as a pivotal player in TV advertising technology infrastructure, leveraging innovation and market opportunities to enhance shareholder value.
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Greetings, and welcome to the Innovid Q4 2023 Earnings Call.
[Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Brinlea Johnson, Investor Relations. Thank you, Ms. Johnson, you may begin.
Thank you, operator. Before we begin, I'll remind you that today's call may contain forward-looking statements and that the forward-looking statement disclaimer included in today's earnings release available on our Investor Relations page also pertains to this call. These forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, predictions, expectations, targets or estimates regarding our anticipated financial performance, business plans and objectives, future events and developments. Changes in our business, competitive landscape, technological or regulatory environment and other factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed by the forward-looking statements made today. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of future performance and as such, we can give no assurance as to the accuracy of our forward-looking statements and assume no obligation to update them except as required by law.
In addition, today's call will include non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin and free cash flow. We use these non-GAAP measures in managing the business and believe they provide useful information to our investors. These measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for our GAAP results. Reconciliations of the non-GAAP measures to their corresponding GAAP measures, where appropriate, can be found in our earnings release available on our website and our filings with the SEC.
Hosting today's call are Zvika Netter, Innovid Co-founder and CEO; as well as Anthony Callini, Innovid's CFO, both of whom will participate in our Q&A session.
I'll now turn the call over to Zvika to begin. Zvika, please go ahead.
Thanks, Brinlea, and thank you all for joining the call today. I'm excited to share the progress Innovid's made in the past year. We provided critical technology infrastructure for many of the world's largest brands, agencies and publishers. We empower them to create, deliver and measure ad-supported TV experiences that people love across connected TV, linear TV and other digital channels. And we continue to push the boundaries of what's possible in the fast-growing CTV industry through constant innovation on our enterprise software platform.
We're very proud to close up a transformational year with a strong fourth quarter. Bidding our guidance for both revenue and adjusted EBITDA, evidence of what we expect to achieve in 2024 and beyond.
Today, I'll review our fourth quarter results and full year highlights provide some recent business updates and share some thoughts on the year ahead. I'll then turn it over to our Chief Financial Officer, Tony Callini, who will provide further details on our Q4 and full year financials, in addition to our 2024 guidance followed by Q&A.
I am pleased to report fourth quarter revenue of approximately $39 million, reflecting 15% of annual growth and adjusted EBITDA of $8.3 million, which more than doubled year-over-year, resulting in a 21% adjusted EBITDA margin. Our operation profitability continues to increase, as we generated $2.2 million in positive free cash flow this quarter.
For the full year, we reported revenue of $140 million, reflecting as reported 10% growth and adjusted EBITDA of $19.4 million, a 14% adjusted EBITDA margin. We also generated $1.4 million in positive free cash flow over the full year, a $23 million improvement from 2022. We are proud of our financial perform in 2023 with improved revenue and adjusted EBITDA, which exceeded guidance each quarter throughout the year.
2023 was an important year, not only from the financial standpoint but also from an organizational perspective. Given our strong conviction in the business, we strengthened the executive team with the best possible talent to drive and accelerate our growth and market position. We hired David Helmreich as Chief Commercial Officer; and Tony Callini, as Chief Financial Officer. We also promoted Yuval Pempe to Chief Technology Officer, and Ken Marcus as Chief Operating Officer. Most recently, we welcomed Dani Cushion to the team as Chief Marketing Officer. Dani brings a wealth of experience in leading marketing organizations in both public and private technology growth companies. We are really excited about the new additions to our team who are already making an impact.
Additionally, we reorganized sales organization to drive accelerated growth in 2024. The commercial team has been focused on increasing wallet share from existing clients, adding new logos and deepening our relationship with our most strategic clients. In the fourth quarter, we won new customers such as Philips for dynamic creative optimization and ad serving, Rain the Growth Agency for ad serving across their client portfolio and Nexstar Media for measurement. We also expanded existing customer relationships this quarter. For example, PetSmart, an ad serving client added our measurement solution in Q4.
In addition to these recent fourth quarter wins, we had a number of top global brands join us as clients throughout 2023, including Mazda U.S., Microsoft, Revlon, and Verizon, to name a few. As a result of our focused execution, we reported accelerating revenue growth and improved operational profitability in 2023 compared to last year. More specifically, Innovid's CTV revenue from ad serving and personalization in the fourth quarter grew 14% year-over-year.
InnovidXP, our measurement offering grew 14% in the fourth quarter and represented 22% of revenue. We are pleased with the ramp-up in measurement as we continue to extend usage, and we are optimistic about our growth prospects as we go to market with measurement as a critical piece of our competitive ad technology product. I am very proud of all the team accomplished this year despite the macro and geopolitical challenges. We made significant operational, strategic and financial improvements to our business.
Looking ahead to 2024, we see key trends, which are meaningful accelerators for CTV adoption and ad spend migration. First, more and more streaming platforms are implementing ad-supported offerings, a subscription-only models have proven unsustainable. Just these past months, Amazon Prime Video introduced ad following other streaming giants such as Netflix, HBO and Disney+.
Second, live sports are also increasingly part of CTV programming. The recent news by ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros to launch a sports streaming platform in the fall is another step forward on the journey to a 100% digital TV. And it's a huge step because sports is one of the linear TV main space. While ad spending has been suppressed in the past few quarters, we believe that ad spend reacceleration on CTV is inevitable.
As viewership continues to shift to CTV, ad dollars will follow to and engage consumers where they are. And as the TV market becomes more digital and more fragmented, we believe the need for our technology also expands. These market dynamics, technology capabilities and unique partnerships will continue to drive growth in 2024 and beyond.
Next, I'm happy to share updates related to the Innovid platform and our focus on innovation. From the early days when we founded Innovid, we've used our technology to push the boundaries of what's possible. We've always been focused on setting the bar for what the future of TV should look like, and we continue to work closely with our clients to understand the issues they face, both big and small. It is inside [indiscernible] where we focus. And we're actively solving for some of the biggest challenges facing CTV today.
Executing on our multiyear plan, we have continued to integrate our solutions on one powerful platform with creative delivery and measurement capabilities working together to provide exceptional client value and is a data-rich business with a unique CTV first class platform data set. We have the opportunity to provide even further value through the use of AI with a focus on optimization across our full suite of products and solutions.
An exciting point how we're helping clients optimize was on display as Disney's global tech and data showcase event at CES last month. Powered by Innovid technology, Disney advertising introduced the dashboard for real-time creative optimization. The dashboard helps Disney's advertisers use real-time consumer insights, such as web or app conversion data to find which of the creative are most effective. This allows them to automatically shift more investment to the winning creative, improving performance in real time.
While this is just 1 example, in 2024, we'll continue to invest in and release exciting new optimization capabilities, which we believe will solve challenges in the CTV ecosystem. We are currently engaging closely with several major brands, agencies and publishers to test these new solutions and believe that what we offer will vastly improve efficiency, enhance transparency and control and maximize ROI for our customers and partners.
From day 1 at Innovid, we have focused on innovation. And we will continue to invest to bring new solutions to the market that provide meaningful value to brands, publishers, TV viewers and the ecosystem as a whole.
In summary, we remain committed to expanding our margins and positioning ourselves for accelerated growth. As I reflect on where we were when entered 2023, our team's hard work and dedication in navigating this uncertain macro environment is commendable. We have made a consistent progress each quarter in strengthening operational execution and improving financial performance, operational profitability and cash flow. I'm excited about our ability to make a meaningful difference in this industry and to generate value for our shareholders.
With that, I'll ask Tony to take us through the numbers and provide some insights into 2024 expectations. Tony?
Thank you, Zvika, and good morning, everyone. As you just heard, our focus on driving profitable growth is evident in both the fourth quarter and full year results. We're pleased to report record revenues in both Q4 and 2023, double-digit growth our third quarter of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion and positive free cash flow for both the second consecutive quarter and the full year. It's been a year of hard work and transformation and it's exciting to exit 2023 and enter 2024 with the kind of momentum that we demonstrated over the last few quarters.
Now let me dig a little more into the numbers. Q4 revenue grew 15% year-over-year to $38.6 million. If we break that down further, ad serving and personalization revenues were up 15% year-over-year, while measurement revenue grew 14%. As a percentage of revenue in Q4, ad serving and personalization made up 78%, while measurement accounted for 22%. The growth in ad serving and personalization reflects the emerging stabilization of advertising spend and continued shift to CTV.
In fact, CTV revenue from ad serving and personalization grew 14% over last Q4. While it's too early to tell if we are completely back to sustain traditional spend levels, we certainly experienced a meaningful year-over-year improvement. As a reminder, Innovid ad serving and personalization revenue closely correlates with ad impression volume served through our platform.
Within this category, CTV impression volume increased 16% as more impressions continue to transition to connected television and represented 52% of all video impressions. Mobile video volume grew by 21% and represented 36% of all video impressions, while desktop volume increased by 5% and reflected 12% of all video impressions. Both mobile and desktop have been inconsistent in the first 3 quarters of 2023, and we were pleased to see healthy growth within mobile and return to more modest growth in desktop. All 3 of these devices represent consumers watching streaming applications. It's also helpful to look at the total video impressions, which grew 16% overall in the fourth quarter.
Growth in measurement revenue reflects the continued enhancement of our measurement capabilities to take full advantage of valuable data set generated from the ad serving side of the business and the continued strength of the InnovateXP platform in the market. As Zvika mentioned, we expect our unique ability to combine creative, delivery and measurement solutions to provide differentiated client value and be a catalyst for continued revenue growth.
Now moving on to costs and expenses. Revenue less cost of revenue calculated out to 78% of revenue improving from 75% in Q4 last year. These margins continue to improve as the business scales, reflecting the operating leverage embedded in our business model. Q4 total operating expenses, excluding depreciation, amortization and impairment, totaled $37 million, an increase of 3% from $35.8 million last year but supporting 15% more revenue than in 2022.
Employee count at the end of December was 466, which was 12% lower than where we finished in 2022. We remain committed to managing our cost base while protecting investments in high-growth areas to drive improved profitability and long-term value creation for our shareholders.
Q4 net loss was $1.7 million or a per share loss of $0.01. The outstanding common share count at the end of the year was 141.2 million shares. Adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter was $8.3 million, representing a 21% adjusted EBITDA margin as compared to just 9% in Q4 last year and 18% in Q3. In fact, each quarter in 2023 was an improvement over its equivalent quarter in 2022, and adjusted EBITDA margin grew sequentially throughout 2023. These improvements reflect the impact of sustained revenue growth, lower cost of revenues as a percentage of revenue and operating costs that grew nominally over the period, demonstrating the leverage inherent in the operating model.
For the full year 2023, we reported revenue of $140 million, a 10% increase over 2022 on an as-reported basis and a 6.5% increase on a pro forma basis, including the results of TVSquared for all of '22. Because our target clients are the largest global brands, ad agencies and publisher platforms, one of the metrics we talk about on an annual basis is core clients, which we define as an advertiser or publisher that generates at least $100,000 of revenue over the course of the year. As you can imagine, there can be active clients who may be over or under that $100,000 line in any given year. So we feel it's important to look at each year's group as its own cohort.
During 2023, 177 clients met this definition as compared with 174 during 2022. With the macro pullback in ad spend during 2023, we experienced a number of core clients who dropped just below the $100,000 line but remain active and valuable clients. On a revenue basis, net revenue retention in 2023 from that 2022 cohort was 101% and client retention improved to 91% this year.
Full year revenue less cost of revenue calculated out to 76% of revenue, consistent with 2022. Total operating expenses, excluding depreciation, amortization and impairment totaled $145.3 million, a decrease of 4% from $150.7 million last year. This reduction is a result of efficiency efforts throughout 2023, and the completion of the TVSquared integration.
2023 net loss was $31.9 million or a per share loss of $0.23. Approximately half of this loss was related to a noncash intangible asset impairment recorded in Q2. If you look at the 2 halves of 2023, we recorded a net loss of $27.5 million in the first half of the year as compared to $4.4 million in the second half of the year.
Adjusted EBITDA for the full year 2023 was $19.4 million, representing an improvement of $18.2 million as compared to the $1.2 million of adjusted EBITDA we reported in 2022. As a percentage of revenue, adjusted EBITDA margin was 14% this year as compared to just 1% in 2022 and 6% in 2021. While we acknowledge that there is still work to do, we are proud to have delivered both double-digit adjusted EBITDA growth and double-digit adjusted EBITDA margin in 2023.
Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. We ended the year in a strong financial position with $50 million in cash and cash equivalents and $20 million drawn on our revolving debt facility with an additional $30 million available on that line. During the quarter, operating cash flow was $4.3 million, and free cash flow was $2.2 million, an improvement of $6.9 million over the $4.7 million of free cash flow used in Q4 2022. For the full year, operating cash flow was $12.4 million, and free cash flow was $1.4 million as compared to a use of cash of $22 million of free cash flow in 2022, an improvement of $23.4 million.
Finally, let me touch on our outlook for the first quarter and the first look at the full year 2024. We are encouraged by the strong finish to 2023 and remain committed to our long-term financial target of 20-plus percent annual revenue growth and 30-plus percent adjusted EBITDA margin. We are confident in the underlying strength of our business, opportunities for disruption in the market and our ability to grow revenue in a profitable way and see 2024 as a meaningful step towards those longer-term targets.
In the first quarter of 2024, we expect total revenue in the range of $34 million to $36 million, representing 11% to 18% year-over-year growth. We expect Q1 adjusted EBITDA in a range of $3 million to $4 million as compared to $0.1 million in the first quarter last year.
For the full year, we expect revenue of $154 million to $162 million, reflecting 10% to 16% annual growth and adjusted EBITDA between $22 million and $28 million. We are proud of our accomplishments this year and exit 2023 with strategic, operational and financial momentum. The team is focused on the significant opportunity in front of us to accelerate growth and continue to further expand our profitability margins in 2024.
We believe we are well positioned to become the essential technology infrastructure for the future of TV advertising and to experience outsized growth as ad spend returns to more historic levels. We remain committed to innovation and value creation for our customers and our shareholders.
This concludes our prepared remarks. Zvika and I are now happy to take some questions. Operator, please begin the Q&A session.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Shweta Khajuria from Evercore ISI.
Tony, could you please comment on your full year guidance, the puts and takes? What's driving your guidance in terms of your visibility right now, contributions from potentially upsell, cross-sell that is baked in the guidance and what you see in terms of the ad environment that's giving you the confidence with the 10% to 16% growth? And what would drive upside to this guidance? That's question one.
And then the second question is, if Zvika or Tony could talk about the new optimization solutions that as Zvika was referencing, you're testing some new solutions. Any additional color you could provide on what they are and how that could impact your P&L? That would be great.
Yes. Thank you, Shweta. And I'll try to take the first one and Zvika can certainly add some color on the optimization. So as we think about 2024, I think there's a number of factors that kind of play into our guidance. And we finished the year, well, we feel pretty strong with a double-digit growth and 15% growth in Q4, and I think as you look at the Q1 guidance, you're seeing that carry over from 2023 into 2024. So we are seeing a lift and maybe a return to some stabilization in the ad spend. Certainly, that's not consistent across all verticals. And I don't know if we were ready to say everything is completely back to normal yet. But we're certainly seeing a strengthening from the prior year. So you have that just general lift for more spend. And then you have a continued transition to connected television.
And if you look at the things that really drove revenue and performance this year, there's 3 pieces of it. It was CTV volume. It was measurement, which -- measurement grew nicely double digits in the fourth quarter. And then we were a little bit surprised with mobile was a pleasant surprise for us, albeit kind of a softer comp in Q4 for mobile. But those are the things that we're seeing carry over.
We've talked a lot about the investments that we've made in the sales team and a lot of that was done in the second half of last year. So we're certainly baking some of that into the guidance going forward for this year, although as it pertains to new logo acquisitions, sometimes those are longer sales cycles. So we see that going throughout the year. Macro conditions like live sports, I think, transition to live sports and more of that on streaming is certainly a great tailwind for us. More ad supportive video on demand. These are all the tailwinds that I think we're looking to take advantage of.
And then as kind of we look at potentially some things to be mindful of that create some amount of uncertainty with the election in the second half of the year, that is something that can have an impact on brand spend over that period. So we're mindful of that. So there's certainly a number of puts and takes. I would say if you break it down into thinking about the specific things of spend, cross-sell, upsell pricing, all of those play a part.
We've certainly seen a low to mid-digit uplift from pricing that we'd expect for the year. Cross-sell is an opportunity that I think will build throughout the year. And I would say the strongest feature that's built into our guidance, this is just a general uplift in spending in some of the stronger macro tailwinds.
And Zvika, I don't know if -- I'll turn it over to Zvika for the optimization.
Yes, that was helpful.
Thanks, Tony. Shweta, thanks for joining. On the optimization, thanks for asking. It's definitely something we're extremely excited about. So beyond accelerated growth, free cash flow and profitability from a product and company strategy, 2024 is absolutely going to be the year of optimization and data-driven algorithmic optimization across the board. As we shared in our Investor Day, it is something we already started investing in 2023, and we -- the market definitely expect releases throughout the year with optimization-related features.
There's one that we released the end of last year and actually Disney shared that on stage at CES. This is real-time optimization of their creative for specific Disney campaigns. This is -- Disney selling this technology and enable it in their dashboard through the media buyers because this is also a customer as a brand. This is -- Disney is a publisher as a seller. It's something that is available in their dashboards that advertisers that run their creative can upload multiple creators into the Disney platform and optimize based on real-time data that is connected to outcomes.
And what's very unique of this and this is -- we're very excited about the partnership because Disney is very excited about it in terms of sharing this with their customers, is that it can use publisher data, first-party data. So this is the area that the seller doesn't want to go outside of their platform but they can trust a partner that like Innovid because there's no friction or competition because we're not in the media business, to optimize against those data points to get -- at the end customer to get the advertiser better performance and to prove the performance on the Disney platform.
So that's something that's already launched in live in generating revenue. And those are already in the guidance in the plan for like those type of creative optimization. They keep getting smarter and smarter. It still falls under the creative. We believe that there's still a lot of opportunities in terms of frequency reach, workflow, supply path optimization, there's plenty of opportunity to deploy this type of data-driven optimization and other areas of the industry. So based on our customers' pain points. So we definitely are committed to release those in the year. So from an investment perspective, it's already in the P&L.
From an upside perspective, it's not something that we're counting on this year because these will be initial launches and sometimes some of them will be in alpha and beta. So we don't want to rely on them for the revenue but we're absolutely committed to release them into the market. So we should definitely see -- I would definitely want to see significant revenue from these products next year, for sure.
Our next question comes from Shyam Patil from Susquehanna.
This is Aaron on for Shyam. Congratulations on the strong results. Maybe for starters, is there any additional color you can share on how January and February have looked from an advertiser demand environment maybe compared to the fourth quarter any color -- additional color on quarter-to-date trends? And then we've got a follow-up.
Yes. I can take that one. So I think what we're seeing is certainly a continuation of some of the improved activity that we saw in Q4 carrying over into Q1, and I think that's reflected in the guidance that we gave for the first quarter from a growth perspective. I think that first quarter growth was say, 11% to 18% year-over-year. So midpoint-ish is 15% growth, which is what we ended up growing in the fourth quarter. So I think that the -- I would say that the benefit of the timing of this call -- the year-end call being a little later in the quarter as you just have more data points right, right, when we meet with you all and when we share guidance. So I think we're seeing things stabilize.
As mentioned before, as you look at the verticals, it's still -- there's still some unevenness, right? And if you look at things like CPG pharma, those are performing well. We really haven't seen a bounce back in finance, tech, insurance, those sorts of things. I mean -- so just think about the broader economic market and how those companies are performing, and we're seeing the same thing there.
So I think there's continued maybe optimism or not -- certainly, not certainty but we feel better about it. But I still think there's some room for the market to bounce back altogether. And we're just trying to balance all these conditions as we think about our guidance.
Got it. And then just a follow-up here. Obviously, one of the big focuses for the year in digital ads is Google Chrome cookie deprecation. How are you thinking about any potential impact on Innovid's business from cookies being deprecated and maybe signal sort of more broadly in the digital ad ecosystem?
Sure. The nice thing about CTV and now connected TV is more than 50% of our activity and revenue. All of it is video, all of it is TV but on CTV, cookies existed, what's nice about it, and it's good for Innovid because it increases the need for a platform -- need for a platform like Innovid is the fact that it's a very fragmented in a way, there's no standard. There's nothing -- the industry didn't come together and say, let's drop a cookie.
And it's almost a collection, you can think of it of a collection of walled garden, where Roku have their own operating system and hardware, and Samsung have theirs and some apps like Hulu and Netflix and Disney. They all have their own technologies, and they're not looking to share something like cookies that will go across devices and cross. So there's a -- it's a fragmented environment with close to no standards and a collection of walled garden. So it cannot be just Google owning a lot of stuff like they do and where they can have value while taking out the cookies to retract value maybe to other players. That does not exist in CTV.
So basically -- so nothing is going away. And we've been at this for many, many years. So the fact that we're the ad server, and we actually physically stream the ads, so the creative of the ad, let's say, GM is a customer. So when you see a GM ad in the U.S. on a CTV. We're physically streaming into your Samsung TV, Roku device, inside Hulu app. So we have a direct connection to your household. So in terms of -- we have a front seat, let's put it this whatever data is available to have access to this data and store it to build our own household graph, what's called Innovid Key. So we have our own identity solution. We partner with variety providers but there's nothing that's going away from the CTV ecosystem that's going to change anything dramatically during this. So that's not an exposure for us. And I would say it was actually an advantage that Innovid have in the CTV market.
Our next question comes from Laura Martin from Needham & Company.
Zvika for you, I'd like to drill down into competition. So I know your primary competitor is Google. And I'm wondering if with all of their focus on Gen AI right now and the pressure they're under to sort of catch up with ChatGPT and OpenAI. I'm wondering if that helps you take more clients or if the rise of Gen AI, which even you guys are integrating more and more AI into your product, tilts the competitive landscape over the next 3 years backwards them because they are in the press every day with some this [ happen ] in AI, which mean everybody knows, all their clients know that they're sort of an AI leader. So you -- can you talk about the competitive landscape vis-a-vis our primary competitor Google.
And then Tony, for you, I wanted to better understand, you sort of talked twice on this Disney thing with creative at CES on this. And so my question is, how do you get paid for that? Is that an upsell to your ad insertion? Or is it free with your ad insertion? Or is it added on to the linear measurement? Like how do you get paid for that extra creative piece or it's just something that you give free and it's like a marketing clock for somebody to pay your $0.30 for ad serving per thousand?
Thanks, Laura. And thank you for the AI question. Always an exciting topic. I wonder if you said AI in the entire script, I'm not sure because we're being pretty careful not to overuse it because to these days, everything is AI. But clearly, you're talking about big tech. So anywhere between Amazon and Google and of course, Microsoft and Facebook, there's almost like an arms race for having the most advanced AI, which I have to say as a citizen of world, it's rather scary on those levels, right? Because they're pushing the front [ ease ] of AI not to do better ad serving or better ad trafficking or even optimization, right? It's to a much, much, much higher levels.
So in our modest world, the fact that a lot of energy is going towards that. And I can only repeat what's public information that in terms of some of the organizations like Google had layoffs -- another wave of layoffs and you can see where they're investing in the world, they're investing less.
So actually, in terms of sales and marketing efforts around some of their tech infrastructure, I think they had some de-investment, let's put it, they invest less. That is absolutely great for us. I feel it's kind of a similar -- the fact that the market is kind of saturated from a Google perspective, in terms of the ROI, and we are absolutely losing shares in different fronts. We are on the [indiscernible] part, they have DSP front, they have several fronts. So from us -- from our perspective, it's good news.
And the fact that I'll say, we're not day-to-day head-to-head with them. Yes, we're taking customers of that platform. The decision to move to Innovid is beyond sales and relationship and marketing. It's a really strategic decision in terms of where you want your data to be. How do you want to align yourself with a partner? In an interesting way, it's connected to AI because data is the fuel to AI. So let's say, you're the largest auto manufacturer, largest CPG manufacturers, have a lot of data or a big publisher. Do you really want to -- you want to own this data, how comfortable you are that all your data, at least, all your advertising and marketing data will be in the hands of one of the big tech that God forbid might be used for other things.
So that concept as we've been driving our increase of market share in the last 8 years. So I think that will accelerate it. The antitrust that seems to be something behind us. It's not the focus on the neutrality and the need to separate platform and acting and manipulating the platform is still a huge deal for advertisers. So we're very optimistic on that front, and we see no reason for this to reverse.
And in terms of our usage, back to Shweta's question in terms of, I'll call it optimization and some of it is driven with AI. We already shared some exciting things in the Investor Day in kind of alpha [indiscernible] some of these things are now in beta in market live, and I cannot wait to share with you and the rest of the audience, some of those, the one still go into general availability to show where we're actually moving the needle for our customers and helping them reduce waste, reduce carbon footprint, and achieve better outcomes with less -- with a smaller investment. So I think -- I believe the market would be excited about this and looking forward to share it throughout the year.
And Tony, I think you had the other question about this.
Yes, I can certainly take that. Yes. Thanks, Laura. This is pretty exciting for us and this concept of real-time measurement we think can really make a difference. And so the way those arrangements work, it's the measurement arrangement, as we've talked about before, there's a component of measurement that's like a SaaS model where it's fixed, and there's also a provision for upside data on usage. So where we see this making a difference for us is this functionality, we think, will drive more usage just because of its utility and its value for our customers of again, the real-time measurement and information that's going back.
So that's kind of how the economics will work around. Again, there's a fixed piece, which is like a SaaS model and then some usage based around the actual measurement, and there is some real-time creative in there as well. So this kind of checks all the main boxes of what we're doing from the ad serving, the measurement and then the DCO or creative side.
Our final question comes from Matt Condon from JMP Securities.
Two, if I could, maybe just on the measurement side, revenue accelerated nicely in the quarter. Can you just talk about the drivers there? And what we're going expect heading into 2024? And then also last week, you announced the launch of a self-service feature within your CTV composer. Just stepping back, can you talk about what needs to happen in order for more SMB budgets to shift over to CTV?
Sure. I can take the first and ask about measurement. We had a nice quarter for measurement in Q4. And as I just mentioned to Laura, I mean, that model is there's a -- it's a blend of SaaS or a use of license fee, if you will, or a software usage fee, that's fixed and then some upside on top. So I think what we're seeing is kind of both of those increasing, where their base grows, the SaaS model typically builds on itself over time as you add more customers and you get that concept of recurring revenue. And then you have to effectively the kicker on top of that, which is the usage base. So I think for us, measurement has been a big area of focus. With the changes we made in the go-to-market organization, I think we're having successful combinations with our customers around more of a holistic approach for them, including ad serving and measurement. So we would expect that base to continue to grow.
And things like, again, with the conversation we just had about real-time measurement the more that we can connect these capabilities together, we see the usage going up. So I would expect kind of both of those parts of it to continue to increase over the course of the year.
And Zvika, maybe I'll turn the second half of the question over to you.
Yes, absolutely. And I was on mute. So I was a bit way already. And the -- so thanks for the question. So we are specifically on CTV composer, it's critical. I won't say, critical, it's a very unique part of a piece of technology that Innovid have. It's definitely critical to the future. You asked about the [indiscernible] I would say, I still feel we're in the early days of really advanced CTV advertising. We released this -- the core offering several years ago. And we say to this day, I believe we're the only company in the world that offers you a tool that you can create interactive CTV ads, actually engage with more than everything at scale that can run across to self-service that can run across multiple devices and platforms.
What is standard these days in HTML, you take any document or design tool and save as HTML and publish them on the web. And CTV, there's no such thing as HTML on purpose. As I said earlier to one of the questions on cookies, CTV is still kind of a multi walled garden and everybody wants to get a bigger share. So they're building walls around their technology, their audience is deepening what they're selling. If you're selling a device like Roku or Samsung or VIZIO or content like Disney or Netflix, audiences, et cetera. So ever is trying to -- so there's no standards. So we have the only tool that can actually create an interactive ad that will work on Amazon Fire on Apple TV or Roku with the different remotes, et cetera. So it's very, very advanced technology. It has an SDK that sits actually on the device and the app, and an offering tool.
So in general, regardless of the advertiser is a huge CPG or SMB, it's a very unique piece of technology. So I believe, and by the way, it was used -- we don't -- you'll see it later on, maybe in the press release but this technology was used in the largest sports event in the U.S. that was recently aired, if I can be within the boundaries of what we can say. With some of the large advertisers that are in there. So this is live in production at massive scale. I still feel it's early days even for the large advertisers to use like Click2Buy, move to cart, want to watch more, send me a coupon, there's plenty of things you could do using this tool. I still think we're at a very small percentage of usage. So there's a huge upside there even with the largest advertisers.
As it goes to SMBs, I feel the platforms like YouTube, the DSPs are the ones who will gain early adoption with the SMBs because you don't need massive scale. You can go into a single platform, where Innovid really shines is when you need to run across multiple walled gardens, let's call it this way. And in that case, that's where our unique proposition. I absolutely see a world where we'll have those smaller advertisers use these type of technologies, but just to give you a sense, you take the top 200 TV advertisers in the U.S., they represent about 75% to 80% of the spend.
So the actual amount of dollars that SMBs even medium is really marginal. The real big needle movers are the, guys, who are -- sorry, the brands who spend billions of dollars on television, and that will be large CPGs, large auto, pharma, telco, and half of the top 200 are already Innovid customers. Our focus, first and foremost, is to get the other half because then we'll -- we can get to a point that we have more than 50% market share, and we'll be actually bigger in Google, which hard to believe but we're actually on a journey to achieve that. And that's where we're laser focused, not on the mid and long tail.
This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Zvika for closing comments.
Thank you, operator, and thank you, everybody, for joining. As you heard, and thanks for those who congratulated us on quarter and the year. Definitely, 2023 was -- started as a challenging year. I'm extremely proud of the team. And with our -- we added more than half of our executive team or our executives that joined us this year. They got onboarded some of them 3 months ago, some of them was like 26 months ago, and some of them like the Chief Commercial Officer a year ago. The beauty of it in 2023 -- 2024, everybody is on board, everybody is fully aligned, the goal of everybody joining us was not to deliver Q4, the goal was to deliver 2024, 2025, really accelerated growth, double-digit growth, pushing the company towards Rule of 40 and above, positive free cash flow.
And at the same time, as we spoke about, continue our commitment to innovation, keep releasing products that the market needs that will basically create a better ecosystem for the advertisers. The -- of course, the agencies, the brands, the publishers and the viewers themselves because their time is dedicated to making this industry so successful. So very proud, very excited about what's to come. And thank you for being here and listening and following the company, which you all know. Beautiful 2024, and a great day. Thank you very much.
This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.