I think marketing leaders should ask each vendor for its growth rate with acquisitions and political revenue taken out before comparing any two quarterly releases.
Three releases, three different numbers
This week’s results show why. Zeta Global’s third quarter release opens with revenue of $493 million, up 46%, and in the same bullet says the figure is 30% excluding Marigold and political candidate revenue. David A. Steinberg, Zeta’s Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, opens his statement with “Delivering 46% revenue growth and achieving the rule of 71,” while the bullet above it carries the 30% figure. The company states both figures itself, and the second one is the number that describes organic demand.
The Trade Desk reported revenue of $736 million, down 0.5%, with no acquisition or political line in its headline table. Viant reported revenue of $110.4 million, up 29%, and its CFO Larry Madden said fourth-quarter guidance shows operating leverage “even as we integrate TVision and Waymark.” The Viant release does not say how much of the 29% came from those deals or from anything else outside the core platform.
Put 46%, negative 0.5% and 29% in one slide and a reader sees a spread of almost 47 points. Zeta’s own 30% shrinks it to about 30 points, and the Viant figure carries no organic line at all.
What I would ask for
Before a renewal, a platform choice or a budget shift, send each vendor the same two questions. What was growth in the last quarter with acquired revenue removed? What share of revenue came from a one-time or cyclical source such as political advertising? Zeta answered both in its release. Sinch put the answer in its headline, as we covered in Sinch Reports 5% Organic Net Sales Growth for Q3, Led by the Americas. When a release leaves the answer out, the question is still fair to ask, and an account team can usually get it.
I would add a third question about the customer base, because revenue growth says little about how many buyers are behind it. Zeta reports 212 Super-Scaled Customers, up 18% year over year, with average revenue per customer of $2.0 million, up 22%. Those two numbers let a buyer see whether growth came from more customers or from larger ones.
The strongest objection
The best argument against this is that a buyer purchases the combined product. If a vendor bought a customer base and a platform, the marketer evaluating it sees one tool and one contract, and stripping out the acquisition describes a company that no longer exists. Acquired revenue also counts as real revenue, and a vendor that can integrate deals well is doing something useful.
I accept the first half of that. The combined product is what you buy, and I would not discount it. My point is about what the growth number is evidence of. A 30% organic rate says demand for the existing product is rising. A 46% headline rate adds the effect of a purchase, which tells a buyer something about the vendor’s balance sheet and strategy. Both are worth knowing, and a buyer who sees only one cannot tell which story is being told. Zeta’s guidance shows the gap will persist: it expects fourth quarter revenue growth of 32% to 33%, or 22% to 24% excluding M&A and political candidate revenue.
The same logic applies to the slides vendors send during procurement. A comparison table that lines up headline growth across three vendors invites the reader to treat unlike numbers as like. I made a related argument about hidden definitions in Keep One Written Copy of Your Conversion Definition, and the source of the problem is the same: each party writes its own terms.
What I would do on Monday
Pull the last two quarterly releases from each of your top five vendors. For each one, write down total growth, organic growth if the vendor gives it, and any political, one-time or acquired line. Mark every blank. Then send the blanks to the account team as a short list of questions with a date to answer by. Put the answers in the renewal file next to the contract, so the next comparison starts from the same terms.
Source: Zeta Global Q3 2026 results, SEC Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1
