Inuvo Reports Wider Losses, Modest Revenue Growth in Q3

Inuvo CEO Richard Howe

Marketing technology provider Inuvo Inc. of Little Rock (NYSE American: INUV) on Monday reported widening losses and modest revenue growth in the third quarter.

The company posted a loss of $3.8 million, or 3 cents per share, larger than the loss of $1.8 million, or 2 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.

Net sales in the period totaled $17.7 million, up 1% from $16.8 million a year ago. Inuvo said it believes revenue in the period was negatively impacted by slowing consumer spending. Still, it was the company’s sixth consecutive quarter of revenue growth.

Revenue for IntentKey, the platform used to deliver connected television, online video and native advertising campaigns, increased 12% in the quarter. Gains were offset by the loss of clients to a competitor. CEO Richard Howe said IntentKey is “gaining traction within a market where we believe current identity-based targeting technologies can no longer scale.”

“IntentKey delivers these results in part because it is able to successfully purchase media associated with browsers that block or obfuscate cookies and/or IP addresses, most notably, Apple,” he said in a statement.

Revenue for ValidClick, the platform used to deliver search and social campaigns, declined 3% in part due to the company’s accounts being shut down in a dispute with a “well-known advertising platform” over invalid clicks purchased in the second quarter. It described the fraud as “atypical, sophisticated and not common within the network in question.”

Those invalid clicks resulted in more than $1.4 million in client refunds, which helped raise operating expenses for the nine months ending Sept. 30 to $42.3 million, about 8% higher than the same nine-month period in 2021. Inuvo said it expects the unnamed advertising platform to reimburse it for the expenses, and it has withheld payment of an equivalent amount of payables. The two companies are in arbitration proceedings.

Inuvo’s net loss for the nine months ending Sept. 30 totaled $9.1 million, or 8 cents per share, as compared to net loss of $6.4 million, or 5 cents share, for the same period last year.

Inuvo ended the third quarter with $7.7 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, $5.9 million of working capital, an unused working capital facility of $5 million and no debt.