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3 Advertising & Marketing Stocks to Consider Amid Industry Woes

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The Zacks Advertising and Marketing industry is anticipated to reach the pre-pandemic healthy levels with the surge in service activities. Industry players’ growth is expected to be driven by the rise of digital marketing surge and client-focused strategies.

Increased service activities, rising digital marketing services and growth in consumer spending across media platforms aid the companies in the industry to tackle the prevailing revenues softness.

Investors can take Gambling.com Group Limited (GAMB - Free Report) , Integral Ad Science Holding Corp. (IAS - Free Report) and Stagwell Inc. (STGW - Free Report) into consideration.

About the Industry

The Zacks Advertising and Marketing industry comprises companies offering extensive services, including advertising, branding, content marketing, digital/direct marketing, digital transformation, financial/corporate business-to-business advertising, graphic arts/digital imaging, healthcare marketing and communications, and in-store design services. Some prominent players in the industry include Interpublic and Omnicom. The pandemic has changed how industry players conduct business and deliver services. Currently, the industry’s key focus is on channeling money and efforts toward media formats and devices. To position themselves suitably in the post-pandemic era, service providers are increasing their efforts toward formulating initiatives and identifying demand sources.

What's Shaping the Future of the Industry?

Economic Recovery: The sector benefits from the broader economy and service activities. Per the second estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, GDP grew 2.8% in the third quarter of 2024. Notably, the metric increased 3% in the second quarter of 2024. Economic activities in the non-manufacturing sector are in good shape. The Services PMI measured by the Institute for Supply Management has remained above 50% in 51 of 54 months.

Reviving Demand: The industry is mature, with demand for services staying stable over time. Revenues, income and cash flows are expected to reach the pre-pandemic levels, benefiting many industry players to pay out stable dividends.

Digital Marketing on the Rise: Digital media consumption has risen, with consumers spending more time on numerous media platforms and video-streaming services. Therefore, agencies offering digital marketing services stand to improve, as these firms are well-positioned to address the swift changes in customer preference.

Zacks Industry Rank Indicates Dull Near-Term Prospects

The Zacks Advertising and Marketing industry, housed within the broader Zacks Business Services sector, currently carries a Zacks Industry Rank #192. This rank places it in the bottom 23% of 250 Zacks industries.

The group’s Zacks Industry Rank, which is the average of the Zacks Rank of all the member stocks, indicates outperformance in the near term. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than two to one.

Before we present a few stocks that you may want to consider for your portfolio, let us take a look at the industry’s recent stock market performance and current valuation.

Industry's Price Performance

Over the past year, the Zacks Advertising and Marketing industry has underperformed the S&P 500 composite and the broader sector. The industry has risen 5.8%, underperforming the S&P 500 composite’s growth of 30.4% and the broader sector’s rally of 24.8% in the said time frame.

One Year Price Performance

Industry's Current Valuation

Based on the forward 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, which is commonly used for valuing advertising and marketing stocks, the industry is currently trading at 10.37X compared with the S&P 500’s 22.66X and the sector’s 25.7X.

Over the past five years, the industry has traded as high as 11.04X and as low as 9.45X, with the median being 10.37X, as the charts below show.

Price to Forward 12 Months P/E Ratio



 

3 Advertising & Marketing Stocks to Consider

Here are three stocks that are expected to grow in the near term:
 

Gambling.com: This company provides performance marketing services for the global online gambling industry. Long-term trends such as digitization, entertainment and advertisement are benefiting the company. Its exposure to diversified markets, the casino's first capital allocation and first-rate teams' focus on execution are driving growth.

Improvements in iGaming across the globe are driving the company's top line. Revenues across regions are driven by GAMB’s core brands and benefits from the Freebets.com buyout in April.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the company’s 2024 EPS has been revised 11.4% upward over the past 60 days. Earnings are expected to surge 76% year over year in 2024. Shares of Gambling.com have gained 99.5% in the past six months. The company currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Integral Ad Science: This organization operates as a digital advertising verification company. It is riding on advancements in technology and product innovation, and expansion in platform partnership, including IAS’s first-to-market meta-optimization solution.

The company is also maintaining the strong pace of its business momentum, including greenfield opportunities with major brands across the globe, as well as signed partnerships with advertisers, platforms and publishers. Integral Ad Science is meeting customer demand for its pre-bid social media optimization. Using the company’s pre-bid social products, brands can optimize their ad placements, customize their preferred settings, eliminate waste and increase ROI. These pre-bid solutions are coupled with the company’s full optimization suite to enable customers to choose Open Web preferences within the social environment.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the company’s 2024 EPS has been revised 13% upward over the past 60 days. Earnings are anticipated to increase more than 100% year over year in 2024. Shares of Integral Ad Science have gained 10.1% in the past six months. The company currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Stagwell: The company provides digital transformation, performance media and data, customer insights and strategy, and creative and communication services.

Strong digital transformation growth due to the influx of AI projects is improving STGW’s performance. Stagwell Marketing Cloud is gaining traction as it has launched the latest products and platforms. STGW is strengthening its capabilities by bringing all its digital transformation resources under a single network. The company is improving its margins via efficient cost management. Also, Stagwell’s shared services initiative is contributing to annualized savings of nearly $10 million by lowering costs in accounting, IT and HR as the company continues to centralize such functions.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for STGW’s 2024 EPS has been revised 2.7% upward over the past 60 days. Earnings are estimated to grow 41.5% year over year in 2024. Shares of Stagwell have gained 11.1% in the past six months. The company currently carries a Zacks Rank #3.



See More Zacks Research for These Tickers


Normally $25 each - click below to receive one report FREE:


Integral Ad Science Holding Corp. (IAS) - free report >>

Gambling.com Group Limited (GAMB) - free report >>

Stagwell Inc. (STGW) - free report >>

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