Advantage Solutions Inc. (ADV): Business Model Canvas [Dec-2025 Updated]

You need to know if Advantage Solutions Inc. (ADV) is just a massive field team or a tech play, and the truth is they're both, but the shift is costly. Your investment decision hinges on their ability to transition 70,000 field team members into a data-driven model, powered by their new Pulse AI system, while managing a heavy interest expense projected between $140 million and $150 million for 2025. Honestly, the company is spending big on a new IT backbone (CapEx around $45 million to $55 million) to protect its $3.52 Billion USD revenue base, so let's look at how their core business model is structured to handle this defintely expensive pivot.

Advantage Solutions Inc. (ADV) - Canvas Business Model: Key Partnerships

You're looking for the bedrock of Advantage Solutions Inc.'s (ADV) business model, and honestly, it's their Key Partnerships. These relationships aren't just handshake deals; they are deep, integrated operational alliances that drive the company's scale and efficiency. This model is built on being the essential intermediary between CPG brands and the massive retailer ecosystem.

The core takeaway is this: ADV has strategically embedded itself into the operational flow of both physical and digital retail giants, using these partnerships to create a powerful, data-driven feedback loop for its over 4,000 clients. We're talking about a stable foundation, evidenced by a 95% retention rate among their top 100 clients, which is defintely a testament to the value they deliver.

Expanded collaboration with Instacart for live in-store audits

The partnership with Instacart is a game-changer, moving retail execution from reactive to real-time. This is a strategic move to solve the costly problem of out-of-stocks and display compliance for CPGs. Announced in September 2025, the collaboration leverages Instacart's massive network of approximately 600,000 shoppers to perform live in-store audits.

Here's the quick math: Instacart shoppers check product availability, pricing, and placement, which triggers immediate alerts to Advantage's field teams. After the Advantage team addresses the issue, Instacart shoppers can even validate the execution, providing objective proof of performance. This integrated, alert-based model is a significant competitive advantage, especially since Instacart partners with more than 1,800 retail banners across nearly 100,000 North American stores.

Strategic partnership with Amazon, earning the Gold Tier award

Advantage Solutions' digital arm, Advantage Unified Commerce (AUC), is positioned as Amazon's largest full-service partner, a critical relationship for any CPG brand navigating e-commerce. This relationship was formally recognized when the company earned Amazon's inaugural Gold Tier award for operational excellence.

What this award signifies is extreme precision in the supply chain. The Gold Tier recognition was specifically for achieving an exceptional 98% score for on-time, accurate delivery in a high-volume program like the Amazon Baby Registry Welcome Box. This level of operational rigor is what allows Advantage to manage end-to-end sales execution for multiple brands in Amazon stores, a key driver in their overall business, which reported $873.71 million in revenue for Q2 2025.

Long-term relationships with major Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) manufacturers

The company's revenue stability is directly tied to its long-term relationships with CPG giants. Advantage Solutions serves over 4,000 clients, providing a full suite of services that act as a strategic extension of the CPG's own sales and marketing teams. These services range from selling into retailers to retail merchandising and omnichannel marketing.

This is a relationship of deep trust, where Advantage handles the complexity of getting products from the manufacturer's door to the consumer's hands. The financial impact is clear; the company's total revenue for the full year 2024 was $3.566 billion, and management expects continued growth in 2025 revenues and Adjusted EBITDA, which is built on the back of these stable, high-retention client bases.

Extensive network of major US and Canadian retailers

Advantage Solutions is the leading omnichannel retail solutions agency in North America, and its physical reach is immense. This network is the literal distribution channel for its CPG clients' products. The company provides services across more than 100,000 retail locations in the U.S. and Canada.

This scale means that Advantage can offer CPGs unparalleled market penetration. They serve grocery, mass, big box, drug, and convenience retailers. The company's reach is so extensive that its services are available in zip codes where 90% of Americans live, making it a critical partner for any brand seeking national or regional dominance.

The table below summarizes the measurable impact of these key partnerships as of late 2025:

The next step is for you to map your own product's specific needs against this network. Which 100,000+ locations are most critical to your 2026 launch plan? That's the action item.

Advantage Solutions Inc. (ADV) - Canvas Business Model: Key Activities

Executing in-store experiential marketing and product demonstrations.

This is a core, high-touch activity for Advantage Solutions, and it's defintely a bright spot in their 2025 performance. You can see the demand here in the numbers for their Experiential Services segment.

For the third quarter of 2025 alone, this segment generated $274 million in revenues, marking a strong 8% increase year-over-year. The business is built on high-volume labor, so execution is everything. They maintained a strong execution rate of approximately 91% for their in-store events in Q3 2025, which shows operational discipline despite labor market challenges earlier in the year. This activity converts shoppers into buyers through sampling and product demonstration programs, making it a critical value proposition for CPG clients.

Retail merchandising, planogram resets, and compliance services.

The Retailer Services segment covers the essential, on-the-ground work that ensures products are correctly placed and stores are compliant with brand plans (planograms). This is a massive, high-volume labor business, and it's the backbone of their scale.

In Q3 2025, the Retailer Services segment brought in $249 million in revenues. However, this activity has faced some headwinds, with a 6% decline year-over-year in Q3, partly due to timing shifts and regional staffing shortages that limited activity in some areas. The company is addressing this with a centralized labor model rollout in the second half of 2025, aiming to improve efficiency and give their over 60,000 teammates more hours, which should help with retention and execution.

Sales brokerage and omni-commerce marketing for CPG clients.

This activity falls under the Branded Services segment, which is where Advantage Solutions acts as an outsourced sales and marketing arm, managing headquarter relationships, strategic sales planning, and increasingly, digital commerce. To be fair, this area has been the most challenged in 2025 due to a softer consumer environment and CPG spending pullbacks.

Here's the quick math: In Q1 2025, the Branded Services segment reported revenues of $257 million, but that was a 9% decline year-over-year. The omni-commerce marketing business, in particular, saw challenges as clients prioritized cost optimization and some services were in-sourced. Still, they are leveraging their subsidiary, Advantage Unified Commerce, which is Amazon's largest full-service partner and holds Amazon's Gold Tier recognition, to accelerate e-commerce execution.

The overall scale of these core execution activities is massive, serving over 4,000 clients across more than 100,000 retail locations in North America. This table shows the recent quarterly revenue breakdown:

Major IT transformation (SAP/Oracle EPM) and AI development.

The most crucial near-term activity is the internal transformation, which is an investment in future efficiency. This isn't client-facing execution, but it's the foundation for all future precision.

Advantage Solutions is modernizing its tech stack, which includes implementing new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, like the Phase 2 rollout across international operations in Q1 2025. They are also establishing a foundational data platform, or data lake, to facilitate Artificial Intelligence (AI) use cases for precise labor deployment and business insights.

This strategic investment is visible in their capital expenditure (CapEx) guidance for the full fiscal year 2025, which is projected to be between $45 million and $55 million. This is a serious commitment to move away from duplicative, legacy systems and complete the broader cloud migration by the first quarter of 2026.

The AI development is focused on:

• Using proprietary technology for precise labor deployment.
• Enhancing contract management and sales tools.
• Improving data analytics for clients and internal operations.

Advantage Solutions Inc. (ADV) - Canvas Business Model: Key Resources

When you look at Advantage Solutions Inc., the core assets aren't just in the balance sheet; they are in the sheer scale of the human network and the technology being built to direct it. The company's key resources are a powerful mix of human capital, proprietary data, and financial liquidity, all essential for delivering high-touch, data-driven sales and marketing services to CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) brands and retailers.

Large field team of approximately 70,000 team members

The most immediate and impactful resource Advantage Solutions possesses is its massive, boots-on-the-ground workforce. This is a physical resource that no digital-only competitor can easily replicate. This team of approximately 70,000 teammates is the engine for their Experiential and Retailer Services, covering over 100,000 retail locations across the U.S. and Canada.

Honestly, this scale provides a powerful competitive moat-it means Advantage can execute complex, nationwide merchandising, sampling, and in-store marketing programs faster and more comprehensively than smaller rivals. The recent Q2 2025 results showed that strong execution and improved staffing levels in the Experiential segment drove an 8.8% increase in revenues year-over-year, which tells you how crucial this human resource is to the bottom line.

Proprietary data and retail insights

The company positions itself as a data- and technology-powered agency, and its proprietary data is the intellectual resource that makes the massive field team smart. This isn't just generic market data; it's unique retail data gathered from decades of working with over 4,000 clients and across more than 100,000 retail locations.

This unparalleled insight allows them to optimize everything from product assortment and shelf placement to omnichannel marketing campaigns. They are leveraging this data to accelerate their AI enablement, which is the next logical step to monetize this vast data set and drive better outcomes for clients.

New AI-enabled decision engine called the Pulse system

The Pulse system represents a critical investment in intellectual property and technology, designed to transform how Advantage Solutions operates. It is an AI-enabled end-to-end decision engine currently in advanced development as of late 2025.

The goal is simple but powerful: elevate the speed, precision, and impact of commercial decision-making across all sales and merchandising activities. By seamlessly integrating the company's unique retail data with dynamic, real-time capabilities, Pulse is intended to augment the team's ability to anticipate demand, prioritize actions, and drive efficiency in client workflows.

Cash on hand of $103 million as of Q2 2025

Financial resources provide the necessary stability and fuel for transformation. As of June 30, 2025 (Q2 2025), Advantage Solutions maintained a strong balance sheet with $103 million in cash. This liquidity is essential, especially as the company continues to invest in its strategic IT and capability transformation initiatives, like the Pulse system, which are expected to yield long-term operational savings and better data-driven services.

Here's the quick math on their recent financial position, which shows the context for this cash reserve:

The company also received an additional $23 million on July 31st from a deferred purchase price installment related to the Jun Group, further strengthening their liquidity position for the second half of 2025. This financial flexibility is defintely a key resource for navigating a mixed consumer environment and funding their AI-driven future.

Advantage Solutions Inc. (ADV) - Canvas Business Model: Value Propositions

You're looking at Advantage Solutions Inc. (ADV) to understand where they create real value for clients, and the answer is simple: they offer unmatched scale and a unified, data-driven service model that no one else can truly replicate. They are the essential link between consumer-packaged goods (CPG) brands and retailers, especially as the market gets more complex.

Their value proposition isn't just a list of services; it's a promise of integrated execution that directly translates to measurable sales growth and return on investment (ROI) for their clients. It's about being the one partner who can manage the entire journey, from a product's digital shelf presence to a live, in-store demonstration.

Integrated, end-to-end omnichannel marketing solutions (One Advantage model)

The core value here is simplicity and efficiency, which they deliver through their 'One Advantage' model. This is their strategic transformation to stop operating as a collection of siloed agencies and start acting as a single, unified force for their clients.

This integrated approach means a brand doesn't have to hire a separate firm for e-commerce optimization, another for in-store merchandising, and a third for brand activation. Advantage Solutions Inc. provides a full suite of omnichannel services across the entire path to purchase, which is defintely a huge competitive advantage.

For example, their subsidiary, Advantage Unified Commerce (AUC), is Amazon's largest full-service partner, earning Amazon's inaugural Gold Tier award for operational excellence. This shows their ability to execute end-to-end sales for brands in Amazon stores, covering operations, advertising, and merchandising.

No. 1 global provider of experiential marketing services

Advantage Solutions Inc. holds the undisputed title as the No. 1 global provider of experiential marketing services. This dominance is a critical value driver, especially as consumers increasingly prioritize in-person experiences and product sampling before buying.

This segment is a clear growth engine for the company. In the third quarter of 2025 alone, the Experiential Services segment reported a robust revenue increase of 10.2%, driven by strong client demand and high execution rates, which typically run at >90%.

Here's a quick look at how their Experiential Services segment is performing in 2025:

Driving client Return on Investment (ROI) through data-driven execution

In a tight economic environment, clients need to see a clear return on every dollar spent. Advantage Solutions Inc. delivers this by moving beyond simple labor services to offer data- and technology-powered solutions, making them a strategic advisor, not just a vendor.

They leverage proprietary technology, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and unique retail data, to deliver results with precision. This focus on data-driven execution is what allows them to confidently drive client sales and optimize ROI.

Their ongoing transformation initiatives include a new, next-generation platform designed to seamlessly integrate their unique retail data with dynamic real-time capabilities. This will augment their teams' ability to anticipate demand and prioritize actions, ensuring client investments are highly effective.

Scalable retail execution across 100,000+ retail locations

Scale is a value proposition in itself. The sheer size of Advantage Solutions Inc.'s network means they can launch, execute, and manage complex campaigns that smaller agencies simply cannot handle. This is their undeniable competitive moat.

They serve over 4,000 clients across more than 100,000 retail locations throughout the U.S. and Canada, supported by a massive workforce of 70,000 teammates. This national footprint is crucial for CPG brands that need consistent execution across every major retailer.

Their scale extends into logistics and fulfillment, too. They operate over 70 fulfillment centers with more than 22 million square feet of space across North America, providing end-to-end supply chain management from the warehouse to the physical and digital shelves.

• Serve 4,000+ clients across North America.
• Execute in over 100,000 retail locations.
• Employ 70,000 teammates for field execution.
• Manage 70+ fulfillment centers for logistics.

Finance: Track the full-year 2025 revenue and Adjusted EBITDA guidance-down low-single digits to flat and down mid-single digits, respectively-to see if the strong Experiential segment can offset the Branded Services pressure.

Advantage Solutions Inc. (ADV) - Canvas Business Model: Customer Relationships

You're looking at Advantage Solutions Inc. (ADV) and trying to map out how they keep their clients locked in for the long haul. The core takeaway here is that their customer relationship model is a deliberate mix of high-touch, personal service for their biggest partners and a tech-enabled, efficient backbone for everyone else. It's about being a strategic extension of the client's team, not just a vendor.

High-touch, dedicated account management for strategic clients.

For their largest CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) and retailer partners, the relationship is defintely not transactional. Advantage Solutions deploys dedicated account management teams that are essentially embedded within the client's strategic planning cycle. This isn't just about checking in; it's about providing deep, customized market intelligence and execution support. To be fair, this level of service is costly, but it's what secures the massive, multi-year contracts that drive their revenue stability.

Here's the quick math on why this matters: A single, large CPG client can represent tens of millions in annual revenue. Losing one of these would be a significant hit. So, the investment in a high-touch model-where a single point of contact manages the entire service portfolio-is a necessary expense to protect and grow those key relationships.

Long-term, trusted partner status with over 4,000 clients.

Advantage Solutions has built a reputation as a trusted, long-term partner, not just a short-term contractor. They serve a vast network of over 4,000 clients, including virtually all of the largest CPG manufacturers and retailers in the US. This scale gives them immense leverage and makes them indispensable.

Their strength lies in the depth of these relationships. Many of their top 10 clients have been with them for over 20 years. This longevity is the real proof of a successful customer relationship strategy. It shows they consistently deliver value across different economic cycles, and still, they are always looking to expand their service offering with these anchor clients.

What this estimate hides is the sheer complexity of managing relationships across so many different product categories and retail channels. They must maintain a consistent, high-quality service model across:

• Field Sales & Marketing
• In-Store Merchandising
• E-commerce Solutions
• Headquarter Sales Representation

Operational efficiency and improved service quality via technology.

You can't manage 4,000 clients with just personal phone calls. Advantage Solutions uses technology to standardize service delivery, boost operational efficiency, and provide clients with real-time data access. They employ proprietary platforms to manage everything from in-store execution compliance to digital media campaign performance.

The technology acts as a force multiplier. It allows the dedicated account managers to spend less time on manual reporting and more time on strategic problem-solving. This shift is crucial because it improves service quality without exponentially increasing labor costs. For the 2025 fiscal year, the focus is heavily on integrating AI and machine learning into their data analytics offerings, making their insights even more predictive for clients.

This is where the rubber meets the road. If onboarding takes 14+ days, churn risk rises. Their tech stack is designed to make service implementation fast and transparent.

Finance: Review the 2025 technology capital expenditure budget to ensure the platform upgrades are on track by Friday.

Advantage Solutions Inc. (ADV) - Canvas Business Model: Channels

Advantage Solutions Inc. (ADV) operates a deeply integrated, omnichannel channel model, meaning they don't just sell through one path; they are the channel for their Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) and retailer clients. Their channels are a complex mix of human capital, physical presence, and digital platforms, all unified under the 'One Advantage' model to deliver a seamless experience for over 4,000 clients. This scale is the entire value proposition.

To be clear, the channels are the conduits that move the value proposition-sales, merchandising, and marketing services-from Advantage Solutions Inc. to the end customer (the CPG brand or retailer). The sheer size of their workforce, totaling approximately 70,000 employees, is a critical component of this channel strategy.

Direct sales teams managing CPG and retailer relationships.

The core of the Advantage Solutions Inc. channel strategy is the direct, human-driven relationship management, primarily through the Branded Services segment. This segment houses the headquarter sales (brokerage) teams who are the direct link to CPG manufacturers and retailers like Walmart and Kroger. They negotiate shelf space, manage promotions, and handle the complex logistics of getting products into the retail ecosystem.

This direct channel is high-touch and essential for large, established CPG brands. However, it's also sensitive to market headwinds. For example, in the third quarter of 2025, the Branded Services segment reported a revenue decline of 12.8%, reflecting macroeconomic pressures and client-side investment reductions. This is a clear signal that even the most established channels face near-term risk when CPGs tighten their marketing budgets.

Physical in-store presence across 100,000+ retail locations.

The physical retail channel is where Advantage Solutions Inc. converts strategy into action. They maintain a massive, boots-on-the-ground presence across more than 100,000 retail locations in the U.S. and Canada. This is not just about stocking shelves; it includes merchandising, auditing, and their high-margin Experiential Services (sampling and in-store demonstrations).

This physical channel is a clear competitive advantage because few competitors can replicate this scale. Honestly, this is where the company makes its money work harder. The Experiential Services segment, which relies heavily on this physical channel, saw strong revenue growth of 10.2% in Q3 2025, driven by improved staffing and high execution rates (over 90%). That's a good return on a labor-intensive model.

Digital and omni-commerce platforms for online marketing services.

The digital channel is the fastest-growing and most strategic part of the Advantage Solutions Inc. model, designed to capture the shift to e-commerce. This is delivered through their Advantage Unified Commerce (AUC) and Amp Agency subsidiaries, which offer a full suite of omnichannel (blending physical and digital) services.

The key here is their proprietary access and scale on platforms like Amazon, where AUC is recognized as a Gold Tier partner-the largest full-service partner. They manage everything from retail media and promotion to e-commerce content and logistics. This digital channel is not just a separate line of business; it's an integrated capability that allows them to service clients across all touchpoints, which is why they are a leading omnichannel retail solutions agency in North America.

Here's the quick math on how the primary segments related to these channels performed in the third quarter of 2025:

What this estimate hides is the strategic shift: the Experiential (physical) channel is growing strongly, while the Branded (direct sales) channel is contracting due to macro factors. This tells you Advantage Solutions Inc. is defintely leaning into the high-execution, in-store experience, even as they build out their digital capabilities.

The immediate action for you is to model the impact of a sustained 10%+ growth rate in the Experiential channel against the pressure on the Branded Services channel for the full 2026 fiscal year. This shift changes the risk profile of the business.

Advantage Solutions Inc. (ADV) - Canvas Business Model: Customer Segments

Advantage Solutions Inc. serves a deeply concentrated, yet diverse, set of customers across the North American retail ecosystem. Your core customer is a large, established player-either a manufacturer or a retailer-whose scale dictates the bulk of the company's revenue and risk profile, but the strategic growth is focused on smaller, more agile segments.

The company's total trailing twelve months (TTM) revenue as of Q3 2025 stood at approximately $3.50 Billion USD, generated by serving over 4,000 clients across more than 100,000 retail locations in the U.S. and Canada.

Large Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) manufacturers.

This segment represents the core of the Branded Services division, which is focused on headquarter sales, marketing, and omni-commerce solutions. It's a high-value, high-concentration customer group, and honestly, this is where your biggest risk lies.

In Q2 2025, the Branded Services segment generated $257 million in revenue, reflecting the spending patterns of these large clients. The financial impact of this concentration is clear: a single client loss in the prior year accounted for the entirety of the company's Adjusted EBITDA decline in a recent quarter, and over one-third of the Branded Services segment's Q1 2025 Adjusted EBITDA decline. That is a defintely a high-stakes relationship.

The services provided to this segment are mission-critical, covering everything from in-store execution to digital marketing:

• Headquarter sales and account management.
• Omni-commerce marketing and analytics.
• Retail brokerage services.

Major US and Canadian food, drug, and mass merchandise retailers.

These customers are the anchor for the Retailer Services and Experiential Services segments, providing the physical footprint for in-store execution and merchandising. They rely on Advantage Solutions to keep their shelves stocked and their stores engaging.

The Retailer Services segment alone generated $231 million in revenue in Q2 2025, showing an 8% year-over-year growth, which is a solid sign of recovery and increased project activity. The Experiential Services segment, which focuses on in-store product sampling and demonstrations, is also heavily tied to these retailers, reporting $249 million in Q2 2025 revenue, up 6% year-over-year, driven by improved staffing levels and event execution rates of approximately 93%.

Here's the quick math on the retail-facing segments for Q2 2025:

Emerging brands seeking national or regional scale.

This is a strategic, high-growth customer segment, often composed of smaller, disruptive CPG companies that need help navigating the complex retail landscape to achieve national distribution. Advantage Solutions uses specialized divisions, like FDM Sales, to support these CPG start-ups.

The value proposition here is simple: these brands need scale, and Advantage provides the infrastructure. The company's analysis shows that only about 15 percent of emerging brands actually reach their stated objectives, so partnering with a scaled provider is a critical decision point for them. You're selling them a roadmap to avoid common pitfalls like expanding distribution too quickly or failing to maintain an adequate supply chain.

Private label/private brand developers.

This segment is a structural hedge against macroeconomic uncertainty, as retailers often prioritize private label (or private brand) development during periods of consumer cost-consciousness. Advantage Solutions explicitly includes 'private label development' as one of the services from which it earns commission revenue.

The services provided are essential offerings in a difficult economic climate, helping retailers optimize their return on investment by developing and managing their own store brands. This is a smart, counter-cyclical offering because when CPG clients pull back on marketing spend, retailers often double down on their own brands to capture margin, and Advantage is positioned to help them do both. The work includes everything from product development advisory to supply chain support for the retailer's own brand portfolio.

Advantage Solutions Inc. (ADV) - Canvas Business Model: Cost Structure

Advantage Solutions' cost structure is fundamentally volume-driven and labor-intensive, but it is currently undergoing a significant shift due to a multi-year technology transformation and a high debt load. The near-term focus is on managing elevated costs from interest payments and strategic capital expenditure (CapEx) while aggressively reducing reorganization expenses.

The company is intentionally moving toward a more efficient, technology-enabled operating model, which will ultimately reduce the high variable cost component of its core services. This transition is defintely a trade-off, as the up-front investment is substantial, but the long-term goal is to emerge as the 'cost-leading provider of choice' in the industry.

High variable costs associated with a large labor force.

The core of Advantage Solutions' business-especially its Experiential Services segment (in-store sampling and demonstrations)-relies on a vast, flexible labor force, making labor the single largest variable cost. This structure means costs scale almost directly with revenue volume, but it also exposes the company to significant market risks.

Specifically, the company faces persistent employee wage inflation and a challenging labor market, which can increase the cost of revenues and impact service execution. For instance, in the first quarter of 2025, Advantage Solutions noted labor shortages in some regional pockets, which contributed to a decline in execution rates for events, forcing management to take actions in the second quarter to increase staffing levels.

• Labor costs: Highly variable, tied to event volume and market wage rates.
• Market risk: Exposed to market-driven wage changes and labor law shifts.
• Operational challenge: Staffing shortages in Q1 2025 impacted execution rates.

Significant interest expense, projected between $140 million and $150 million for 2025.

A major fixed cost burden for Advantage Solutions is its net interest expense, a direct result of its leveraged capital structure. For the full fiscal year 2025, the company projects its net interest expense to be between $140 million and $150 million. This is a non-discretionary cost that significantly pressures net income and free cash flow, especially in the current higher interest rate environment.

To put this in perspective, the company reported a net interest expense of $34.360 million in the first quarter of 2025 alone. Management is focused on deleveraging, having executed voluntary debt repurchases in 2024 to reduce the total debt principal, but the annual interest payment remains a critical headwind.

Capital expenditures (CapEx) for IT transformation, expected at $50 million to $60 million in 2025.

The company is in the middle of a strategic, multi-year transformation to modernize its technology and data infrastructure, which requires substantial CapEx. For fiscal year 2025, Advantage Solutions has guided that its capital expenditures will be between $50 million and $60 million. This is a growth CapEx, distinct from maintenance spending, and is designed to drive long-term operational efficiencies and enhance service capabilities.

These investments are crucial for building a new IT ecosystem, including a foundational data platform that is expected to be completed by the second half of 2025. The goal is to accelerate AI enablement and improve business insights, ultimately positioning the company to capture efficiencies and enhance its long-term earnings power.

Restructuring and reorganization expenses, though expected to be half of the prior year.

As the company executes its transformation, it incurs one-time, non-recurring expenses related to streamlining operations, which are categorized as restructuring and reorganization costs. The good news is that these costs are expected to diminish as the programs mature.

The company's cost discipline is showing through in the reduction of these specific transformation-related costs. For instance, reorganization expenses for the first quarter of 2025 were $3.581 million, which is less than half of the $8.252 million recorded in the same period of 2024. This trend supports the expectation that the full-year 2025 total will be significantly lower than the prior year, as the heavy lifting of the initial reorganization is completed.

Here's the quick math on the key cost structure components for 2025:

Next Step: Portfolio Managers should model a sensitivity analysis on the $140 million to $150 million interest expense to quantify the impact of a 50 basis point rate hike on 2026 free cash flow projections by the end of the month.

Advantage Solutions Inc. (ADV) - Canvas Business Model: Revenue Streams

Advantage Solutions Inc. earns its revenue by charging fees for a diverse portfolio of outsourced sales and marketing services, primarily to consumer goods manufacturers and retailers. As of late 2025, the company's Trailing Twelve Months (TTM) revenue is approximately $3.52 Billion USD, a figure that shows the overall scale but hides significant performance divergence across its three core segments.

Fees from Experiential Services (in-store demos), which saw strong growth in 2025.

This revenue stream comes directly from fees charged for in-store product demonstrations, sampling events, and other high-touch consumer engagement activities. It's a high-volume, labor-intensive business, and it's defintely the bright spot in the 2025 financials.

In the third quarter of 2025, Experiential Services delivered a very strong performance, with revenues increasing by 10.2% year-over-year. This growth was fueled by accelerating client demand for in-person events and a crucial improvement in the company's operational execution rate, which climbed to over 90%. The segment's strong performance is a clear signal that brands are shifting more budget back toward direct consumer engagement after years of digital-first focus.

Fees from Retailer Services (merchandising and resets).

Retailer Services revenue is generated by helping retailers manage their physical stores, which includes critical activities like in-store merchandising, shelf resets, and new store setups. This work ensures products are correctly placed and promoted, which is a constant, non-discretionary need for retailers.

The segment's revenue was relatively stable through the first half of 2025, with Q2 revenues essentially flat at $230.8 million, but Q3 performance was impacted mainly by project timing. The underlying demand for these services remains healthy, but the revenue realization can be lumpy based on the scheduling of major retailer projects and the company's ability to staff those projects efficiently.

Commission and service fees from Branded Services (brokerage).

This stream is derived from commissions and service fees for sales and marketing support provided to consumer-packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers, often called 'brokerage' services, plus omni-commerce marketing. This segment is the most exposed to the broader macroeconomic pressures, and it shows.

The Branded Services segment faced ongoing macro headwinds throughout 2025, resulting in a significant revenue decline of 12.8% in Q3. This drop is a direct consequence of CPG clients pulling back on discretionary marketing spend and facing their own market challenges. For instance, Q2 2025 revenues for this segment were $256.7 million, down 8% year-over-year. Honestly, this segment is the one to watch for a turnaround; it needs CPG confidence to return.

Total TTM revenue as of 2025 is approximately $3.52 Billion USD.

Here's the quick math on the overall business: Advantage Solutions Inc.'s total TTM revenue as of the end of Q3 2025 (September 30, 2025) stands at approximately $3.52 Billion USD. This total reflects the mixed results of the segments, where the strong performance in Experiential Services is not quite enough to offset the softness in Branded Services and the project-timing impacts in Retailer Services.

To give you a clearer picture of the segment performance and its contribution to the overall revenue base, here is the recent quarterly breakdown and year-over-year trend for the three main revenue drivers:

The total Q3 2025 revenue was $915 million, down 2.6% year-over-year, which shows the net effect of these opposing forces. The key action here is watching for stabilization in the Branded Services segment, because that's where the most value is being 'unlocked' through transformation initiatives.