Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA): Business Model Canvas [Dec-2025 Updated]

You're trying to figure out the real engine behind Zeta Global Holdings Corp.'s growth, past the headlines, and honestly, the Business Model Canvas lays it out clearly. After two decades analyzing these plays, I see a clear strategy: unifying identity, intelligence, and activation on one AI cloud, the Zeta Marketing Platform, to lock in large customers. This approach is translating directly to the bottom line, with guidance pointing toward $1,289 million to $1,292 million in revenue for fiscal 2025, supported by AI agents delivering an 87% task reduction for clients. If you want to see exactly how they are capturing value from their massive data set and securing 90% of revenue from contracts over a year, check out the nine building blocks below.

Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA) - Canvas Business Model: Key Partnerships

You're looking at the core relationships that fuel Zeta Global Holdings Corp.'s data and activation engine. These aren't just handshake agreements; they are deep technical integrations that directly impact revenue and platform capability, so let's look at the hard numbers we have as of late 2025.

The partnership with Snowflake is definitely deepening, focusing on data clean rooms. Snowflake recognized Zeta as their Go-to-Market Partner of the Year back in 2023, and Zeta's Customer Growth Intelligence is now available as a native app on the Snowflake Data Marketplace. This integration allows enterprises to quickly bring data into the Zeta Marketing Platform, which is key for privacy-compliant activation.

The strategic alliance with Fiserv is targeting the commerce space. Zeta is combining its identity graph with pieces of Fiserv's data to drive solutions in commerce, which is central to Zeta's commerce cloud strategy, including the launch of retail diagnostics.

When you look at the overall platform adoption, which includes integrations with major MarTech players, the scale is clear. Zeta Global Holdings Corp. serves over 450+ scaled enterprise clients as of Q2 2025, with 40% of the Fortune 100 on the platform. That platform stickiness is reflected in the Net Revenue Retention (NRR) rate, which held at 114% in 2025. Honestly, that NRR number tells you existing customers are spending significantly more year-over-year.

Here's a quick look at how some of these relationships and internal metrics are stacking up:

Regarding relationships with large agency holding companies, Zeta saw 40% growth in that segment in Q2 2025. But, to be fair, penetration is still low, with Zeta working with only 1-3% of the clients within those large agency holdcos, which is a massive runway for expansion under the OneZeta strategy.

The data and analytics providers are foundational, as they enrich the core asset. Zeta's platform leverages an identity graph covering over 235 million people in the U.S. Furthermore, the company's AI-powered marketing cloud reached 90% of U.S. adults. The adoption of AI tools is also a key partnership indicator; clients adopting AI agent studios saw higher ROI, and customers using the AI studio grew 44% versus the average growth rate.

The overall MarTech market share for Zeta is estimated to increase to ~5.3% in 2025, showing how these partnerships are translating into broader market capture.

Finance: review the Q4 2025 guidance impact from the Marigold acquisition by next Tuesday.

Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA) - Canvas Business Model: Key Activities

You're looking at the core engine of Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA), the activities that actually generate the revenue and build the competitive moat. It's not just about selling software; it's about the constant, heavy lifting behind the scenes that makes the platform work better than the competition.

Developing the Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP) and AI agents

The central activity is the continuous evolution of the Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP). This is the AI-powered hub where identity, intelligence, and omnichannel activation meet. A key deliverable in late 2025 is the introduction of Athena, a new AI agent, with beta testing scheduled for late Q4 2025. This focus on generative AI is translating directly into client results; for instance, customers using Zeta Global's AI innovations report seeing 30% higher engagement and 10% improved ad performance. The stated goal, especially following recent acquisitions, is to push client ROI from the current 6x up to more than 10x over time.

Processing billions of consumer signals for identity resolution

This is the data foundation that separates Zeta Global from many others. The platform relies on stitching together massive amounts of permissioned data into a single customer view. They are processing more than a trillion monthly signals-things like email opens and purchase intent-to resolve identities. This data powers one of the industry's largest proprietary databases, which covers over 245 million real people in the U.S. This scale is a primary Key Resource that feeds the Key Activity of identity resolution.

Executing omnichannel marketing campaigns for enterprise clients

The platform is put to work executing campaigns across channels like email, SMS, connected TV, and digital ads. This activity is focused on driving deeper customer relationships, which shows up clearly in customer spending metrics. You see this success in the growth of their most valuable accounts:

• - Total scaled customers (spending over $100,000 annually) reached 572 in Q3 2025, a 20% year-over-year increase.
• - Super-scaled customers (spending over $1 million annually) grew 25% year-over-year to 180 as of Q3 2025.
• - Customers adopting 3+ channels grew 39% year-over-year in Q2 2025, showing strong multi-channel adoption.

The math here is simple: customers using two or more use cases generate greater than three times the annual revenue of a single use-case customer. That's the flywheel in action.

Integrating acquired assets, like Marigold's enterprise software

A major recent activity involved integrating the enterprise software business acquired from Marigold, which includes Marigold Loyalty, Cheetah Digital, Selligent, Sailthru, Liveclicker, and Grow. This acquisition, valued at up to $325 million, is expected to immediately impact the top line. The integration is a core activity driving near-term financial guidance increases. Here's how that contribution looks based on the latest guidance updates:

This integration is specifically intended to enhance capabilities across loyalty and personalization for Fortune 500 brands.

Continuous R&D for AI-powered tools like the 'Answers Framework'

While specific R&D spend isn't itemized against the 'Answers Framework,' the focus on AI development is evident in the financial discipline and guidance raises. The company is clearly investing to maintain its technological edge, which is reflected in its improving operational efficiency. For the full year 2025, the adjusted EBITDA midpoint is projected at $274.2 million to $275.1 million, representing a significant margin expansion. Furthermore, the company has driven down its stock-based compensation as a percentage of revenue from 57% in 2021 to a projected 15% in 2025, freeing up capital that can be directed toward internal development and platform enhancement. Free cash flow guidance for the full year 2025 was also lifted by $15 million to $157.4 million, indicating strong cash generation to fund ongoing innovation.

Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA) - Canvas Business Model: Key Resources

You're looking at the core assets that make the Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP) work, which is essentially an integrated AI cloud. This isn't just software; it's the proprietary foundation.

The Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP), an integrated AI cloud.

• The ZMP is the unified system for identity, intelligence, and omnichannel activation.
• Platform usage was up 153% as of December 3, 2025.

Proprietary data cloud with one of the industry's largest databases.

This is the fuel for the AI engine. The data durability has been key, holding up despite privacy changes.

• The identity graph tracks 245 million U.S. consumer profiles as of November 2024.
• The database tracks more than a trillion monthly signals as of Q2 2025.

Advanced AI/Machine Learning models and agentic AI technology.

The latest development here is the introduction of a superintelligent agent.

• Athena by Zeta was unveiled in October 2025.
• AI activity grew 25x year-over-year as of December 3, 2025.

Scaled customer base of 567+ enterprises spending $\ge$ $100,000 annually.

The customer base is definitely sticky, with a 114% net revenue retention rate reported in Q2 2025, meaning existing customers increase their spend by 14% annually on average.

Intellectual property from strategic acquisitions like LiveIntent and Marigold.

The Marigold enterprise software acquisition, for instance, brought in brands with high-quality revenue characteristics.

• Marigold acquisition consideration was up to $325 million.
• Marigold's enterprise business had a cost of revenue below 30% for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025.
• Over 90% of Marigold's 2025 revenue was subscription-based.
• The Marigold deal is expected to contribute $15.8 million to Q4 2025 revenue.
• The LiveIntent integration contributed to Q2 2025 organic growth of 27% when excluded from reported revenue.

Finance: draft the pro-forma balance sheet impact of the Marigold deal by Monday.

Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA) - Canvas Business Model: Value Propositions

You're looking at the core value Zeta Global Holdings Corp. delivers to its enterprise clients, which is all about consolidating a fragmented marketing technology stack into one place.

Unifying identity, intelligence, and activation in a single platform is foundational; the Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP) achieves this by unifying these three elements, backed by one of the industry's largest proprietary databases.

The platform is designed to deliver tangible financial results, which is what really matters to your bottom line.

• Delivering measurable ROI, with CEO David A. Steinberg stating the platform delivers a 6:1 return on investment for clients.
• Post-Marigold acquisition, the company projects the potential to increase that ROI from 6x to more than 10x over time.

The impact of their agentic AI is quantifiable in terms of efficiency gains.

• AI-driven time savings are significant, as enterprises using Zeta's AI Agents realized 87% time savings on repetitive tasks during the holiday shopping weekend.
• This adoption is accelerating, with Zeta's AI agent activity increasing 25x YoY during the same peak period.

Precision marketing is delivered at scale, evidenced by the breadth of their enterprise adoption.

Here's a quick look at the scale and customer depth:

Also, the recent acquisition of Marigold's enterprise software business on November 24, 2025, directly enhances the enterprise loyalty and engagement tools available. This acquisition, which includes Marigold Loyalty, Cheetah Digital, Selligent, Sailthru, Liveclicker, and Grow, is expected to contribute at least $190 million to Zeta Global Holdings Corp.'s full-year 2026 revenue forecast.

The combined entity is positioned to deliver unmatched scale and intelligence to the world's leading brands.

Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA) - Canvas Business Model: Customer Relationships

You're looking at how Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA) keeps its customers close and grows the value of each relationship, which is key for a platform selling AI-driven marketing solutions. The approach is clearly tiered and focused on expansion within the existing base.

High-touch, dedicated account management is reserved for the top-tier clients, the ones driving significant spend. As of the third quarter of 2025, the count of these Super Scaled Customers-those spending over $1 million annually-grew to 180, marking a 25% year-over-year increase. This focus ensures these large accounts receive the necessary strategic support to maximize platform use. The value extracted from this segment is substantial; for instance, in the second quarter of 2025, the ARPU for these super-scaled customers reached $1.6 million, a 19% year-over-year jump.

The entire relationship strategy centers on expanding Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) over time, which is the classic SaaS expansion motion. For the broader group of Scaled Customers (those spending at least $100,000 annually), the quarterly ARPU in the first quarter of 2025 stood at $467,000, showing a 12% year-over-year increase. Even more telling is the tenure-based ARPU: customers with 3+ years of tenure generate an ARPU of $2.6 million, which is more than double the $1.2 million seen from customers in the 1-3 year bracket. This clearly demonstrates the compounding value of long-term partnership.

This expansion is formalized through a land-and-expand model, where initial adoption of a module or channel leads to deeper platform integration. The success of this approach is reflected in the Net Revenue Retention (NRR) rate, which hit 114% in the second quarter of 2025. That means, on average, existing customers increased their spending by 14% annually without adding any new logos. This stickiness is a core strength.

The commitment to long-term relationships is quantified by contract duration. As of the second quarter of 2025, 90% of Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA)'s revenue came from customers who have been with the company for over one year. This high percentage provides significant revenue predictability.

The integration of AI is the primary driver for this expansion, often involving strategic consulting to embed the AI capabilities into client workflows. The results from this integration are concrete:

• Clients using Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA)'s AI innovations reported 30% higher engagement rates.
• Ad performance saw an improvement of 10% for those leveraging the AI tools.
• One financial institution, after seeing validated ROI, was expected to grow its spend by 20% in 2025.

Here's a quick look at the customer segmentation and associated revenue metrics reported in the first half of 2025:

Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.

Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA) - Canvas Business Model: Channels

Direct enterprise sales team for large-scale customer acquisition is a primary channel, evidenced by the direct mix reaching 75% in the second quarter of 2025, up from 73% in the first quarter of 2025. This direct channel drove 51% year-over-year revenue growth in the second quarter of 2025. The base of large customers continues to expand; the Super Scaled Customer count reached 180 as of the third quarter of 2025, marking a 25% increase year-over-year. The Scaled Customer count stood at 567 in the second quarter of 2025, a 21% year-over-year increase.

The value derived from these direct relationships shows clear progression as tenure increases. Customers with 3+ years of tenure generate an Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) of $2.6 million, which is more than double the $1.2 million generated by customers in the 1-3 year category, based on first-half 2025 data.

Key Channel and Customer Metrics as of Late 2025:

Omnichannel activation across email, mobile, social, web, and CTV is central to the Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP). The company saw the highest year-over-year growth in the number of customers leveraging four or more channels in the second quarter of 2025. During the 2025 holiday shopping weekend, overall platform usage surged 153% year-over-year, while AI agent activity increased 25x year-over-year. Revenue from platform subscriptions and services accounts for about 85-90% of total revenue, with the remaining 10-15% coming from data and related services.

The partner ecosystem, including large agency holding companies, is a growing component of customer acquisition. The average number of scaled brands per large agency holding company increased 40% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2025, supported by agency expansion efforts. Still, penetration within this segment remains relatively low, with the company working with only 1-3% of clients within large agency holdcos as of mid-2025.

Platform integrations with third-party advertising networks are implied through the platform's unified approach, though specific integration metrics aren't detailed separately from overall platform usage. The platform unifies identity, intelligence, and omnichannel activation. The company's full-year 2025 revenue guidance was updated to a range of $1,273 million to $1,276 million.

Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA) - Canvas Business Model: Customer Segments

You're looking at the core of Zeta Global Holdings Corp.'s (ZETA) revenue engine, which is heavily concentrated on large, established players who spend serious money on their marketing technology stack. This focus on enterprise scale is key to their growth story.

The foundation of this segment is the Scaled Customers, defined as enterprises spending at least $100,000 annually on the platform. As of the third quarter of 2025, ZETA reported having 572 of these scaled customers, marking a 20% year-over-year increase. To be fair, this base has grown consistently, showing 17 consecutive quarters of sequential growth in the scaled customer base.

Drilling down further, the real value comes from the High-value Super Scaled Customers, those spending $1 million or more each year. By Q3 2025, this elite group grew to 180 customers, representing a 25% year-over-year expansion. These are the accounts driving significant monetization. For instance, in the second quarter of 2025, the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for these super-scaled accounts hit $1,578,000 quarterly. That's serious commitment.

Here's a quick look at how the ARPU from the top tier compares to the next tier down, based on Q2 2025 figures:

The customer base is also strategically diversified across industries, though some verticals represent a larger share of the revenue pie. Marketers and CMOs are looking to ZETA to replace older, legacy marketing clouds with an AI-driven platform, especially given the pressure to show measurable Return on Investment (ROI).

The revenue contribution from key verticals, based on Q1 2025 data, shows where ZETA has deep penetration:

• Consumer & Retail: 22% of revenue.
• Insurance: 10% of revenue.
• Telecom: 9% of revenue.

Also, customer longevity definitely helps; scaled customers with over three years of tenure generated an average of $2.6 million in annual revenue as of Q2 2025. Approximately 90% of ZETA's revenue comes from customers who have been with the company for more than one year.

Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.

Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA) - Canvas Business Model: Cost Structure

When you look at the cost structure for Zeta Global Holdings Corp. as of late 2025, you see a business heavily weighted toward fueling its AI platform and acquiring the customers that platform serves. It's a classic high-growth tech spend profile, where current investment is aimed squarely at future scale and market share capture.

The commitment to innovation is clear in the high investment in Research & Development (R&D) for AI/ML. This is the engine behind their platform, Athena by Zeta^TM, and the continuous development of agentic workflows. For the three months ended September 30, 2025, Zeta Global recognized $29.812 million in research and development expenses. To put that in perspective against the prior year's Q3, that's a significant increase from the $22.807 million reported for the same period in 2024.

Running a massive, data-intensive AI platform requires substantial spend on Technology infrastructure and cloud service provider costs, like AWS or Azure. While Zeta Global doesn't break out cloud spend specifically in the latest reports, these costs are embedded within their overall operating expenses, which are substantial given the scale of data processing required to leverage trillions of consumer signals.

Driving scaled customer growth means Sales and marketing expenses are a major outflow. For the third quarter of 2025, the company reported selling and marketing expenses of $85.315 million. Over the first nine months of 2025, this figure climbed to $247.076 million. This spend is necessary to support the growth that led to a Super Scaled Customer count of 180 as of the end of Q3 2025.

A significant, non-cash component of compensation is the Equity stock-based compensation. For the full Fiscal Year (FY) 2025, Zeta Global projected this cost to be $190 million. For a more granular look, the stock-based compensation expense recognized for the quarter ending September 30, 2025, was $45.632 million.

The final major cost element involves the Costs associated with data acquisition and proprietary database maintenance. This is the lifeblood of their people-based marketing platform, but specific dollar amounts for data licensing or maintenance are generally aggregated into other operating line items, such as R&D or Cost of Revenue, in public filings. Still, the investment here is implied by the platform's core value proposition.

Here's a snapshot of the concrete, reported cost figures we have for the relevant periods:

The company is definitely managing these outflows against its revenue guidance, which was raised to a range of $1,273 million to $1,276 million for FY 2025.

You should review the detailed breakdown of operating expenses from the November 4, 2025, earnings release to see how these major buckets-R&D and S&M-fit into the total operating expense base, which was $328.417 million for the three months ended September 30, 2025.

Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.

Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA) - Canvas Business Model: Revenue Streams

You're looking at how Zeta Global Holdings Corp. actually brings in the money, which is key to understanding its valuation, especially with all the recent M&A activity. The core of the revenue model is built around its AI-powered marketing cloud platform, which is designed to help enterprises acquire, grow, and retain customers.

The primary source of income for Zeta Global Holdings Corp. is derived from its platform subscriptions and services (about 85-90%), with the smaller portion, 10-15%, coming from data and other services. A significant portion of this is designed to be recurring, coming from software subscriptions, platform fees, and long-term contracts. This structure helps create a degree of revenue predictability, even though it isn't a pure Software-as-a-Service model.

Management has shown increasing confidence in the business trajectory, leading to upward revisions in their financial outlook. Here are the latest full-year 2025 projections, which now incorporate the Marigold acquisition:

The full-year 2025 revenue guidance of $1,289 million to $1,292 million represents a year-over-year growth rate of 28%, when including the Marigold contribution. The Adjusted EBITDA guidance for FY 2025 is set between $274.2 million and $275.1 million.

A major driver for this growth is the success in expanding revenue from the existing customer base. This is where you see the platform's stickiness in action, as customers adopt more of what Zeta Global Holdings Corp. offers. The company has historically seen success here; for instance, in 2023, Average Revenue Per Scaled Customer (ARPU) grew by 10% through channel and use-case expansion.

This trend of revenue expansion is clearly continuing into 2025, which translates directly into higher ARPU figures. You can see this in the first quarter results:

• - Scaled customer quarterly ARPU increased 12% year-over-year in Q1 2025.
• - Super Scaled customer ARPU rose 23% year-over-year in Q1 2025.

This higher ARPU from multi-channel and multi-use case adoption shows that enterprise clients are embedding the Zeta Marketing Platform deeper into their operations, which is a strong indicator of future retention and growth potential. Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.