Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (NYSE:ZETA) saw its share price jump by 60.4 percent in the third quarter of the year, primarily driven by the strong performance of its Athena AI platform.
Launched in March 2026, Athena AI is a superintelligent agent designed to support the operations of enterprise marketing teams. It helps convert enterprise data into predictive answers, enabling teams to identify opportunities faster, execute with precision, and prove the business impact of every decision.
In June 2026, Zeta expanded Athena’s availability to agencies, helping them analyze signals across 245 million individuals in the US to provide a real-time understanding of customer behavior, surface opportunities, recommend next best actions, and optimize performance across the customer lifecycle.
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels
Analyst Conviction List
In Wednesday’s trading alone, Zeta Global Holdings Corp. grew its share price by 9.01 percent after being named as one of the newest stocks in William Blair’s Analyst Conviction List, replacing Twilio Inc.
The list is a curated roster of equities highlighting firms with high potential for strong near-term performance.
The addition followed William Blair’s meeting with the company, saying that it sees “many ways for Zeta to win.” It underscored its confidence in its growth strategy and growth position.
Athena Bolsters CEO Optimism
Zeta Global Holdings Corp. earlier posted a highly optimistic outlook about the business, saying that Athena was “winning the marketplace.”
“We put our AI platform live in 2020, and if you look at our business, we’re now [in our] 4th year of 30+ percent compounded growth on an average basis. That’s because our AI is winning in the marketplace,” CEO David Steinberg told a television interview earlier.
“Clients that are adopting Athena are seeing an even higher return on marketing spend than 600 percent. Our goal is to get clients to 1000 percent return on investment for every marketing dollar they spend through our platform, and I think that turbulence is causing clients to adopt Athena faster, which is one of the reasons I think why our business is growing faster than we originally expected it to,” he noted.
Zeta Swings to Q2 Profits; Q3 Seen Growing Up to 40%
Zeta Global Holdings Corp. swung to a net income of $8.17 million in the second quarter of the year from a $12.8 million net loss in the same period last year, thanks to earnings before income taxes of $7.8 million, which also reversed a $11.6 million loss before income taxes in the comparable period.
Revenues, on the other hand, soared by 43.6 percent to $442.8 million from $308.4 million year-on-year.
For the third quarter of the year, Zeta Global Holdings Corp. is targeting to grow its revenues by 39 to 40 percent to a range of $469 million to $472 million, excluding mergers and acquisitions and political candidate revenues.
Adjusted EBITDA is projected at $115 million to $116 million, or an implied jump of 47 to 49 percent year-on-year.
FY26 Growth Raised
Optimism likewise bolstered Zeta Global Holdings Corp.’s growth guidance for full-year 2026, with revenues targeted to end at $1.811 billion to $1.824 billion, up $33 million at the midpoint from its previous guidance of $1.785 billion.
Adjusted EBITDA is also expected at $404.1 million to $406.3 million, or a year-on-year growth of 45 to 46 percent.
Hedge Fund Conviction Strengthens
Institutional investors signaled their strong optimism for the company in the second quarter of the year, as evidenced by the increase in hedge fund holdings and committed capital during the period.
Data from Insider Monkey said that 42 hedge funds held positions in the stock in the second quarter, up from 41 in the quarter prior.
More notably, their combined holdings surged by 16.8 percent to $507.3 million from $433.9 million quarter-on-quarter.
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