Ibotta, Inc. (IBTA) Earnings

Management highlights

### Core Business & Go-to-Market Transformation - Ibotta returned to total year-over-year revenue growth in Q2 2026, a full quarter ahead of management expectations. Top and bottom line results exceeded the high end of the prior guidance range for the third consecutive quarter. - Total redeemers reached 20.9 million, up 21% YoY — the fastest redeemer growth since Q2 2025. 10x redeemer growth has been achieved over the past 5 years. - The verticalized sales structure and updated revenue organization implemented in Q3 2025 is delivering expected results. The majority of enterprise client accounts that declined in 2025 returned to YoY growth in Q2 2026, driven by upgraded consultative sales, stronger client relationships, and improved account management continuity. One top 20 household products client expanded its LiveLift campaigns in H1 2026, resulting in 75% YoY net revenue growth for the first half of 2026. - Q2 growth was broad-based across three core verticals: emerging brands, food, and health and beauty. Emerging challenger brands are driving significant budget inflows for net new household acquisition. Product Innovation & Industry Validation - LiveLift revenue continues to grow both YoY and sequentially quarter-over-quarter. Automation initiatives to create a next-generation client buying experience (to free sales teams for selling rather than administrative work and enable larger LiveLift scaling) remain on schedule with significant progress completed. - An independent meta-study conducted with Cercana across 48 Ibotta CPG campaigns found an average 16.5% incremental sales lift, 17% average increase in new household penetration, and a 10.9% average sales lift on non-promoted items from the same brand portfolio (halo effect). Results exceeded Cercana's standard sales lift benchmarks by 7x, validating Ibotta's measurement rigor and incremental value for CPG clients. Ibotta Performance Network (IPN) Expansion - Three major new publisher integrations have been added in 2026 to date, most recently 7-Eleven, Inc. Under the agreement, Ibotta will be the exclusive third-party provider of non-age-restricted CPG digital promotions for the 7-Eleven, 7Now, and Speedway apps, reaching shoppers across over 11,500 U.S. store locations. This expands Ibotta's convenience store footprint, a strategically important channel for food and beverage clients that historically lacked coordinated digital promotion access. - Native offer integration with Uber launched at the end of Q2 2026, and Giant Eagle integration went live in July 2026. Both onboarding processes are proceeding on schedule.

Guidance

- Q3 2026 revenue guidance is set at $86 million to $90 million, representing approximately 6% YoY growth at the midpoint. A slight sequential quarter-over-quarter revenue decline from Q2 is expected, due to the pull-forward of seasonal Walmart deal days into Q2 2026 from July 2025. - Q3 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance is $12 million to $14 million, representing ~15% adjusted EBITDA margin at the midpoint. Combined Q2 and Q3 2026 revenue and adjusted EBITDA expectations are higher than management's prior forecast from the Q1 earnings call. - A modest sequential revenue increase is expected quarter-over-quarter into Q4 2026, with full-year 2026 expected to exit with mid-single-digit YoY total revenue growth. - Modest sequential increases in non-GAAP cost of revenue and operating expenses are planned for the back half of 2026, with all increases focused on transformation initiatives and core growth opportunities. - Full-year 2026 free cash flow is now expected to equal approximately 70% of adjusted EBITDA, an upward revision from the prior expectation of 65% at the start of the year, driven by stronger than expected first half cash generation. - Ibotta will maintain its balanced capital allocation strategy, continuing to invest in organic growth and strategic priorities while returning cash to shareholders via share repurchases.

Segment performance

Ibotta's total Q2 2026 revenue was $88.9 million, up 3% year-over-year (YoY). - Redemption Revenue (total): $80.2 million, up 10% YoY, accounting for 90.2% of total revenue. This marked the fastest redemption revenue growth since Q3 2024. - Third-party publisher Redemption Revenue: $61.5 million, up 27% YoY, accelerating from 12% growth in the prior quarter, and accounting for 69.2% of total revenue. Third-party redemptions per redeemer grew 2% YoY, returning to growth for the first time since Q3 2024. - Direct-to-consumer (D2C) Redemption Revenue: $18.7 million, down 24% YoY, accounting for 21.0% of total revenue. The decline was expected, as redemption activity continues to shift to third-party publishers. - Ad and other revenue: Declined YoY, with a larger year-over-year drop in Q2 2026 than in Q1 2026, due to a difficult comparison against Q2 2025 when CPG ad revenue grew (the only quarter of CPG ad growth in 2025). On a profitability basis, Q2 2026 adjusted EBITDA was $16.5 million, representing an 18.6% adjusted EBITDA margin. Non-GAAP gross margin was 79.3%, down 60 basis points YoY but up 170 basis points sequentially from Q1. Non-GAAP operating expenses were 64.5% of revenue, up 250 basis points YoY, due to planned investments in transformation initiatives.

Risks & headwinds

No explicit material new risks or operational failures were discussed or disclosed on this earnings call.

Analyst Q&A

• Q: What are the core drivers of improved offer supply growth, and is it from macro CPG advertiser improvement or the new verticalized sales structure? What is the expected cadence of new publisher signings, and will Ibotta expand beyond core grocery verticals? /

  A: Offer supply growth is primarily driven by improved go-to-market execution from the 1-year-old verticalized sales structure. The team has strengthened in-person client engagement, deepened understanding of client business objectives, and built trust via credible third-party validated measurement. Even in a challenging macro environment, CPG brands increasingly turn to Ibotta as a trusted partner to navigate headwinds. For new publishers, Ibotta already holds leading positions in multiple non-grocery verticals including mass retail, dollar stores, and last-mile delivery, with 7-Eleven anchoring the new convenience channel. The company will continue to target penetration of untapped categories, with a steady stream of new publisher announcements expected in coming quarters.

• Q: How did adding 7-Eleven fit into Ibotta's marketplace supply-demand equilibrium, and what is the growth outlook for the health and beauty category? /

  A: Adding 7-Eleven unlocks new advertiser budgets, as convenience stores are a strategically important channel for many CPG brands that sell high volumes of single-serve products there. A broader overall network increases value for all participants, and Ibotta is successfully keeping offer supply growth aligned with redeemer growth. Health and beauty has been a strong category for Ibotta for some time, but increased strategic focus on the vertical over the past year has driven accelerating growth that became visible in Q2 2026.

• Q: What key execution priorities does Ibotta have heading into the 2027 CPG annual budget-setting cycle to capture maximum incremental growth? /

  A: The top priority is maintaining an upstream seat at the table in clients' strategic planning conversations, to understand core objectives and size the full Ibotta opportunity across all of a client's brand portfolio. The key mindset shift Ibotta is working to drive is communicating that Ibotta promotions drive incremental top-line revenue growth, rather than being a discretionary marketing expense that can be cut to protect short-term margins. Strong frontline sales relationships built over the past year are critical to convincing clients of this value proposition, to capture more of Ibotta's available redeemer demand capacity.

• Q: What is the outlook for the declining D2C segment, and what drove the step-up in third-party redemption revenue growth this quarter? Was it related to pricing changes? /

  A: The increase in third-party revenue was driven purely by mix shift from higher redeemer and redemption growth in the third-party segment, not pricing changes — third-party revenue per redemption was flat quarter-over-quarter. Pricing is now at a client-centric equilibrium that aligns with client goals for incremental growth, and the shift away from fixed setup fees to a more continuous rational pricing model has been well received by clients. For D2C, the first priority is growing overall offer supply across the business; as offer supply strengthens, Ibotta will be able to increase user acquisition and retention investment for D2C, which is expected to stabilize declines.