Executive Summary / Key Takeaways

• LiveRamp is strategically positioned as a foundational data collaboration platform, enabling businesses to unify, connect, and activate fragmented customer data in a privacy-compliant manner, addressing critical industry trends like the data-driven customer experience, commerce media growth, and evolving privacy regulations.
• The company's differentiated technology, including its deterministic identity resolution (RampID, AbiliTec) and Clean Room capabilities, provides a competitive edge by offering superior accuracy, scale, and privacy-centric data connectivity across a vast network of partners, driving tangible performance uplift for customers.
• LiveRamp demonstrated strong financial and operational momentum in fiscal year 2025, achieving 13% revenue growth (hitting its 10-15% target for the third consecutive year), expanding operating margin to 18% (sixth consecutive year of expansion), and generating record free cash flow of $153 million, resulting in entry into the Rule of 30 club (Rule of 31).
• The strategic focus on scaling the Clean Room network, expanding use cases (including AI), and simplifying collaboration is gaining traction, evidenced by improving subscription net retention, growth in $1 million+ customers, and early success in standardizing publisher partnerships.
• While the near-term outlook for FY26 incorporates caution due to macroeconomic uncertainty potentially impacting variable revenue and sales cycles, management guides for continued operating margin expansion to 20-25% and remains committed to achieving the Rule of 40 by FY28, balancing growth investments with cost discipline.

The Foundation of the Data Collaboration Economy

LiveRamp Holdings, Inc. is carving out a critical role in the evolving digital economy as a leading data collaboration technology company. At its core, LiveRamp provides the essential middleware that allows marketers and media owners to unify, connect, and activate fragmented customer data across a complex ecosystem of applications and partners. This capability is increasingly vital as businesses strive to deliver personalized customer experiences, navigate the proliferation of data sources, and adapt to a rapidly changing privacy landscape.

The company's journey, marked by its evolution from Acxiom Holdings and the strategic divestiture of its Acxiom Marketing Solutions business in fiscal 2019, has sharpened its focus on its core data collaboration platform. This platform is designed to address fundamental challenges in the industry, such as the fragmentation of consumer identity across numerous online and offline touchpoints and the resulting marketing waste from inaccurate identification.

Technological Edge and Innovation

LiveRamp's competitive strength is deeply rooted in its differentiated technology. The LiveRamp Data Collaboration Platform is built on four pillars: LiveIdentity, LiveAccess, LiveConnectivity, and LiveInsights. Central to this is its omnichannel, deterministic identity resolution technology, leveraging both offline data via AbiliTec and online data through its Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS) and RampID. This approach offers unparalleled accuracy and breadth in resolving disparate consumer identities.

The tangible benefits of this technology are significant. Deterministic matching provides a strong combination of reach and accuracy, enabling precise audience segmentation, targeting, and measurement. Case studies highlight the performance uplift: Omni Hotels & Resorts saw a four times improvement in conversion rate using PAIR and ATS over traditional cookie-based targeting, while Indeed achieved a 54% improvement in retargeting audience and 20% improvement in response rates over cookies. The platform's scale is also a key differentiator, processing over 4 trillion data records daily and connecting data across an ecosystem of more than 500 partners.

The LiveInsights pillar, powered by Clean Room technology (enhanced by the Habu acquisition), enables secure data collaboration for advanced measurement and analytics. This allows organizations to safely combine disparate data files, such as advertising exposure and sales transactions, using RampID for accurate cross-channel attribution and sales lift measurement. The company's R&D efforts are focused on automation, speed, higher match rates, expanded partner integrations, new use cases, and new product development, aiming to establish LiveRamp as the standard for consumer-level recognition and data collaboration.

Navigating a Complex Competitive Landscape

LiveRamp operates within a highly competitive environment, where many competitors also function as partners within its ecosystem. Primary competitors include companies offering data onboarding as part of broader marketing suites, such as Adobe Inc. (ADBE) and Salesforce Inc. (CRM), walled gardens like Google (GOOGL) that offer direct CRM data matching interfaces, and providers of tag management, data management, and cross-device solutions like The Trade Desk Inc. (TTD) Oracle Corporation (ORCL) also competes in the enterprise data management space.

While direct quantitative comparisons across all metrics can be challenging, analysis suggests LiveRamp holds an estimated 5-10% aggregate market share in data connectivity. Its growth rate, while solid, trails high-growth programmatic platforms like The Trade Desk Inc. LiveRamp differentiates itself through its strict neutrality, interoperability, and groundbreaking leadership in privacy and security, which are increasingly valued in a regulated market. Its deterministic identity technology and expansive network provide a competitive moat, offering superior accuracy and scale compared to some niche players. However, larger competitors like Adobe Inc. and Salesforce Inc. benefit from broader integrated ecosystems and greater scale, which can translate to higher profitability and potentially lower operating costs per unit in certain areas. LiveRamp's focus on investing heavily in R&D for privacy and technology is crucial for maintaining its edge but can impact near-term margins compared to more established, efficient operations.

Fiscal 2025 Performance: Momentum and Margin Expansion

Fiscal year 2025 marked a period of strong performance for LiveRamp, demonstrating the traction of its platform and strategic focus. The company achieved 13% revenue growth, reaching $745.6 million, successfully meeting its 10% to 15% growth target for the third consecutive year. This growth was broad-based, propelled by an 11% increase in Subscription revenue to $568.9 million and a robust 21% surge in Marketplace & Other revenue to $176.7 million. Operational metrics underscored this momentum. The company added 13 new $1 million+ subscription customers during the year, bringing the total to 128, and this crucial cohort saw aggregate revenue increase by 13%, outpacing overall Subscription growth. LiveRamp also achieved its lowest-ever contraction rate, reflecting enhanced service capabilities and platform modernization efforts. This operational efficiency, coupled with revenue growth, drove significant bottom-line improvement. Operating margin expanded by two percentage points to 18%, marking the sixth consecutive year of margin expansion. This translated into a 43% growth in operating income in Q4 FY25.

The company also generated a record $153 million in free cash flow for the year, a 51% increase year-over-year, partly due to tighter working capital management. These results culminated in LiveRamp joining the Rule of 30 club, achieving a Rule of 31 score for FY25.

Strategic Execution and Future Growth Levers

LiveRamp's strategy is centered on expanding its data collaboration network and increasing its density. Key initiatives include growing the direct customer base, increasing usage and upsell within existing accounts (land and expand), and expanding sales channel partnerships with CDPs, cloud providers, and system integrators. A significant focus is on establishing LiveRamp as the trusted industry standard for data collaboration, particularly through its Clean Room capabilities.

The acquisition and integration of Habu have been instrumental in scaling the Clean Room network. The company is actively adding critical data owner nodes, such as large social platforms, CTV providers, media properties, and retail media networks, recognizing that these participants create powerful network effects. Efforts are underway to standardize terms of engagement and develop turnkey use cases and query templates for common collaboration scenarios (e.g., advertising measurement, retail media) to accelerate adoption and time to value for both data owners and data consumers. Early progress is promising, with over half of a targeted group of 35 large publishers and retail media networks joining the network in less than a quarter. The company is also expanding use cases beyond traditional advertising, including enabling AI destinations like Perplexity and Chalice, positioning data collaboration as foundational for the emerging generation of data-driven optimization and agentic marketing.

Outlook and Risk Considerations

Looking ahead to fiscal year 2026, LiveRamp provides revenue guidance between $787 million and $817 million, representing growth of 6% to 10%. This wider-than-normal range reflects elevated macroeconomic uncertainty and its potential impact on variable revenue streams (Data Marketplace and Subscription usage), which constitute approximately 30% of total revenue. The low end of the range assumes a meaningful deceleration in macro growth in the second half, leading to slower variable revenue growth and a more challenging sales environment. The high end assumes a relatively stable economy.

Despite potential top-line sensitivity to the macro environment, the company is guiding for significant operating margin expansion in FY26, targeting between 20% and 25%, up from 18% in FY25. This improvement is expected to be driven by continued cost discipline, savings from its offshoring initiative (with 250 roles offshore compared to 60 a year prior), and the inherent operating leverage of its SaaS model. These efficiencies will fund key investments in network expansion, the Cross-Media Intelligence rollout, AI integration, and pricing transformation. Management remains confident in its long-term ambition to achieve the Rule of 40 by FY28, targeting 10% to 15% revenue growth and 25% to 30% operating margin.

However, investors should consider key risks. The business is dependent on customer renewals and new customer acquisition, and elongated sales cycles in a cautious spending environment could impact growth. Dependency on third-party data suppliers and evolving data privacy regulations (State Consumer Privacy Acts, ePrivacy, FTC scrutiny) pose ongoing challenges, potentially limiting data availability or increasing compliance costs. Competition remains intense, and while LiveRamp's technology offers advantages, larger rivals with broader suites and greater scale present formidable challenges. Cybersecurity threats are also a constant concern given the sensitive nature of the data handled.

Conclusion

LiveRamp stands at the forefront of the burgeoning data collaboration economy, armed with differentiated technology and a strategic vision aligned with powerful industry trends. The company's performance in fiscal year 2025, marked by consistent revenue growth, significant margin expansion, and record free cash flow, demonstrates its operational effectiveness and the inherent leverage in its business model. The strategic focus on scaling its Clean Room network, expanding use cases, and simplifying collaboration is building a durable competitive moat based on network effects and privacy-centric identity.

While macroeconomic headwinds introduce near-term uncertainty into the revenue outlook, LiveRamp's commitment to driving operational efficiencies positions it for continued margin expansion in FY26. The path to the Rule of 40 is clear, underpinned by the long-term opportunity in data collaboration and the company's ability to execute against its strategic priorities. For investors, LiveRamp represents an opportunity to participate in a foundational layer of the digital economy, balancing near-term macro risks with the potential for significant long-term growth driven by technological leadership and network scale.