illumin Holdings Inc. (TSX:ILLM)
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Earnings Call: Q2 2021

Aug 10, 2021

Moderator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to AcuityAds' Q2 2021 financial results conference call for three and six-month period ended June 30th, 2021. Before we begin the official remarks, I will read the cautionary note regarding forward-looking information. Certain information to be discussed during this call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable security laws, including among others, statements concerning the company's 2021 objectives, the company's strategy to achieve those objectives, as well as statements with respect to management's beliefs, plans, estimates, and intentions, and similar statements concerning anticipated future events, results, circumstances, performance, or expectations that are not historical facts. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management and are subject to a number of significant risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated.

Please refer to the cautionary statements and the risk factors identified in our filings with SEDAR for a more detailed explanation of the inherent risks and uncertainties that could affect such forward-looking statements. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Tal Hayek, the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AcuityAds, to update you on the operations of the business.

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q2 investor presentation. My name is Tal Hayek, and I'm the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AcuityAds. This is the first presentation since we IPO-ed on the Nasdaq recently. I would like to send a warm welcome to all our new shareholders from all over the world. Over the past few quarters, we talked a lot about illumin, and we talked a lot about how illumin is changing the world. Well, Q2 was all about execution. Our team did a tremendous job in getting more and more brands to adopt illumin and to benefit from being able to control the consumer journey and to send the right message at the right time to their consumer, depending where they are on that journey. I'd like to send a special thank you to the Acuity family for delivering such an amazing Q2.

A quarter of overall growth of 55%, a quarter of 75% constant currency growth, a quarter of 60% sequential growth on illumin. Let's not forget, a quarter of 154% growth in EBITDA. Companies, great companies, like New York Life, Sparkling Ice, Whataburger, and Dell, and many others, have already begun taking advantage of illumin and the consumer journey approach. Not only are they getting a better success on their campaign, they're also learning a lot because the kind of insight that they're seeing from it is absolutely second to none. We're so excited about Q2 results. Revenue was up by 55% year-over-year, which is tremendous growth by itself. On a constant currency basis, we were up 75%. Constant currency basis is really the right indicator from a growth perspective. Why?

Because most of our revenue is derived in U.S. dollars, and the strong Canadian dollar understates our real true growth rate. We were able to deliver CAD 30.3 million in Q2. LTM-adjusted EBITDA. Let's talk about that for a second because this is something that we have been focusing a lot as a management team in the last few quarters. We made a decision that it's time to bring more profits from the organization, and as you can see, we were able to execute over the last eight quarters consistently, moving it up and to the right and delivering more LTM EBITDA. We are now reported CAD 21.8 million LTM EBITDA for the quarter. CTV grew by 400% year-over-year basis.

Tremendous excitement about the future of CTV, a great driver for the industry in general and for Acuity, and we're really excited to see that everything we talked about in the past regarding CTV is becoming reality. Advertisers are moving more and more from traditional TV to connected TV. Let's talk about illumin, which is my favorite subject. From a revenue perspective, we saw an over 60% growth from Q1 to Q2. That is tremendous growth. We delivered CAD 5.2 million in revenue. Clients. At the end of Q2, we saw 40 clients, and 17 of them are tier 1. Just to compare it, at the end of Q1, we had 17 clients, and nine of them were tier 1. We grew the clients by 135%. Again, tremendous growth as it shows that our team is getting more and more of the brands adopted into illumin.

The majority of revenue in illumin came from brand-new business to Acuity. We're very excited to see more and more logos coming, brand-new logos coming into Acuity. Look, they're coming in because of illumin, and we love it. I think most importantly, when you look at in the future and you look at what we predict to illumin in the future, I can tell you we're very excited about it. Everybody in the company, from the sales team, from the execution team to the tech team, marketing team, everyone is excited about illumin. It gave really an amazing new life to the spirit of Acuity because we have something unique and differentiated and that really puts us aside and lets us excel in this world of programmatic advertising.

What we're seeing is an amazing amount of RFPs, lots of demos, lots of demo requests, lots of great conversations with major brands out there. I'm happy to say that the pipeline is an all-time high for the second part of the year. We do believe the best is yet to come when it comes to illumin. Now that we have a few quarters under us, actually three quarters, with illumin, I'm happy to show this graph. In Q4, when we launched illumin, we did CAD 1.5 million, in Q1, CAD 3.2 million, and in Q2, CAD 45.2 million. It's only three quarters in, and we're very excited about where this is going to take us.

A lot of investors are always asking us, "Well, what makes you think that somebody else is not going to copy you?" I can tell you that I do feel that eventually somebody will copy the process because it just makes sense to do it. We have such tremendous advantage over the marketplace that it's going to be very hard for them to catch up, and I do believe we have a lot of time ahead of us before we see anybody catch up. Don't forget that we're advancing all the time. In our latest release of illumin, we've created a better journey, better journey insights and new insights, and access to more inventory. This has just been in the latest release, and we have new releases coming in on regular basis. We're also running campaigns on regular basis.

Every time we run a campaign, we learn from it. When we learn from it, product makes changes and improves the product as well. Needless to say also, the types of integrations that we're doing out there is creating a better product as well. I think above all is the Acuity algorithm that we developed in-house over the past 11 years is what makes all the decisions in the background of illumin, and that cannot be duplicated. Well, we're excited to share with you some data from actually what's happening when you run a campaign on illumin. As many of you know, Purple has been a great partner for many years with us. They are all about driving value, and they're all about ROI. They were nice enough to do a test with us. What did we do?

We took a campaign, and we ran part of it as a complete connected journey and the other part as a conversion only. Which conversion only, what we call the bottom of the funnel, it's more like what other DSPs do, like the old DSP of Acuity used to do. The fully connected journey is when you divide the campaign into awareness stage, engagement stage, and conversion stage, and you send different messages along the way, which is what illumin is all about. I'm very happy to report that after running both campaigns, we were able to deliver much better value on the fully connected journey. Josh Park, the Director of Performance Marketing at Purple, was nice enough to share his testimonial here. As you can see, he's really excited about the results he's seen.

I will now ask Jonathan Pollack, our CFO, to share some financial updates.

Jonathan Pollack
CFO, AcuityAds

Thank you, Tal. Thinking back to where we were this time last year, right in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, and seeing where we are today is truly astonishing to me. I'm so proud of what the Acuity team has accomplished over this relatively short time period. Our year-over-year growth reflects not only the incredible bounce back of our organization from the difficult challenges of last year, it also shows the resilience of the advertising industry as a whole, and we are thrilled to be one of the leaders in this movement. In addition to our results, we are also very pleased that we successfully listed on the Nasdaq exchange after raising $57.5 million , receiving incredible support from both our existing investors as well as an entirely new base of U.S. investors.

Complementing this, we are continuing to see rapid adoption of our illumin platform, which has become a strong catalyst for our future growth with revenue and pipeline growth well beyond our internal expectations. This growth is being driven by substantial inbound inquiries for the platform, some of which are from the largest advertising agencies and brands globally. We are ecstatic about the market opportunity that we are addressing with this innovative solution and believe this current momentum is truly just the beginning of this platform's full potential. With that in mind, I'd like to discuss the financial results from our Q2 2021. Total revenue in the Q2 increased 55% year-over-year to CAD 30.3 million compared to CAD 19.6 million last year. With approximately 75% of our revenue derived in the U.S., the strong Canadian dollar understates our true growth.

On a constant currency basis, revenue increased close to 75% compared to last year. In addition, revenue from illumin this quarter totaled CAD 5.2 million, an increase of 60%+ sequentially compared to CAD 3.2 million in Q1 2021. Gross profit or net revenue was CAD 15.8 million in Q2 2021, a 56.4% increase compared to CAD 10.1 million in Q2 2020. Our gross profit margin in Q2 2021 was 52.2% compared to 51.7% in Q2 of last year. Total operating expenses for the Q2 totaled CAD 13.3 million compared to CAD 10.6 million last year, an increase of 25.5%.

Q2 2020 expenses were obviously lower due to COVID-related reductions realized last year, including the shutdown in all travel and entertainment expenses, as well as the government wage support received during the 2020 period that was non-recurring this year. Operating expenses as a percentage of revenue was 43.9% for the Q2 , down from 54.1% for the same period last year. This improved operating leverage led to an adjusted EBITDA increase of 154% in Q2 2021 to CAD 5.4 million, up from CAD 2.1 million in Q2 2020. Lastly, net income for the same period was CAD 3.4 million, up from a net loss of CAD1.6 million last year. Turning to our H1 results on the next slide. Total revenue for the six months of 2021 was CAD 57.7 million, a 32% increase compared to CAD 43.8 million in 2020. Revenue from illumin for the H1 of 2021 totaled CAD 8.4 million.

In addition, gross profit or net revenue was CAD 30.2 million in the H1 of 2021, an increase of 35.4% compared to CAD 22.3 million for the same period last year. Gross margin for the first half of 2021 was 52.3% compared to 50.9% for the same period last year. Total operating expenses for the six months of 2021 totaled CAD 25.4 million, up from CAD 23.4 million during the same period in 2020, an increase of 8.7%. Adjusted EBITDA in the first half of 2021 was CAD 10 million, up 153% from CAD 3.9 million during the comparable period in 2020. Net income in the first six months of 2021 totaled CAD 4.7 million, compared to a net loss of CAD 1.4 million for the same period last year.

Turning to our balance sheet, our working capital position continues to grow due to cash generated from the business, as well as our recent financing completed simultaneously with our Nasdaq listing. As of June 30th, our working capital position totaled CAD 100.1 million, putting us in a very strong financial position. As you'll see on the next slide, as of June 30th, 2021, our cash balance stood at CAD 93.4 million. In addition, on an LTM basis, in line with our growth strategy, we continue to generate strong adjusted EBITDA. As you can see here, our LTM adjusted EBITDA continues to grow, reflecting the strong operational leverage we continue to generate each quarter. I am incredibly pleased to announce that as of June 30th, 2021, our LTM adjusted EBITDA stood at CAD 21.8 million, an increase of close to 90% over the same period last year.

Lastly, given our recent capital raise, we wanted to provide an update on primary and fully diluted shares outstanding. At June 30th, 2021, AcuityAds had 60.4 million primary shares outstanding and 63.6 million fully diluted shares outstanding. In addition, insiders continue to own a substantial stake in the company. That concludes my prepared remarks. I'll now turn the presentation back over to Tal before Q&A.

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Thank you, Jonathan. We are so excited about Q2 results. The aggressive revenue growth, the illumin growth, and the constant increase in profitability just shows the leverage of the model, that as we're increasing more and more revenue and most of our expenses are fixed, we're able to bring in more profitability into the org. Even more excited about the future, you guessed it right, illumin. Illumin is what I'm mostly excited about. I love to see how illumin is getting adopted out there. It's getting adopted by more and more brands that are really aligned with the way that they plan. Marketers plan a consumer journey. They always did. They just didn't have the tools to execute on it when it comes to programmatic, illumin gives them that tool.

Not only does it give them that tool, it gives them the ability to see the types of insights they could never see before, and that is extremely valuable for them. I'm happy to report that the illumin pipeline for the second part of the year is extremely strong, and we're very excited about how it looks. I would like to thank again the Acuity family for delivering such an amazing quarter. Before we said that we were very excited about the Nasdaq. Now that we're on the Nasdaq, we are very excited to go out and tell the story to more and more new shareholders in the rest of the year. I would like to say a warm welcome and thank you to all our new shareholders, from institutional shareholders to retail shareholders.

I'd like to welcome you to the journey and the partnership of Acuity. We could never do any of the things we do without our investors and our partners, so thank you again. Jonathan and I would like to welcome everyone to our Q&A section.

Moderator

Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you, Tal. Just a reminder to our analysts, to please use the Zoom raise hand function if you have a question, and please be mindful to turn your camera and mic on. Our first question comes from Laura Martin at Needham.

Laura Martin
Analyst, Needham

Start with CTV. Very strong growth numbers on the CTV side of the business. I think we were estimating last year it was about 5% of your business. As you think through the rest of 2021, how big do you think CTV could get, and what are its profit characteristics compared to the other channels of your ad revenue?

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Yeah. Let's start with the profit. I would say it's pretty aligned, the margins that we make from CTV, when we look at campaigns and it comes to illumin CTV is just a part of it, and it's an integral part of it. When advertisers are running campaigns, because we have illumin, they can run it together with their display and with their other video campaigns on mobile or anything that's programmatic, and they can actually see how it affects the bottom of the funnel campaigns as well. Therefore, it's more or less part of the same profitability side of things. I can honestly say that the growth rates are amazing, and we can see that going through the rest of the year and years to come. I don't really know the specific percentage of revenue on CTV, and I really don't want to guess.

Laura Martin
Analyst, Needham

Okay. My second question and my last question is on illumin. We have about, last year, round numbers, 77% of your business was managed service, and then illumin is really driving your self-service part of the business. We've been estimating that your managed service has over 50% gross margins, but your self-service, meaning illumin, has about 30% gross margins, and illumin is growing a lot faster than the overall business. Can you talk about these margin profiles you're reporting today are excellent. Do we end up with downward pressure on our margin profile as illumin becomes a larger and larger part of the business, do you think?

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Yeah. I think in the long run, that's what we can expect. We can expect as the self-serve illumin numbers grow, the overall margin will gradually go down. The numbers, the revenue numbers are going to go up substantially, therefore, the net revenue will go up. Naturally, when running self-serve, you have less expenses in the back end, and it should be more profitable as well.

Laura Martin
Analyst, Needham

At the EBITDA line, it will be more profitable?

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Yeah.

Laura Martin
Analyst, Needham

Okay. That makes sense. Okay. Thank you very much. Great numbers, you guys. Congratulations.

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Thank you.

Jonathan Pollack
CFO, AcuityAds

Thank you.

Moderator

Thank you, Laura. Our next question comes from Darren at Roth.

Darren Aftahi
Analyst, Roth

Hey, guys. How are you? Thanks for the questions.

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Hey.

Darren Aftahi
Analyst, Roth

Congrats on the quarter. Just on the 17, kind of as you referred to tier 1 clients, can you talk about revenue concentration among illumin there? Then my second 1 is the clients that have been on since the Q4 , how has the spend trended, if any, and how does it kind of relate to customers that are coming on today? Said another way, like are new clients that are coming on that are tier 1 spending more with you than when they came on in the Q4 ? Thanks.

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Yeah, Darren, I would say the, Jonathan could talk about concentration. I don't believe we have much. I would say that what we're looking, as you know, we launched it in Q4, and our best guess was that we will see the majority of revenue coming mid this year. We were very surprised. What we found, there was really two types of clients. The clients that are using illumin already and spending a few hundred thousand on it per quarter or so, and they gradually increasing their numbers, and they're happy with, they're getting results. The bigger clients that are spending also probably similar amounts, but it's more testing for them. These types of clients are the ones that takes a long time. The sales process takes a long time. Generally speaking, the retention rate is extremely high. I think it's almost 100%.

The spend trend is looking very, very good, and we still expect the bigger deals to close later on. Obviously, we will communicate when that happens.

Jonathan Pollack
CFO, AcuityAds

Darren, with respect to the customer concentration of the CAD 5.3 million in the quarter, the largest customer represented about CAD 600,000 of that. The next customer is about CAD 350,000, CAD 250,000, CAD 200,000. There are many, many customers, but the largest being about 13%, 14%, nothing greater than that.

Darren Aftahi
Analyst, Roth

Great. Thank you.

Moderator

Our next question comes from Jacob at Lake Street.

Jacob Stephan
Analyst, Lake Street

Just going back to illumin. How has the illumin spend been trending among your current installed base, between Q4, Q1, and Q2 now?

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

The current install base of illumin or in general?

Jacob Stephan
Analyst, Lake Street

Your current customers.

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Okay. From current customers, most of the revenue that's coming into illumin is from brand-new customers. It's not taking customers from our existing business moving over to illumin. From the illumin customers, it's been trending very well. As I said before, mostly, we have two groups, one that are spending very nicely, and we're seeing an increase in spend over time, and then the other ones are really taking a very close look at it, really excited about it, and would like to become a much bigger partnership in the future.

Jacob Stephan
Analyst, Lake Street

Just switching over to kind of your onboarding process. How are you guys able to ensure that customers coming online with this brand-new platform are successful?

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

That is actually a very, very good question. That is also one of the reasons we don't want to go too fast on it, because when you launch a brand-new platform that's never been tried before, you always want to make sure that it's perfect before you hit the gas pedal a lot. In our sales process, we have sales engineers that are very close to the customers and to the sales process and very close to the time when you need to launch a campaign. We also watch over what the customers are doing on a regular basis, making sure they're doing the right things. Remember, illumin is very intuitive to begin with, but the success of the initial customer is so important to us that I would say we want to babysit them to make sure that they're successful.

We do that, and we're finding great results, and most of the time there's no issues. Sometimes there are issues, and that's the beauty of it, because we're very close to the feedback back to the product. Product comes in and makes changes, and technology gets involved and make changes. We are in many iterations of illumin already into it, and it's all because we're becoming more and more an experts on it. A lot of the assumptions we made in the beginning to build this platform were not necessarily optimal. It was all about getting that feedback, making changes, and it's all about how to be more intuitive so it's easier to use, how to make it faster even to set up campaigns. Remember, on other DSPs, it takes hours to set up a campaign.

On illumin, it could take a minute to somebody without any experience. We want to make that even better. Performance. I mean Acuity has always been about performance. It's always been about driving ROI to our customers, and illumin drives even more ROI as a completely connected consumer campaign. Hope that answers.

Jacob Stephan
Analyst, Lake Street

That's really helpful. Yeah, that was very helpful. Thank you. With CAD 93.4 million on the balance sheet, what kind of M&A are you guys targeting? Is it going to expand your base business, or are you going more towards expanding illumin even faster?

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Yeah. We're not very happy about the half a percent that we're getting from the bank on it, I can tell you that much. Obviously, we're looking at M&A. We've been looking at a lot of companies lately. For me, illumin is definitely our focus for the future and for the present, that's where our focus is. We have many elements, new elements that are on the plan and the pipeline on the product roadmap for illumin, it could be things that are not programmatic. Things like search and social and out-of-home signs and influencer marketing, there's a whole bunch of other ones that we want to integrate into it. Now, we're specifically not experts in it, we would love to acquire companies that are experts in it.

We can integrate a ready product right into illumin and bring in the talent that can help us. Obviously, if it comes with revenue and we can find some synergies and make the whole thing very profitable. That, for me, is the ideal company that we are looking for.

Jacob Stephan
Analyst, Lake Street

Great. Last one here. Going to the verticals, travel, hospitality and entertainment, have you seen a recovery in those? Are they kind of still a little softer than you'd like?

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

They're softer than we would like, for sure. We're starting to see the signs of recovery. Obviously, with all this, the pandemic is over, no, it's not over, kind of situation. It's really frustrating because we want to see all those come back. Even the ones that are not fully back from a business perspective, they're starting to communicate with their consumers because they have to, and we're seeing some ad dollars flowing there as well. I think it's pretty encouraging sign, and eventually, it has to come back.

Jacob Stephan
Analyst, Lake Street

Great. Congrats on the quarter. Thank you for answering my question.

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Thank you, Jacob.

Moderator

Our next question is going to come from Daniel Rosenberg at Paradigm.

Daniel Rosenberg
Analyst, Paradigm

Good morning, Tal. Good morning, Jonathan. I had a quick question on the cost structure. You guys have navigated COVID, really focused on keeping costs contained and are benefiting. Just wondering how you think about the opportunity ahead, whether it's worth kind of pausing the increases in profitability and really focusing on the growth opportunity, or do you still prioritize a bit of expansion as you see the near-term business?

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Well, I'd say obviously we're prioritizing the growth of illumin. That's definitely our focus, and we can do it in number of different ways. I mean, there's M&A, and there's investment in product and sales and marketing. We're doing our strategic planning, and I think it's going to be a combination of all those things. We're going to stay profitable, there's no doubts about that. Maybe we will give up some of the profits in order to move faster. It's all in the planning right now over the next few weeks, and once we have a better idea of how to proceed, we'll be able to communicate it. For me, it's an investment on both sides.

Daniel Rosenberg
Analyst, Paradigm

Okay, great. In terms of the teaching initiatives that you put out there for illumin, I know you invested in creating some programs. I was wondering if you could just share, do you see illumin users starting to become more self-sufficient? Are they really enjoying having you by their side in designing campaigns on the illumin platform?

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

It's a mix of both. I mean, obviously, the education program that we're running is very good, and it's really creating customers for the future. It's more the juniors that are taking it, I would say, and the IAB and all that. It's not only juniors, but obviously, I think it's creating our customers of the future. It's also educating the market about advertising automation, the connected consumer journey and all that. So we're happy with that. We're happy with the leads we're getting from it, and the amount of customers and sign-ups that we're getting from it, and the conversations we're having. On the other side, it's also, like I said before, we don't really want to go too fast with illumin because we're learning from it all the time. It's definitely a mix.

Over the next few quarters, it's going to be way more self-serve than managed, and we will definitely encourage customers to do it more on the self-serve side.

Daniel Rosenberg
Analyst, Paradigm

Okay, great. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll pass the line.

Moderator

Thank you, Daniel. Our next question comes from Kevin Krishnaratne at Desjardins.

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Hey, Kevin. How are you?

Kevin Krishnaratne
Analyst, Desjardins

There you are. Good morning, guys. Nice to see you.

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Hey, Kevin.

Kevin Krishnaratne
Analyst, Desjardins

Glad I made it. Morning. Hey, really good results, guys. I have a question for you following up on previous questions on the gross margin, the net revenue, whatever you want to call it. Tal, you mentioned over time, there'll be a skewing back down. It'll move closer and closer below the 50% mark, I guess, as you get more of the self-serve business in. Even if you think about your self-serve take rate, it's sort of, I think you've indicated 30%, 35%. That is quite high relative to what you see in the industry. I know we've talked in the past on the pricing power that you have there, just given the strong ROI that you deliver.

As you're going to market with illumin and you're getting in front of larger clients, more global clients that might be having more spend, they might be used to other DSPs that have lower take rates. How do you think about that longer term? In the past, you have sort of given up a little bit of margins to win bigger deals. Just wondering longer term, how do you think about take rate?

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

I think we still have the luxury of getting more take rates because we have two things that are very unique. Number one is illumin. Again, this is a platform that nobody else out there has. It's very unique and it's very desirable. At the end of the day, this is what marketers dream of. This is what they plan. They always plan consumer journey, and they didn't have a way of activating it up to now, and now they have that system. We do have the luxury of that. Couple that with an algorithm that delivers a better ROI, and ultimately, what customers care about is their ROI. If they spend a little bit more on margin to us but make more ROI when they spend less with other players, then that's a better deal for them.

I do believe we will have the luxury of our take rate to be higher. When you think about deals that are very big, in the tens of millions of dollars a year revenue, we will probably be more flexible, but the net revenue that we're going to have in our system is going to be much higher and therefore our profits will show that as well. I think at the end of the day, it's going to be a win-win.

Kevin Krishnaratne
Analyst, Desjardins

That's great to hear. Thanks for that. As others have mentioned on the call, travel and entertainment is still a little light, but you did see signs of recovery. I think the results you put in Q2 were quite strong in light of that, even though you've got a pause on the business there. Can you remind us historically what that business represents in a Q2 and a Q3 in terms of the percentage of revenue?

Jonathan Pollack
CFO, AcuityAds

Historically, travel, entertainment, and things related to travel and entertainment were about 20%, 25%. As you mentioned, we've been able to get that revenue back from other verticals. Tal mentioned auto has been something we've invested in over the last 12 months that has performed extraordinarily well. Our team focused on auto is really hitting it out of the park. We are seeing some small increases in certain travel and entertainment, and we do see that coming back. As Tal mentioned, obviously, airlines are up and running again and spending marketing dollars, and we hope that that will continue. You'll also see hotels, cruise ships, and other ways of travel spending money. We're not expecting that to be a big part in our internal budget, but if it does, it will definitely allow us to outperform.

Kevin Krishnaratne
Analyst, Desjardins

Great. Last one from me, just on profits. Again, a very impressive EBITDA profile. You mentioned that the focus is on illumin. Can you talk about any sort of spending plans internationally? When you think about the ad market and even CTV, there's a lot of opportunity in international markets. You've got a presence in Europe through a prior acquisition. Can you talk about maybe the resources that you've got internationally and any thoughts on using some of that cash on the balance sheet to increase your presence in international markets? Thinking that in the context of, again, with illumin, you presumably are targeting larger brands that are global in nature that might want to run global campaigns. Thanks.

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

From a technical perspective, we're international with the exception of Asia. We can't run any campaigns there just because it's a matter of having data centers which, by the way, it's not that difficult to do if we decide to do it. For me, that area is more, it's tough from a sales and marketing perspective. The rest of the world, technically we're there and we can run. International expansion is something that's on the table from the strategic stand point of view, and we will be exploring it. I am personally a fan of it, and I do believe the rest of Europe is something we should pay attention to, and some other areas of the world that are up and coming as well. We can do that from an M&A perspective or from a hiring perspective as well.

All that is part of the strategic planning for the future.

Kevin Krishnaratne
Analyst, Desjardins

Great. Thanks. Congrats again, guys.

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Thank you.

Jonathan Pollack
CFO, AcuityAds

Thank you, Kevin.

Moderator

Jonathan, Tal, it looks like we have no more questions at this point. I will hand it off to you two to close up shop here.

Tal Hayek
Co-Founder and CEO, AcuityAds

Well, thank you everyone for joining our call. As I said before, we truly value all the investors that are joining the journey all the time, and from a while ago but recently as well. You all matter, and we couldn't have done it without you. I would like to share one quick story that I heard from the sales team when it comes to illumin. There was a sales meeting with a major agency and a major executive that originally did not even feel that he want to take that meeting. In the middle of that meeting, he was so excited about it, and he shared with everyone that everyone from the beginning of times of programmatic marketing have been talking about the consumer journey.

We are the only one that actually provided the tools and activation, meaning that you can plan your campaign and activate it from our system, and that is something that he claims is huge, which obviously we think so as well. That is the feedback we're getting from the street from very, very large advertisers, and that's truly exciting to be part of Acuity today as we're getting more and more people to adopt illumin. Thank you everyone on the call today, and we'll see you on the next quarterly call.