| Perion Network Ltd. | |
| Type: | Public |
| Traded As: | NASDAQ:, |
| Founder: | Yaron Adler Ofer Adler |
| Key People: | Tal Jacobson (CEO) Maoz Sigron (CFO) |
| Location: | Tel Aviv, Israel |
| Area Served: | Worldwide |
| Industry: | Internet |
| Revenue: | US$ 743.16 million (2023) |
| Net Income: | US$117.41 million (2023) |
| Num Employees: | 420 (as of June 2024)[1] |
Perion Network Ltd. is a global technology company that provides digital advertising products and services.[2] It is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, with offices in Tel Aviv, New York, Los Angeles, London, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Toronto, and Kyiv.[3]
Perion was founded in 1999 by cousins Yaron and Ofer Adler.[4] [5] Soon after its founding, they raised $3.3 million in funding from private and institutional investors. The company went public on Nasdaq in January 2006 and was listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in 2007.[4] [6]
Perion was under the management of its original founders until August 2010, when Josef Mandelbaum was appointed CEO.[7]
Founded under the name IncrediMail, in November 2011, the company rebranded to Perion, deriving its name from the Hebrew word for productivity.[8]
In July 2014, Perion collaborated with CYREN, a provider of cloud-based security services, to enhance Perion's security and browsing applications.[9]
In August 2014, Perion extended its agreement with Microsoft's Bing search service, powering search in Perion products for desktop and mobile platforms.[10]
In September 2016, Josef Mandelbaum stepped down as CEO of Perion.[11] [12] During his tenure, Perion grew from a single-product company with an annual revenue of $29 million to over $300 million.[11]
In April 2017, Doron Gerstel assumed the role of CEO.[13] Under his leadership, Perion took initiatives to minimize the company's debt and enhance its "operational efficiency".[14] This period also saw the company broaden its reach into the digital television advertising sector.[15]
In October 2018, Perion's platform, MakeMeReach, received Google certification.[16]
In November 2020, CodeFuel, Perion's Search Technology division, entered into a four-year partnership with Microsoft Advertising.[17]
In September 2021, MakeMeReach, a subsidiary of Perion, formed a partnership with Pinterest, allowing ad purchasing and data integration from major social platforms and Google.[18]
In February 2022, Perion received the Microsoft Supply Partner of the Year Advertising Award.[19]
In August 2022, Perion received the Stevie Award in the artificial intelligence category.[20]
In September 2022, Perion disclosed the results of a digital advertising campaign for Mercedes-Benz USA, noting a successful implementation of the cookieless strategy.[21]
In February 2023, it was announced that Doron Gerstel would be stepping down as the CEO of the company and would be succeeded by Tal Jacobson, effective from 1 August 2023.[22]
In June 2024, Perion announced significant layoffs as part of a cost-cutting initiative. The decision came after Microsoft's further actions to completely remove several advertisers from its Bing network, which severely harmed Perion's revenues. As a result, Perion decided to eliminate 35 jobs, primarily within its search division in Israel. This reduction represented 15% of the company's Israeli workforce, which numbered 230 employees out of a total of 650 globally.[23]
The impact of Microsoft's decisions was substantial, with Perion's revenue from its collaboration with Microsoft projected to fall to less than 5% of its total revenue in the latter half of 2024. Previously, revenue from Bing had formed a substantial part of Perion's income. For the second quarter of 2024, Perion's revenues were anticipated to be between $106 million and $108 million, with annual revenues expected to decrease to approximately half a billion dollars.[23]
In August 2011, Perion acquired the Redmond-based Smilebox for $25 million.[24] Smilebox was an application designed for creating slideshows, e-cards, invitations, and other digital photo albums.[25] [26]
In November 2012, Perion acquired Israel-based SweetPacks (or SweetIM), for approximately $41 million.[27] [28] SweetPacks specialized in producing a range of downloadable content for daily use.[29]
In January 2014, Perion took over Conduit's ClientConnect business in an all-stock transaction valued at $660 million.[30] [31] [32] Later, in June 2014, Perion acquired San Francisco-based Grow Mobile as it repositioned itself to emphasize business-to-business services.[33] [34] [35] After the acquisition, Grow Mobile was integrated into Perion Lightspeed, a platform that serves the advertising requirements of mobile app developers.[36]
In February 2015, Perion acquired MakeMeReach, a platform that helped app developers with social media advertising, for $15 million.[37] [38] Later, in December 2015, Perion acquired the digital advertising firm, Undertone, for $180 million.[39] [40]
In 2019, Perion acquired Septa Communications, a Kyiv-based AI company that provided ad performance analytics service, for $3.5 million.[41] [42]
By January 2020, Perion acquired Content IQ, a New York-based startup that focused on optimizing digital advertising through cookie-less tracking and analytics.[43] Later, in July 2020, Perion acquired assets from a digital publisher-centric ad-tech firm named Pub Ocean and subsequently integrated them into Content IQ.[44]
In 2021, Perion acquired a Tel Aviv-based video monetization platform, Vidazoo, for $93.5 million.[45] [46]
Perion Network Ltd. provides digital advertising technology services for advertisers and publishers across various channels and platforms. Their key offerings include:
Perion's Wildfire Publisher Platform sources web traffic from multiple platforms including Facebook, Taboola, and Yahoo.[47] The company also collaborates with Microsoft Bing on search monetization services.[48]
Perion offers a tool called High Impact Advertising (HIA) that utilizes immersive media formats to enhance advertising experiences.[49]
In response to the growth of social media advertising, Perion developed the Actionable Performance Monitoring (APM) platform. This tool consolidates data from multiple social platforms to assist in campaign management.[50] The APM platform is compatible with social networks such as Facebook and TikTok.[50]