Brief Overview
Since my last article, published on July 12th, 2025, came out, Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA) has completely transformed. From a share-price perspective, the stock is up well over 100%. On the business-execution side of things, Zeta is now projected to grow revenue by 40% and become profitable for the full year of 2026. This has caused a massive re-rating for the stock, taking its price-to-sales ratio from approximately 2.3x to approximately 4.7x currently.
What’s Driving Current Success?
A major reason for Zeta’s revenue growth exploding this year is the acquisition of Marigold. In the previous quarter (Q2 2026), Zeta grew revenue 44% year-over-year. Of this growth, 28% came organically, while the other 16% was acquisition-driven, mainly from Marigold. Organic growth has accelerated this year due to a variety of reasons.
For one, Zeta’s data cloud continues to evolve and become stickier for its clients. Average revenue per user (ARPU) for super scaled customers grew 17% year-over-year. Athena is becoming a major reason for this ARPU growth. Athena is designed to help clients efficiently and optimally operate Zeta’s platform. Inherently, this means that Athena cross-sells clients into other use cases (acquire, retain, monetize), which directly accelerates ARPU growth.
The other main driver of organic revenue growth is new client acquisition. Zeta is making headlines with its new partnerships, such as those with Palantir and OpenAI. These headlines do not just reach investors’ screens; potential clients are taking notice as well. In the quarter, it is estimated that around 5%–10% of organic growth resulted from new clients. Once these clients are in the Zeta ecosystem, they will continue to spend more and more as the platform becomes stickier.
Palantir and OpenAI Partnerships
A potentially huge opportunity for Zeta over the coming years is business intelligence, which I will discuss in greater depth later in the article. This opportunity is partially built on the Palantir partnership. By combining Palantir’s Foundry platform with Zeta’s consumer data and predictive capabilities, the companies are forming a new use case for Zeta: business intelligence.
Not only is the Palantir partnership crucial for Zeta’s future in business intelligence, but Zeta is also gaining Palantir customers purely from a marketing standpoint. Palantir has such a strong pull with its customers that simply partnering with Palantir has given Zeta credibility among Palantir’s customer base.
Now onto the OpenAI partnership. The partnership between OpenAI and Zeta Global serves two distinct strategic purposes. One aspect of this partnership is OpenAI powering Athena. OpenAI provides the voice, chat, and automation capabilities of Athena, but Zeta does not allow OpenAI to access any of its data. This is important in a world where investors are worried about software companies being “replicated” by AI.
The other aspect of this partnership is Zeta powering ChatGPT’s new advertising business. OpenAI needs Zeta for advertising because AI may know how to generate context, but it does not know who the user is. Zeta uses its data cloud to fulfill this need for consumer intelligence at OpenAI.
Zeta Business Intelligence Opportunity
I believe Zeta’s future is Zeta Business Intelligence (ZBI). According to CEO David Steinberg, the company is transitioning from just a marketing company to an “intelligent AI infrastructure platform.” What does this mean? Well, it means that Zeta is becoming so valuable to its clients that, instead of just running marketing campaigns for them, they want Zeta to advise them on every aspect of their business.
What will result from this from a financial standpoint? ARPU growth and new clients that may not have been interested in Zeta before ZBI. I believe ZBI will not only be a key driver of revenue over the coming years, but it will also be a major part of Zeta’s future.
My Revised Price Targets
Revenue growth assumed for all of these projections is as follows: 2026 41.3%, 2027 35%, 2028 30%, 2029 25%
P/S projection:
| P/S Multiple | Estimated Share Price |
| 4.5x | $69.04 |
| 5.5x | $84.38 |
| 6.5x | $99.73 |
GAAP EPS Projections for 2029 (click to access detailed projections in excel):
The below calculations were calculated using 2029 EPS of $2.40
| Valuation Multiple | Estimated Share Price |
| 25x | $60.00 |
| 30x | $72.00 |
| 35x | $84.00 |
Keep in mind these share price projections are assuming growth and margins that may not materialize. Nothing in this article is financial advice, strictly my opinions and speculations.
Closing Statements
Zeta Global is developing into a Business Intelligence company rather than remaining just a pure-play marketing company. The company is executing at an extremely high level while forming partnerships with some of the greatest companies in the world. If you had told me a year ago that Zeta would accomplish everything it has over the past year, I would not have believed you.
All of this leads me to believe that Zeta is now a stronger buy than ever. The company continues to execute at an incredible pace, and I believe its transition into Business Intelligence could create significant opportunities for continued growth over the coming years.
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