ValueClick Started Year Strong

Online marketing company ValueClick beat its expected revenue numbers in the first quarter, bringing in $117.3 million, up 128 percent from the same period in the previous year.

Those revenue numbers resulted in net income of $9.8 million, or $0.09 per share. A $2.6 million stock-based compensation expense brought down the per-share net income by $0.02, the company said. Excluding that expense, the company would have hit analysts’ expectations.

“The first quarter was a strong start to what we believe is to be another successful year for the company,” said James Zarley, chairman and CEO of ValueClick.

The company’s media unit, which recently saw the consolidation of ValueClick Media with Webclients and Fastclick, saw 222 percent year over year revenue growth to $92.4 million. The company said growth was due partly to the performance of media products, but also to the inclusion of results from acquisitions E-Babylon, Webclients and Fastclick. Interestingly, Q1 revenues even showed a 2 percent improvement when compared to the previous quarter, which is usually high because of holiday-related marketing spending.

ValueClick’s affiliate marketing division increased revenues 19 percent year-over-year to $22.3 million, due to the expansion of e-commerce in the U.S. and especially in Europe. Meanwhile, the technology unit saw revenue decline to $5.4 million in the first quarter, down from $6.2 million in the same quarter of 2005.

Zarley said the company intends to restructure the way it reports results to give more weight to its comparison shopping business, which is anchored by PriceRunner. Without giving a specific date, he said it’s likely the company will be organized into media, affiliate and comparison shopping units in the future. The existing technology division would be folded into the affiliate unit.

ValueClick has grown largely because of its acquisition strategy, and that approach will continue. Zarley said the company was particularly interested in comparison shopping and affiliate buys. As for talks with Aquantive, which were reported in The Wall Street Journal, Zarley acknowledged the companies had discussed a combination but said ValueClick talks to hundreds of companies annually. Aquantive, for its part, said no discussions are currently taking place.

The company revised upward its estimates for the second quarter of 2006. ValueClick expects revenues to come in between $118 million and $120 million, with net income anticipated to be $0.11 per share. For the full year, the company predicts it will bring in $495 million to $505 million in revenues, resulting in net income of $0.46 to $0.48.