Key Points
- In Q2, EBITDA fell by 46% to €1.2m, as the adjusted EBITDA margin decreased from 23% to 13%, leading to a drop in stock price of about 25%.
- According to CEO Manuel Stan, investment in new technical infrastructure started in Q2 and the complete launch will be in H1 2027 after testing in late 2026.
- MRKTPLAYS, launched in September 2025, accounts for over one-third of total revenues and acts as a proof-of-concept for the new strategy.
The Q2 2026 figures of Catena Media arrived on 11 August and caused a drop of about 25% in Catena Media’s share price listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. The revenue was pretty stable, standing at €9.5 million compared to €9.6 million for the previous year – that is, there was a mere drop of 1%. What worried the investors was not the top line but the bottom line, as the EBITDA dropped by 46%, to €1.2 million, with the margin dropping from 23% to 13%. CEO Manuel Stan announced a hard date when a new platform would start testing and commercial operations.
Stan Calls It a “Structural Reality”, Not a Blip
Stan did not soften the diagnosis in his earnings commentary. “These results reflect industry-wide headwinds in organic search and mark a pause after several quarters of strong operating performance,” he told investors. “The quarterly revenue decline underlines a structural reality facing our industry: traditional affiliation remains closely tied to the shifting dynamics of organic search.”
That framing carries weight because it was not reactive. Earlier in 2026, before Q2 results were known, the board had already begun exploring how to reposition the business. As Stan stated in the company’s Q2 interim report: “The financial volatility that arises from the unpredictability of a search-dependent business model led Catena Media’s board and management earlier this year to begin exploring how to reshape the business towards a model that reduces exposure to any single external factor.”
Timing is important here. As early as December 2025, when Google made its algorithm changes, Q1 results were squeezed. Stan confirmed this on the Q1 earnings conference call in May when he said the algorithm change “has temporarily elevated some low-relevance products that provide low user value,” and said he expected future improvements to fix this problem. These improvements have not occurred as quickly and extensively as Catena requires, explaining the profit situation in Q2.
What the New Platform Is, and When It Arrives?
Stan refused to elaborate on how the platform works citing competition-related reasons, and said, “I’m really excited to talk about that more in the next couple of quarters.” What is known is that investments in the platform have started in Q2 2026, which will increase capital expenditure in the quarter, with tests scheduled to be completed by the end of 2026 and a full launch by H1 2027. The platform is designed to connect publishers and advertisers across verticals through an automated marketplace, with analytics and automation at its core rather than organic search rankings.
Stan described the shift as Catena “evolving beyond affiliation and lead generation into a technical infrastructure and intelligence platform provider.” SEO will not be abandoned. Stan was explicit: “We will continue to invest in and develop our core organic brands. They will remain important contributors to revenue alongside new products such as our PlayPerks loyalty programme on PlayUSA.” The direction, though, is unambiguous. The business is removing Google’s ranking decisions as the primary lever for quarterly earnings.
MRKTPLAYS Is Already Doing the Work
The platform announcement would have lost a bit of credibility without a live example to prove it. MRKTPLAYS was launched in September 2025 as an exclusive sub-affiliation marketplace for publishers and operators in North America, with automated onboarding and reporting right from the beginning. In Q2 of 2026, it already accounts for more than a third of group revenue.
Stan used the Q2 call to make the strategic logic explicit: “MRKTPLAYS has grown steadily since its launch and today contributes more than a third of group revenue. Its impact validates a broader thesis: Catena Media’s highest-value growth role is not only generating affiliation leads but also building the connective infrastructure between publishers and operators.”
In January 2026, Catena extended the programme with MRKTPLAYS+, offering selected publishers conversion optimisation support, lifecycle marketing, and in some cases potential investment capital. The new infrastructure platform being built for H1 2027 appears to scale this architecture across additional verticals, though Stan has not publicly confirmed that connection.
The H1 Picture Versus the Q2 Number
The half-year figures add necessary context. Revenue from continuing operations rose 12% to €21.8m in H1 2026, with adjusted EBITDA up 70% to €3.9m. North America contributed 97% of Q2 revenue and 96% of H1 revenue, with the region’s H1 figure growing 20% to €21.0m. New depositing customers rose 23% year-on-year in Q2 to 24,781, with H1 NDCs up 41% to 59,354.
The figures indicate that the company is gaining customers more rapidly than it did one year ago. It is important to note that the margin issue is neither a result of volume erosion nor an outcome of the cost-revenue mix problem. The squeeze in profitability in Q2 was a result of increased capital investment towards the platform upgrade together with the negative impact of search volatility on the highly profitable organic traffic. “We have turned the corner, diversified our revenue streams, and grown from single-digit EBITDA margins to consistently posting margins above 20%”- as Stan put it back in Q1.
Layoffs Continued Alongside the Pivot
Q2 earnings were not an isolated event. At the beginning of August 2026, Catena declared that it had reduced the number of positions in its regional sites department by five, distributing their workload among all employees of the firm. Such actions were preceded by another round of optimisation which took place in 2024: the company slashed about 50 people, representing about 25% of its total workforce then, with potential annual cost savings of between €4.5m and €5.0m. In Q1 2026, salaries dropped by 18% y-o-y.
In addition to this, Catena made a decision to launch a share buyback program for up to 5.98% of the outstanding stock after receiving approval at the extraordinary general meeting held on 30 June. The aim of such a measure is the fulfilment of obligations related to the long-term incentive plans. Furthermore, Catena announced a voluntary redemption offer of CATME H01 hybrid capital securities worth 20% of their face value.
Expert Analysis
The Catena Media Q2 report is a clear public indication that the affiliate industry cannot support a search-first strategy during the present era of algorithmic turbulence and search revolution by artificial intelligence. It is no longer an aspirational plan because Stan’s announcement of an H1 2027 deadline for the platform indicates how the stakes have been raised. The success of MRKTPLAYS generating one-third of group revenues in only nine months of operation indicates the potential of the sub-affiliation system. The key question that will interest investors in the coming periods will be about the ability of the platform to achieve a similar growth rate outside iGaming verticals since Catena has no existing presence among the publishers there.
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