Catena Media has recently disclosed its Q1 financial performance, revealing substantial downturns in various sectors. The company’s leadership attributes these poor outcomes to inadequate execution of business strategies and recent alterations by Google.
Specifically, the affiliate firm experienced a 49% reduction in its revenue, amounting to $17.2 million, while its adjusted EBITDA took a severe blow, decreasing to $2 million. Additionally, new depositing customers saw a 41% contraction year-on-year. In Q1 2023, the company had enrolled 74,186 new customers, dropping considerably to 44,077 in the recent release.
The company attributes its lackluster performance to recent amendments to search engine guidelines. Notably, Google introduced changes in March aimed at discouraging site reputation exploitation. The goal was to mitigate the practice of original content sites using their reputation to promote low-quality third-party content, defined as such by Google. Such abuse can lead to inferior content attaining undue high rankings.
Regrettably for affiliate sites like Catena, these alterations have had significant negative ramifications.
Catena Strives to Adjust
EGR reported that interim CEO of Catena Media, Pierre Cadena, affirmed the company’s commitment to overcome these challenges. Cadena acknowledges the benefits of Google’s updates but states that they have negatively impacted Catena.
Cadena emphasized that updates rolled out between November 2023 and March 2024 have adversely affected the company’s operations, and the SEO and content teams are working tirelessly to reposition.
Progress has been made in adapting to the new directives as per Cadena, but the pace of recovery varies across different sites and products. Despite the progress, Cadena emphasized the magnitude of pending tasks.
The team at Catena Media, accustomed to tackling such issues, remains committed to adjusting to these changes, according to Cadena.
These struggles with search-related changes coincide with a tumultuous period for Catena Media. The affiliate giant has seen substantial leadership shake-ups, including the departure of CEO Michael Daly. Recently, Manuel Stan was announced as the new CEO, and new board members were proposed in advance of the upcoming general meeting.
