Critical Analysis: DoubleVerify (NYSE:DV) and Bridgeline Digital (NASDAQ:BLIN)

DoubleVerify (NYSE:DV) and Bridgeline Digital (NASDAQ:BLIN) are both technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations, risk, valuation and institutional ownership.

Risk & Volatility

DoubleVerify has a beta of 0.93, suggesting that its share price is 7% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Bridgeline Digital has a beta of 1.05, suggesting that its share price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares DoubleVerify and Bridgeline Digital’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
DoubleVerify	8.22%	7.25%	6.09%
Bridgeline Digital	-8.65%	-14.51%	-8.76%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares DoubleVerify and Bridgeline Digital”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
DoubleVerify	$785.84 million	2.70	$50.65 million	$0.40	33.91
Bridgeline Digital	$15.38 million	0.58	-$2.52 million	($0.12)	-5.89

DoubleVerify has higher revenue and earnings than Bridgeline Digital. Bridgeline Digital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than DoubleVerify, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for DoubleVerify and Bridgeline Digital, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
DoubleVerify	0	14	2	0	2.12
Bridgeline Digital	1	1	1	0	2.00

DoubleVerify currently has a consensus price target of $13.52, suggesting a potential downside of 0.32%. Bridgeline Digital has a consensus price target of $4.62, suggesting a potential upside of 553.47%. Given Bridgeline Digital’s higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Bridgeline Digital is more favorable than DoubleVerify.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

97.3% of DoubleVerify shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 15.1% of Bridgeline Digital shares are held by institutional investors. 4.0% of DoubleVerify shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 27.5% of Bridgeline Digital shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

DoubleVerify beats Bridgeline Digital on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About DoubleVerify

DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. provides a software platform for digital media measurement, and data analytics in the United States and internationally. The company provides solutions to advertisers that enable advertisers to increase the effectiveness and quality and return on their digital advertising investments. It offers DV Authentic Ad, a metric of digital media quality, which evaluates the existence of fraud-free, brand-suitable, viewability, and geography for each digital ad; DV Authentic Attention that provides actionable, and comprehensive data to drive campaign performance; and Custom Contextual solution, which allows advertisers to match their ads to relevant content to maximize user engagement and drive campaign performance. In addition, the company provides DV Publisher suite, a solution for digital publishers to manage revenue and increase inventory yield by improving video delivery, identifying lost or unfilled sales, and aggregate data across all inventory sources; and DV Pinnacle, a service and analytics platform user interface that allows its customers to adjust and deploy controls for their media plan and track campaign performance metrics across channels, formats, and devices. Further, it offers software solutions are integrated in the digital advertising ecosystem, including programmatic platforms, social media channels, and digital publishers. It serves brands, publishers, and other supply-side customers covering various industry verticals, including consumer packaged goods, financial services, telecommunications, technology, automotive, and healthcare. The company was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

About Bridgeline Digital

Bridgeline Digital, Inc. operates as a marketing technology company in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company offers HawkSearch, a site search, recommendation, and personalization application for marketers, merchandisers, and developers; Celebros Search, a commerce-oriented site search product that provides natural language processing with artificial intelligence; and Woorank, a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) audit tool that generates an instant performance audit of the site's technical, on-page, and off-page SEO. It also provides Bridgeline TruPresence, a web content management and eCommerce platform to support the needs of multi-unit organizations and franchises; Bridgeline Unbound, a technology suite that empower marketers to easily manage their digital experiences and create personalized customer journeys; and OrchestraCMS, a digital experience platform that enables development of custom solutions, third-party integrations, and delivery of digital transformation initiatives on the Salesforce platform. In addition, the company offers digital engagement services comprising digital strategy, web design and web development, usability engineering, information architecture, and SEO, as well as hosting services. It serves vertical markets, such as industrial distributors and wholesalers, franchises and enterprises, manufacturers, eCommerce retailers, health services and life sciences, technology, credit unions and banks, and associations and foundations through its direct sales force. The company was formerly known as Bridgeline Software, Inc. Bridgeline Digital, Inc. was incorporated in 2000 and is based in Woburn, Massachusetts.