Advertising technology and digital publishing firm Inuvo Inc. of Little Rock on Thursday reported a net loss of $1.7 million, or 6 cents per share, compared to a profit of $374,000, or 2 centers per share, in the same quarter last year.
The publicly traded firm (Nasdaq: INUV) said first-quarter revenue was $17.2 million, down from $18.7 million in the same quarter last year.
The company said it spent less on marketing and made less from its owned websites, but the lower revenue was partially offset by higher revenue from serving ads to third-party publishers and by $1.9 million of revenue attributable to its acquisition of NetSeer.
"This was a very busy quarter, having acquired the NetSeer operations in February and then executing on the integration of people, data centers, accounting and technology," Chairman and CEO Richard Howe said in a news release. "The combined company will now be better described as the Inuvo MarketPlace, a set of technologies designed to connect advertisers (demand) with consumer audiences through publishers (supply). We are building what we expect to be a larger, stronger and more sustainable company."
The company expects the absorption of another $1.6 million in operating expenses associated with the acquisition to affect its results. Transactional and integration costs added another $350,000 to the mix.
"We expect to complete the integration of the NetSeer operations by the second half of this year, at which time the operating efficiencies are expected to be fully realized," Howe said.
Operating expenses were about $11 million in the first quarter of 2017 compared to $14 million in the same quarter of 2016.