Head to Head Analysis: TechTarget (NASDAQ:TTGT) versus Integral Ad Science (NASDAQ:IAS)

Integral Ad Science (NASDAQ:IAS) and TechTarget (NASDAQ:TTGT) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, institutional ownership, profitability, earnings, dividends, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Integral Ad Science and TechTarget”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Integral Ad Science	$590.67 million	2.94	$37.79 million	$0.28	36.93
TechTarget	$284.90 million	1.32	-$116.86 million	($1.73)	-3.02

Integral Ad Science has higher revenue and earnings than TechTarget. TechTarget is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Integral Ad Science, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

95.8% of Integral Ad Science shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.5% of TechTarget shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.0% of Integral Ad Science shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.9% of TechTarget shares are owned by company 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.

Profitability

This table compares Integral Ad Science and TechTarget’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Integral Ad Science	7.91%	4.45%	4.03%
TechTarget	-232.59%	-16.76%	-11.15%

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Integral Ad Science and TechTarget, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Integral Ad Science	0	14	0	0	2.00
TechTarget	2	1	3	0	2.17

Integral Ad Science presently has a consensus price target of $11.52, indicating a potential upside of 11.43%. TechTarget has a consensus price target of $11.25, indicating a potential upside of 115.52%. Given TechTarget’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe TechTarget is more favorable than Integral Ad Science.

Volatility and Risk

Integral Ad Science has a beta of 1.59, meaning that its stock price is 59% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, TechTarget has a beta of 0.87, meaning that its stock price is 13% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Integral Ad Science beats TechTarget on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Integral Ad Science

Integral Ad Science Holding Corp. operates as a digital advertising verification company in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Australia, Japan, India, and the Nordics. The company provides IAS Signal, a cloud-based technology platform that offers return on ad spend needs; and deliver independent measurement and verification of digital advertising across devices, channels, and formats, including desktop, mobile, connected TV, social, display, and video. Its digital media quality solutions offer ad fraud detection and prevention, viewability, brand safety and suitability, contextual targeting, inventory yield management, and reporting. In addition, the company offers Quality Impressions, a metric designed to verify that digital ads are served to a real person rather than a bot, viewable on-screen, and presented in a brand-safe and suitable environment in the correct geography; Context Control solution that delivers contextual targeting and brand suitability capabilities; pre-bid programmatic and post-bid verification solutions for advertisers; and optimization and verification solutions for publishers. It serves advertisers and agencies, publishers, and supply side platforms. The company was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

About TechTarget

TechTarget, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides marketing and sales services that deliver business impact for business-to-business technology companies in North America and internationally. The company's service enables technology vendors to identify, reach, and influence corporate information technology (IT) decision-makers actively researching specific IT purchases; and customized marketing programs that integrate demand generation, brand advertising techniques, and content curation and creation. It offers business to business services, such as IT Deal Alert, a suite of data, software, and services comprising Priority Engine and Qualified Sales Opportunities to identify and prioritize accounts and individuals actively researching new technology purchases or upgrades; demand solutions provides marketing programs, including white papers, webcasts, podcasts, videocasts, virtual trade shows, and content sponsorships; brand solutions which includes on-network banner advertising and digital sponsorships, off-network banner targeting, and microsites and related formats; custom content creation that delivers market insights and guidance to technology companies and off-the-shelf editorial sponsorship products on topics aligned to customer markets; and BrightTALK platform which allows customers to create, host and promote webinars, virtual events, and video content. In addition, the company operates websites, webinars, and virtual event channels that focus on a specific IT sector, such as storage, security, or networking; and enables registered members to conduct their pre-purchase research by accessing vendor supplied content through its virtual event and webinar channels, and website networks. TechTarget, Inc. was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts.