Interview with Catena Media’s CEO Manuel Stan

For those not yet familiar with Catena Media – could you briefly describe the company, your business model, and how you position yourselves within your market?

Catena Media is a performance-based marketing company within the iGaming industry, and today we are primarily focused on the North American market. We are very much a casino-first company – close to all of our revenue now comes from North America, and the vast majority of that comes from online casino rather than sports. Historically, Catena was built on SEO. That is in our DNA and still represents a meaningful share of our revenues. However, over the last 12–18 months we have consciously evolved the model. We are no longer purely an SEO affiliate company. We have invested more in CRM capabilities, sub-affiliation and paid media in order to diversify our revenue streams and reduce dependency on a single traffic channel. Our position in the market is that of a leading North American iGaming performance marketing company with a clear focus on building strong, scalable digital brands rather than simply ranking pages in search engines.

Catena Media operates within performance marketing and lead generation, with a strong focus on iGaming. Given the current market environment, what do you see as the most important drivers for returning to sustainable growth?

For us, the last year and a half has been about two key principles: focus and discipline. When we stepped into the current structure, we had a very broad and fragmented portfolio. At one stage, we were operating more than 3,000 sites. That created complexity, diluted resources and reduced accountability. One of the first strategic steps we took was to tier our assets and identify what we call our “tier one” products – fewer than ten core sites that generate the majority of our revenue. Those are the assets where we now allocate the majority of our attention, capital and operational effort. Tier two and tier three assets remain, but they are no longer central to the strategy, and many other sites were either divested or shut down entirely. That level of focus is a major driver for returning to sustainable growth. The second driver has been diversification of marketing channels. While we narrowed our geographic and product focus to North America and casino, we expanded our approach to monetization through CRM, sub-affiliation and paid media. You can clearly see that in our financials, particularly in the increase in direct costs, which reflects scaling in those areas. Sustainable growth for us is therefore not about chasing expansion everywhere, but about concentrating on what works and executing it better.

The company has divested several assets and sharpened its focus in recent years. How would you describe Catena Media’s current strategic direction, and what key priorities are most important going forward?

We communicate our strategy internally and externally through three pillars: people, product and profit. On the people side, the company had gone through several challenging years prior to this turnaround phase – revenue decline, restructurings, layoffs and no bonus payouts. That naturally impacts morale. When we took over, employee engagement metrics were weak and the mood internally was not where it needed to be. Over the last year, we have worked deliberately to rebuild culture, simplify structure and restore accountability. The improvement in engagement has been significant, and for the first time in several years we are again paying out short-term incentive bonuses. That is important because results drive morale, and morale in turn drives performance. On the product side, we have fundamentally shifted the philosophy. Previously, the model was essentially to rank highly in search, capture traffic and transfer users quickly to operators. Today, we are building actual products and brands. When a user lands on one of our core sites, the goal is engagement – encouraging reviews, ratings, loyalty participation, user-generated content and repeat visits. The long-term monetization model remains affiliate-driven, but we want users to come directly to our brands, not only via search engines. That creates stronger brand equity and also sends stronger behavioral signals to search engines. Finally, on the profit pillar, we are ensuring that growth is profitable and sustainable, not volume for volume’s sake.

Profitability and cash flow have become increasingly important focus areas across the sector. How are you working to strengthen margins, optimize the cost base, and improve operational efficiency?

We have taken a series of disciplined and sometimes difficult decisions over the last six quarters. We reduced headcount, removed management layers and flattened the organization to improve both cost efficiency and speed of execution. We restructured around product-focused squads, where each key asset has clear ownership – including product management, SEO, content and marketing resources dedicated specifically to that product. That clarity improves accountability and ROI tracking. We also exited a number of investments that were not delivering acceptable returns. For example, we terminated certain media partnerships that were costly and not generating positive ROI. We also halted specific AI-related projects where the financial case was not strong enough. That does not reflect a lack of belief in AI as a concept, but rather a strict capital allocation discipline. These actions have resulted in a substantial improvement in profitability compared to earlier quarters. However, we remain cautious and disciplined – a couple of improved quarters are encouraging, but consistency over time is what ultimately matters.

Catena Media has historically had a strong presence in multiple geographic markets. How do you view your current exposure to North America versus other regions, and where do you see the strongest growth opportunities ahead?

Today, North America represents the overwhelming majority of our revenue, and that is by design. We believe there is still significant market share to capture in North America before allocating meaningful capital and management attention to new regions. We have tested expansion into markets such as Mexico and Brazil in a cautious and controlled manner, but those initiatives did not meet our performance expectations and were therefore paused. That is consistent with our disciplined approach. We see continued opportunity in North America through organic market share gains, product enhancements and potential regulatory developments in certain states and provinces. Alberta, for example, represents an interesting opportunity given its iGaming potential, particularly in casino. Our position is that strengthening our North American foundation further creates a stronger platform for any future international ambitions.

Looking ahead, where do you see Catena Media one year from now?

One year from now, the ambition is to have demonstrated consistency. We are not trying to deliver dramatic short-term spikes or “home runs”. Instead, we are focused on incremental progress – improving product engagement, maintaining cost discipline, strengthening margins and building internal confidence. If we can show a series of stable quarters with disciplined execution and continued operational improvements, that will be a significant milestone for the company.

Finally – can you give three reasons why Catena Media is an interesting investment case at this stage?

First, we now have clear strategic focus, having moved from a fragmented portfolio of thousands of assets to a concentrated set of core products.

Third, profitability has improved meaningfully through cost discipline and smarter capital allocation, while still investing in diversification and product development. Together, that creates a more resilient and focused company positioned for sustainable long-term value creation.