Comparing Trade Desk (NASDAQ:TTD) & Marchex (NASDAQ:MCHX)

Marchex (NASDAQ:MCHX) and Trade Desk (NASDAQ:TTD) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, earnings, valuation, profitability, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

73.5% of Marchex shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 67.8% of Trade Desk shares are held by institutional investors. 21.7% of Marchex shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 10.0% of Trade Desk shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Marchex and Trade Desk’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Marchex	-9.76%	-12.76%	-9.78%
Trade Desk	15.57%	15.19%	7.17%

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Marchex and Trade Desk, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Marchex	1	0	0	1	2.50
Trade Desk	4	12	21	0	2.46

Trade Desk has a consensus price target of $84.48, indicating a potential upside of 69.04%. Given Trade Desk’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Trade Desk is more favorable than Marchex.

Risk and Volatility

Marchex has a beta of 1.99, meaning that its share price is 99% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Trade Desk has a beta of 1.38, meaning that its share price is 38% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Marchex and Trade Desk”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Marchex	$48.12 million	1.67	-$4.95 million	($0.11)	-16.55
Trade Desk	$2.68 billion	9.12	$393.08 million	$0.83	60.22

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

Summary

Trade Desk beats Marchex on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Marchex

Marchex, Inc., a conversation intelligence company, provides conversational analytics and related solutions in the United States, Canada, and internationally. Its products include Marketing Edge that identifies which campaigns and channels are driving inbound conversations, evaluates what happens during those conversations, and closes the sales loop by connecting converted sales to marketing driven leads; Sonar Business Text Messaging, an artificial intelligence (AI) empowered intelligent workflow enabled mobile messaging solution that enables operations, sales, and marketing teams to communicate personally with field staff, prospects, and customers; Marchex Platform Services, a robust API-based conversation intelligence product that allows executives, sales, customer engagement, and marketing teams to apply Marchex AI to most any calls, regardless of communication platform, in order to identify actionable insights from conversations with their customers; Spotlight, an AI conversation analytics product for multi-location businesses; and Engage, a solution that provides locations with applications to enhance their overall performance. The company was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

About Trade Desk

The Trade Desk, Inc. operates as a technology company in the United States and internationally. The company offers a self-service cloud-based platform that allows buyers to plan, manage, optimize, and measure data-driven digital advertising campaigns across various ad formats and channels, including video, display, audio, digital-out-of-home, native, and social on various devices, such as computers, mobile devices, televisions, and streaming devices. It provides data and other value-added services. The company serves advertising agencies, brands, and other service providers for advertisers. The Trade Desk, Inc. was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Ventura, California.