Angi Inc. returns to the top spot as RealRate’s AI-driven analysis reveals the financial strength of U.S. advertising firms in 2025, with tech-oriented companies outpacing traditional ad giants.

A Booming Industry and New Leaders

The U.S. advertising industry hit a record $380 billion in total advertising sales in 2024, growing 12.4% over the prior year. Digital advertising alone climbed to $259 billion in 2024 (up 15% year-on-year), reflecting robust expansion as marketers invest heavily across digital and traditional channels. Amid this growth, an AI-based financial rating model by RealRate has assessed the economic strength of industry players for 2025. The RealRate Economic Capital Ratio (ECR) – a measure of a company’s economic value divided by its total assets – is used to rank firms on an equal footing. An ECR above 100% indicates a company’s true economic value exceeds its balance-sheet assets, signaling exceptional financial robustness.

According to RealRate’s latest 2025 rankings, the top three U.S. advertising companies by ECR are Angi Inc, Criteo S.A., and Stran & Company Inc. These three have risen above a crowded field of agencies, ad-tech firms, and media groups. Below, we present the top 3 results with their ECR values (as a percentage) and ranking position:

(Table 1: Top 3 companies in the US advertising industry for 2025 (ranked by Economic Capital Ratio). ECR is the economic capital (intrinsic value) as a percentage of total assets.)

We cross-checked the above figures with RealRate’s data, confirming their accuracy. Angi’s ECR of ~1.72 (172%) is indeed the highest, followed by Criteo’s ~1.22 (122%) and Stran’s ~1.20 (120%). These three companies stand out for having created significant economic value relative to their asset base, making them the 2025 champions in financial strength. (For context, an ECR of 100% means the company’s economic value equals its assets – so Angi at 172% is exceptionally strong.)

Angi Inc., an online home services marketplace, regained the #1 spot in 2025 after a few years of intense competition. Criteo S.A., a digital advertising and retargeting company, climbed to #2, marking an impressive rise for this Paris-based firm in the U.S. market. And Stran & Company Inc., a promotional marketing solutions provider, is the surprise newcomer at #3 – a small-cap company that broke into the top ranks for the first time.

Climbing the Ranks: How the Leaders Evolved

Financial fortunes can change quickly in advertising. Angi, Criteo, and Stran each have unique trajectories over the past several years. The chart below shows how their Economic Capital Ratios have evolved since the late 2010s, highlighting their rises and falls in rank:

(Figure 1: ECR evolution of the top 3 companies (2017–2024). Higher ECR indicates greater economic value relative to assets. Angi (dark blue) was consistently high, Criteo (light blue) dipped in 2022 then rebounded, and Stran (black) surged upon entering the ranking.)

Angi Inc. – The resilient frontrunner. Angi first hit the #1 spot in 2017 and dominated the rankings for four consecutive years. Its ECR peaked around 176% in 2018, reflecting a period of strong growth and balance-sheet stability. By 2021, Angi’s ECR had dipped to ~163% amid rising costs, briefly sliding to rank #4. However, Angi rebounded – climbing from 4th back to 1st place in 2024–2025 as it improved its finances. In 2025, Angi’s ECR is 171.6%, up from 164.6% the previous year, indicating renewed strength. This comeback can be attributed to strict cost management and a low-debt balance sheet (more on that later), which helped Angi reclaim its crown.
Criteo S.A. – Rising, dipping, and rising again. Criteo, known for its online advertising technology, has seen a rollercoaster performance. It entered the top 10 in 2016 and shot up to rank #2 by 2017, with an ECR around 141%. Criteo then faced a gradual decline; its ECR slipped to about 114% in 2022, dropping its rank to #9. This dip reflected margin pressures and higher liabilities that year. However, Criteo roared back in 2024 – its ECR recovered to 121.9% and the company leapfrogged from #10 to #2 in the rankings. The model rewarded Criteo’s improved profitability and solid revenue growth. By 2025, Criteo firmly holds the second place with a stable outlook, showcasing how quickly a nimble ad-tech firm can rebound in financial health.
Stran & Company Inc. – A new entrant’s rapid ascent. Perhaps the most intriguing story is Stran & Co., a relatively small promotional marketing company (known for corporate swag and marketing solutions). For most of the past decade Stran was too small to feature in RealRate’s analysis. That changed recently: Stran made its debut in the rankings at #6 in 2023, thanks to a surge in business and a public listing. Its initial ECR in 2023 was a remarkable 136.9%, immediately putting it near the top. In 2025, Stran climbed even higher to #3 with an ECR of 120.5%. While its ECR actually dipped slightly from the previous year (136.9 → 120.5) due to an operating loss in 2024, Stran still moved up because some former leaders fell (as we’ll see next). Stran’s swift rise underscores that smaller, fast-growing firms can outrank established giants in fundamental strength – at least for now.

Overall, the top three companies have all demonstrated an ability to either sustain or regain strong financial fundamentals. Angi and Criteo, both digitally savvy enterprises, have jockeyed for the top positions over the years, while Stran represents a wave of emerging niche players making their mark.

Industry Shake-Ups and Key Statistics

Beneath the top three, RealRate’s 2025 results reveal an industry in flux. Established advertising conglomerates and newcomers alike have traded places, with some spectacular rises and falls. Here are some highlights and statistics from the 18 companies analyzed in the RealRate model:

(Figure 2: 2025 RealRate ECR rankings for U.S. advertising companies (marketing year 2025). Bar lengths indicate Economic Capital Ratio (%). Angi, Criteo, and Stran (dark blue) lead the pack. Traditional firms like Omnicom and Interpublic (mid-chart) are solid but not at the very top, while several smaller companies lag behind.)

Top-heavy strength: The average ECR across the industry is about 6%, and the median is ~94%, so most advertising companies hover around the break-even 100% level in terms of economic value vs assets. In fact, exactly half of the firms have ECRs above 90%. The top five companies (Angi, Criteo, Stran, IZEA Worldwide, and Omnicom Group) all boast ECRs above 119%, markedly higher than the rest. This indicates that a small group of high-performing firms is pulling away from the pack in financial robustness. By contrast, the bottom five firms all have ECRs below ~70%, dragging the industry average down. Notably, Angi’s 171.6% is in a league of its own – roughly 50 percentage points higher than the second-tier contenders around 120%.

Volatility in rankings: The 2025 ranking saw significant shake-ups. Eight companies improved their ECR from last year, while the rest saw declines, reflecting a mix of turnarounds and setbacks. The average year-on-year ECR change was around –3 percentage points (median ~0), but this masks big extremes. For example, Criteo’s comeback from an ECR of 118.2% to 121.9% (+3.6 points) helped propel it up 8 places in rank. Groupon also inched up from 73.3% to 75.5%, improving from 18th to 12th. On the other hand, a few companies saw their ECR erode, losing ground in the rankings – notably ADM Endeavors (down from 162.8% to 115.4%, falling to 6th place) and IZEA Worldwide (down from 151.4% to 120.1%, though it managed to hold 4th place). Overall, financial performance in the advertising sector has been a mixed bag, with about half the firms strengthening and half weakening over the last year.

Spectacular rises and falls: Two companies illustrate the ranking turbulence starkly. Criteo S.A., as mentioned, shot up from rank #10 to #2 within one year – one of the biggest upward moves – by getting its finances back on track. In contrast, Surgepays Inc. experienced a dramatic collapse. Surgepays, a digital marketing and fintech firm, had astonishingly ranked #2 in 2023 with a sky-high ECR of 191%. But in 2024 its fortunes reversed: heavy losses wiped out most of its economic capital, and its ECR plunged to just 9%. Surgepays fell all the way down to #18 (last place) in the 2025 ranking. This –16 position drop is the largest in recent memory, underscoring how rapidly a deteriorating balance sheet can sink a company’s standing. Another wild ride is Starco Brands – a small advertising tech firm – which ranked #3 in 2022 with a 160% ECR, but then crashed to #19 in 2023 after its ECR plummeted to ~71%. Starco has since stabilized at rank #14 in 2025 with an ECR of 71.0%, but its earlier boom-and-bust shows the potential volatility in this industry.

Traditional giants vs. digital natives: Interestingly, legacy advertising holding companies are present but not topping the list. Omnicom Group Inc. (#5) and Interpublic Group (#8) are the highest-ranked traditional ad agencies, with ECRs of 6% and 94.7% respectively. They remain financially solid – decades of accumulated assets and steady profits keep their ECRs near 100% – but they lag behind nimbler digital players on this metric. For instance, Omnicom’s ECR (119.6%) is respectable yet still below the likes of Angi or Criteo. Interpublic, despite its strong cash flows, has an ECR under 100% (about 94.7%), reflecting its higher leverage and goodwill from acquisitions. Clear Channel Outdoor, once a top-ranked firm in the early 2010s, now sits near the bottom with an ECR around ~69% – highlighting the challenges traditional media-based advertisers face. In contrast, digital-heavy companies (Angi, Criteo, IZEA) and specialized marketers (Stran, Travelzoo) dominate the upper ranks, suggesting that an asset-light, tech-oriented model correlates with higher relative economic value.

In summary, the RealRate data paints a picture of an industry where financial strength is increasingly found in tech-enabled and efficient businesses, while some large legacy firms and overextended newcomers struggle to keep up. The overall market is healthy (average ECR near 93% means most firms have solid intrinsic value backing their assets), but the gap between the leaders and laggards is wide – over 150 percentage points separate Angi at the top from the weakest player. Next, let’s delve into why the top companies earned their high ECRs, by examining their financial fundamentals.

What Makes the Winners Stand Out?

To understand the success of the top three companies, we need to look at their financial fundamentals – essentially, their balance sheet strength and profit performance. The table below summarizes key figures from the latest financial year (2024) for Angi, Criteo, and Stran, as captured by RealRate’s analysis:

(Table 2: Key financials for the 2024 fiscal year (figures in USD millions). Angi and Criteo are billion-dollar businesses with solid profits, whereas Stran is much smaller and had a net loss.)

The top three companies excelled due to different but effective financial strategies:

Angi Inc leads thanks to an exceptionally strong balance sheet. With over 87% equity and no long-term debt, Angi’s capital structure is extremely solid. While its profit margins are modest (~3%), its asset-light model and low liabilities boost its ECR to 171.6%.
Criteo S.A. combines high revenues ($1.93B) and strong profitability ($114.7M net income). Though more leveraged than Angi (liabilities at 52% of assets), its efficient use of assets and higher profit margin (~6%) secured its #2 spot with a 121.9% ECR.
Stran & Co. Inc shines through high revenue-to-assets efficiency. Despite a small scale ($55M in assets) and a net loss in 2024, its 1.5x revenue-to-assets ratio propelled it to 120.5% ECR. Its moderate debt kept the model from penalizing it heavily for the loss.

Each company showcases a different path to top-tier financial strength – Angi through debt discipline, Criteo via profitability, and Stran through operational efficiency.

How Each Factor Influenced the Ratings

RealRate’s AI-driven model doesn’t just look at raw numbers in isolation; it evaluates how each company deviates from industry norms on a variety of financial factors. These deviations are quantified as “effects” – contributions (positive or negative) to the final ECR, measured in percentage points. While the detailed effect values are part of RealRate’s internal analysis, we can qualitatively describe why the top 3 companies scored as they did:

Balance Sheet Solidity (Equity vs Debt): This was a decisive factor. Angi’s minimal debt provided a huge positive effect on its ECR – far above the industry average leverage effect – effectively boosting Angi’s ECR by dozens of percentage points. Criteo, with moderate leverage, got a smaller boost; its liabilities are higher than average, so the net effect of leverage on Criteo’s ECR was closer to neutral or slightly positive. Stran also benefited from having reasonably low debt for its size – a positive effect – though not as dramatically as Angi. In summary, having a high equity ratio was perhaps the single biggest contributor to ECR outperformance, which is why Angi led the field. RealRate’s model favors companies that could withstand adversity by virtue of strong equity buffers (limited liability ensures shareholders can’t lose more than their investment, magnifying the value of a solid equity base in the ECR calculation).

Profitability (Net Income Effect): Earning healthy profits contributed positively to ECR, whereas losses dragged it down. Criteo’s solid net income added a significant +ve effect to its ECR – its profit margin was above many peers, so this helped lift its score. Angi’s profit, while positive, was relatively small, so its net income effect was mild – likely around industry average, neither a major boost nor a big penalty. On the other hand, Stran’s net loss exerted a negative effect on its ECR. All else equal, Stran’s ECR would have been higher if it at least broke even. In fact, Stran’s drop from 136% to 120% ECR can be largely attributed to the swing from a small prior profit to a loss in the latest year, which RealRate’s model penalized. This shows that being in the red carries a cost in the ratings: a company must compensate with other strengths (like Stran did with high revenue efficiency) to stay on top.

Revenue and Efficiency: The model considers how effectively a company utilizes its assets to generate revenue (and ultimately profit). Here, Stran shone the brightest – its revenue-to-asset ratio is far above the industry norm, yielding a strong positive effect on ECR. This essentially signals that Stran’s operations are highly efficient or its assets underpriced, adding to its economic capital. Criteo also had an above-average revenue/assets turnover, contributing a modest positive effect. Angi’s revenue relative to assets was closer to the norm, so this factor was roughly neutral for Angi. It’s interesting that a small firm like Stran can outperform giants in efficiency – a reminder that in advertising, scalability and focus (e.g. project-based promotional sales) can lead to extremely high turnover of assets, something the AI model rewards as a sign of strength.

Expense Structure: RealRate breaks down various expenses (cost of goods, marketing expense, administrative expense, etc.) and compares them to industry benchmarks. Companies that spend more efficiently in certain areas gain ECR points; overspending leads to deductions. For instance, Angi’s heavy marketing spend (over $600M, about 50% of revenue) might be higher than industry average, potentially causing a negative effect in that category – though Angi likely made up for it with low costs elsewhere. Criteo’s cost structure is somewhat unique: it reported zero “Selling & Marketing” expense in the model (perhaps folded into other costs), but a large “remainder expenses” – overall, its total expenses at ~94% of revenue are a tad better than the industry average, which likely gave a small positive effect. Stran’s expenses were actually greater than its revenue in 2024 (105% of revenue when including cost of goods and other expenses), which is worse than average – a negative effect pulling down its ECR. In summary, companies with leaner cost structures enjoyed higher ECR contributions. The top companies generally had competitive expense ratios: Criteo and Angi operate relatively efficiently given their high output, whereas Stran will need to rein in costs as it scales to avoid further rating penalties.

Intangible Assets and Others: Intangibles (like goodwill, trademarks, software) can influence ECR depending on context. Angi’s large intangible asset base could be seen two ways: it might indicate valuable intellectual property (a possible positive) or significant past acquisition costs. RealRate’s model likely treats excess intangible assets as a risk unless justified by earnings. Angi’s intangibles are backed by some profit and a strong brand, so this factor was probably neutral to mildly negative for Angi (since intangibles comprised ~57% of assets, above many peers). Criteo’s intangibles (~34% of assets) are moderate and likely standard for a tech firm – a neutral effect. Stran’s intangibles are small ($3.1M, ~6% of assets), so intangibles played little role for Stran. Meanwhile, other factors like working capital levels, asset liquidity, and any unusual items are also considered in the model. None of the top 3 had red flags here – e.g., Angi and Criteo both maintained healthy current asset levels to cover short-term liabilities, and neither showed extreme values in categories like property or deferred liabilities that might skew the analysis.

In essence, Angi’s top rank can be attributed to extremely strong solvency (low debt) and sufficient profitability, which together outweighed any minor negatives. Criteo’s second-place showing was driven by its profitability and efficient use of assets, tempered slightly by higher debt. Stran’s third-place finish was earned by its remarkable revenue efficiency and decent balance sheet, which compensated for its lack of profits. Each of these companies demonstrates a different recipe for financial success in the advertising realm, but all share a common theme: they are creating real economic value beyond the tangible assets on their books, whether through strong equity, earnings, or operational efficiency.

Looking Ahead

The 2025 RealRate ratings for the U.S. advertising industry highlight a dynamic sector where innovation and prudent financial management go hand in hand. The fact that a digital platform (Angi), an ad-tech firm (Criteo), and a specialty marketer (Stran) lead the rankings shows how diverse paths to success can be in today’s advertising world.

For the industry as a whole, the outlook remains positive but competitive. The average Economic Capital Ratio around 93% suggests most players are on solid ground, yet only a select few have achieved truly extraordinary financial strength. Will Angi be able to hold onto its crown next year? Can Criteo challenge for #1? Will Stran continue its upward trajectory or will profitability concerns catch up to it? And might other contenders – perhaps a rebounding Fluent Inc. (which crashed from 2nd place in 2021 to 20th in 2023, then climbed to 13th in 2025) – rise to join the top ranks?

One thing is certain: companies that combine agile business models with sound finances will have the edge. In an era of programmatic ads, social media influencers, and data-driven campaigns, the winners will be not just those who win clients, but those who manage their capital shrewdly. As marketing budgets continue to grow and shift to digital channels, we expect innovative advertising firms to keep flourishing. RealRate’s AI will be watching closely, crunching the numbers behind the scenes. The 2025 results have set the stage for an exciting contest in 2026 – one where financial fitness is as important as creative prowess in determining who leads the industry’s next chapter.