Contrasting Cardlytics (NASDAQ:CDLX) and LiveRamp (NYSE:RAMP)

Cardlytics (NASDAQ:CDLX) and LiveRamp (NYSE:RAMP) are both small-cap business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership, risk, earnings and dividends.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Cardlytics and LiveRamp”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cardlytics	$278.30 million	0.20	-$189.30 million	($2.11)	-0.49
LiveRamp	$745.58 million	2.12	-$810,000.00	$0.61	40.75

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

Institutional & Insider Ownership

68.1% of Cardlytics shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.8% of LiveRamp shares are held by institutional investors. 4.4% of Cardlytics shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 3.3% of LiveRamp shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Cardlytics and LiveRamp’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cardlytics	-44.12%	-235.70%	-31.31%
LiveRamp	5.15%	4.44%	3.38%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Cardlytics and LiveRamp, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cardlytics	1	3	0	0	1.75
LiveRamp	1	4	2	0	2.14

Cardlytics presently has a consensus target price of $2.25, suggesting a potential upside of 118.45%. LiveRamp has a consensus target price of $43.50, suggesting a potential upside of 74.98%. Given Cardlytics’ higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Cardlytics is more favorable than LiveRamp.

Volatility & Risk

Cardlytics has a beta of 1.05, suggesting that its share price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, LiveRamp has a beta of 1.12, suggesting that its share price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

LiveRamp beats Cardlytics on 12 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Cardlytics

Cardlytics, Inc. operates an advertising platform in the United States and the United Kingdom. It offers Cardlytics platform, a proprietary native bank advertising channel that enables marketers to reach customers through their network of financial institution partners through digital channels, such as online, mobile applications, email, and various real-time notifications; and Bridg platform, a customer data platform which utilizes point-of-sale data and enables marketers to perform analytics and targeted loyalty marketing, as well as measure the impact of their marketing. The company was incorporated in 2008 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

About LiveRamp

LiveRamp Holdings, Inc., a technology company, operates a data collaboration platform in the United States, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company operates LiveRamp Data Collaboration platform enables an organization to unify customer and prospect data to build a single view of the customer in a way that protects consumer privacy. Its platform supports various people-based marketing solutions, including data collaboration, activation, measurement and analytics, identity, and data marketplace. The company sells its solutions to enterprise marketers, agencies, marketing technology providers, publishers, and data providers in various industry verticals, such as financial, insurance and investment services, retail, automotive, telecommunications, high tech, consumer packaged goods, healthcare, travel, entertainment, and non-profit. The company was formerly known as Acxiom Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to LiveRamp Holdings, Inc. in October 2018. The company was incorporated in 2018 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.