The Long Investor
Airline Captain & Investment Analyst, Technical/Fundamental Analysis
Zeta Global and Salesforce were oversold in this year's SaaS selloff on the irrational fear that Anthropic and OpenAI would kill software companies. That fear drove a large selloff until June, but SaaS names are now rebounding, and the short-term irrationality was an opportunity to take advantage of. x.com x.comÂ
Zeta Global's contracted revenue gives growth more visibility. RPO expected to be recognized within 12 months reached $218.7M, up from $71.3M in Q3 2025. Management makes a compelling comparison with Salesforce's $5.66B Braze deal: Zeta has about twice Braze's forward revenue, higher guided FY26 free cash flow than Braze's FY26 actual, and a lower revenue multiple. That gap alone does not prove Zeta is undervalued; management sees a chance to win customers during integration. x.com x.comÂ
Zeta Global is being sold on broad SaaS fears that ignore its fundamentals. Its strongest years have come during midterm election years, it is very close to full-year GAAP profitability, and its return on ad spend is 6. x.comÂ
Zeta's weaker cash conversion makes its lower sales multiple misleading beside ServiceNow. Based on the other investor's forecast, ServiceNow is already cheaper on EV/free cash flow despite trading at twice Zeta's EV/sales. At 10x sales, Zeta would trade above 70x FCF versus ServiceNow in the high 20s; ServiceNow converts 2.5 times as much revenue into cash. Price-to-sales should be largely ignored because it is far more misleading than useful. x.comÂ
Zeta Global has room for significant multiple expansion because it is clearly outgrowing its competitors. Where the stock trades long term is still uncertain. x.comÂ
Adobe, Salesforce and ServiceNow still generate massive cash flow, push deeper into AI and sit at the center of enterprise operations. Three of the biggest SaaS names remain beaten up in 2026; their valuations have been crushed, but the long-term opportunity may not have been. The market has swung way too far against them. x.comÂ
Salesforce is no longer cheap enough given how much wallet share core CRM is losing. Organic growth only matches nominal GDP despite a massive increase in agentic spending, and large enterprises increasingly see Salesforce as a data pipe for their own custom agents, an ex-growth business that deserves a low multiple. The Informatica acquisition doubles down on that weak model. Salesforce was too cheap at 12x non-GAAP earnings, but near high-teens it is fair, and terminal risks have not abated. … Show more
Zeta Global could become a much larger company: at Zeta Live, executives with over $200 billion of decision-making power discussed what its keynote meant for their own companies, a firsthand sign of potential enterprise interest. Its 120% net dollar retention suggests existing customers get value, though future growth is uncertain. x.comÂ
Zeta Global looks cheap at about 2.9x forward sales while guiding 36-37% revenue growth, and could re-rate if seen as enterprise AI software rather than messy adtech. Q1 revenue rose 50% to $396M, and a Palantir partnership to rebuild its Data Cloud on Foundry could add over $100M of annual revenue in coming years. A July 6 Citi talk on its AI strategy is a near-term catalyst; 4.5x sales implies about $32. Risks include privacy issues, thin GAAP profit and customer concentration. x.comÂ
Okta, Salesforce and Atlassian look insanely expensive at nine times forward revenue against roughly 10% year-over-year growth. Many SaaS firms also have high sales and marketing costs. A commenter flags inference spending, which SaaS investors worry could compress margins; if free cash flow, growth, retention or gross margins weaken, their price-to-sales multiples could collapse. x.com x.com x.com x.comÂ
Salesforce's strong free cash flow and healthy balance sheet support its setup as enterprise AI adoption, Agentforce and AI-driven workflow automation advance. Its earnings gap on four times average volume has been followed by a tightening formation. x.com x.comÂ