TechTarget Inc - Annual Report: 2017 (Form 10-K)

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

Form 10-K

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017

For the transition period from                  to                 

Commission file number: 1-33472

TECHTARGET, INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

275 Grove Street

Newton, Massachusetts 02466

(Address of principal executive offices) (zip code)

(617) 431-9200

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Exchange Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Exchange Act:

None.

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☐  No ☑

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Exchange Act. Yes ☐  No ☑

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☑  No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes ☑  No ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. ☑

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer a smaller reporting company or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of the "large accelerated filer," "accelerated filer," "non-accelerated filer," "smaller reporting company" and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐  No ☑

The aggregate market value of the registrant’s common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant was approximately $126.7 million as of June 30, 2017 (based on a closing price of $10.37 per share as quoted by the Nasdaq Global Market as of such date). In determining the market value of non-affiliate common stock, shares of the registrant’s common stock beneficially owned by officers, directors and affiliates have been excluded. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive determination for other purposes.

The registrant had 27,483,367 shares of Common Stock, $0.001 par value per share, outstanding as of February 28, 2018.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K incorporates by reference certain information from the registrant’s definitive proxy statement for the 2018 annual meeting of stockholders, which the registrant intends to file pursuant to Regulation 14A with the Securities and Exchange Commission not later than 120 days after the registrant’s fiscal year end of December 31, 2017.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. This discussion and analysis contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Please refer to our “Forward-Looking Statements” section on page 53.

PART I

Overview

TechTarget, Inc. (“we” or “the Company”) is a Delaware corporation incorporated on September 14, 1999. Through continued innovation around our specialized online content for buyers of enterprise information technology (“IT”), we have become a global leader in purchase intent-driven marketing and sales services that deliver business impact for enterprise technology vendors. Our offerings enable technology vendors to better identify, reach and influence corporate IT decision makers actively researching specific IT purchases. We improve vendors’ ability to impact these audiences for business growth using advanced targeting, analytics and data services complemented with customized marketing programs that integrate demand generation and brand marketing and advertising techniques.

IT and business professionals have become increasingly specialized, and because each of the websites within our network of over 140 websites focuses on a specific IT sector such as storage, security, networking, or business applications. IT and business professionals rely on us for key decision support information tailored to their specific areas of responsibility.

We enable IT and business professionals to navigate the complex and rapidly-changing IT landscape where purchasing decisions can have significant financial and operational consequences. Our content strategy includes three primary sources which IT and business professionals use to assist them in their pre-purchase research: independent content provided by our professionals, vendor-generated content provided by our customers and member-generated, or peer-to-peer, content. In addition to utilizing our independent editorial content, registered members appreciate the ability to deepen their pre-purchase research by accessing the extensive vendor supplied content available across our website network. Likewise, these members derive significant additional value from the ability our network provides to seamlessly interact with and contribute to information exchanges in a given field.

We had approximately 19.1 million and 18.0 million registered members – our “audiences” – as of December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively. While the size of our registered member base does not provide direct insight into our customer numbers or our revenues, the value of our services sold to our customers is a direct result of the breadth and reach of this content footprint. This footprint creates the opportunity for our clients to gain business leverage by targeting our audiences through customized marketing programs. Likewise, the behavior exhibited by these audiences enables us to provide our customers with data products to improve their marketing and sales efforts. The targeted nature of our member base enables IT vendors to reach a specialized audience efficiently because our content is highly segmented and aligned with the IT vendors’ specific products. With it, we have developed a broad customer base and, in 2017, delivered marketing and sales services programs to approximately 1,200 customers.

Please refer to the section below titled “Our Strategy” regarding our longer-term expansion plans and to Item 6, Selected Financial Data, for detailed information about our revenues, net income, total assets and other financial results.

Business Trends

Our business is impacted by macro-economic conditions, including IT industry trends and foreign currency markets. Because most of our customers are IT vendors, the success of our business is intrinsically linked to the health, and subject to the market conditions, of the IT industry. The performance of the United States (“U.S.”) dollar against foreign currencies impacts our results because our largest customers derive a significant amount of revenue from outside the U.S. In years when the U.S. dollar is strong and foreign currencies are relatively weak, our ten major global customers’ revenues and marketing budgets are adversely impacted, which impacts our revenues. Conversely, when the U.S. dollar is weak against foreign currencies, revenues attributable to our largest customers can be positively impacted. Our mid-sized customers (our largest 100 customers, excluding those companies we consider our ten major global customers) and smaller customers (typically venture-backed start-ups) generally have less exposure to non-U.S. business. Thus, these customers, while still impacted by general IT industry trends, tend to be less impacted by foreign currency market trends, which generally results in less of an impact on their marketing budgets and, in turn, our revenues.

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Available Information

Our website address is www.techtarget.com. We make our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to these reports, available free of charge through our website as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish such material to, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). The SEC maintains an internet website, at www.sec.gov, that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information regarding issuers that are filed electronically. Our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, and any amendments to our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, Corporate Governance Guidelines and Board Committee Charters, are also available on our website. We are not including the information contained on our website as part of, or incorporating it by reference into, this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The public may read and copy any materials that we file with the SEC at the SEC’s Public Reading Reference Room at 100 F Street NE, Washington, DC 20549, and the public may obtain information on the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330.

Industry Background

IT and business professionals’ reliance on online content to research major purchase decisions, and the transition by IT vendors of marketing expenditures from offline to online channels, have been consistent trends that have benefitted us. Going forward, there are some important related trends that we believe our business strategy is well positioned to benefit from:

Corporate IT Purchasing

Over the past two decades, corporate IT purchases have grown in size and complexity. The corporate IT market comprises multiple large sectors such as storage, security and networking. Each of these sectors can be further divided into sub-sectors addressing more granular areas of specialization within an enterprise’s IT environment. For example, within the multi-billion dollar storage sector, there are numerous sub-sectors such as storage area networks, storage management software and backup software. Furthermore, the products – and therefore the vendors – in each sub-sector may represent entirely independent markets. For example, the market around backup software for use in Windows^® environments can be completely distinct from that addressing Linux^® environments.

In view of the complexities, high cost and importance of IT decision-making, corporate IT purchasing decisions are increasingly being researched by teams of functional experts with specialized knowledge in their particular areas, rather than by one central IT professional, such as a Chief Information Officer (“CIO”). For these reasons and more, the corporate IT purchasing process typically requires a lengthy sales cycle. The “sales cycle” is the sequence of stages that a typical customer goes through when deciding to purchase a product or service from a particular vendor. Key stages of a sales cycle typically consist of a customer recognizing or identifying a need; identifying possible solutions and vendors through research and evaluation; and finally, making a decision to purchase the product or service. Through various stages of this sales cycle, IT and business professionals rely upon multiple inputs from independent experts, peers and IT vendors. Although there is a vast amount of information available, the aggregation and validation of these inputs from various sources can be difficult and time-consuming.

The long sales cycle for corporate IT purchases, as well as customers’ needs for significant information support, requires substantial investment on the part of IT vendors. These realities drive the significant marketing expenditures observable in the corporate IT market. In addition, given the continued acceleration of technological change, at any given time, there are often multiple solution possibilities to any particular IT need. With each new product or product enhancement, IT vendors implement new marketing outreach, and as a result IT and business professionals are required to continuously engage in research to stay abreast of the latest developments that could benefit their companies.

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The Opportunity

Prior to widespread internet adoption, corporate IT buyers researching purchases relied largely on traditional IT media, consisting of broad print publications and large industry trade shows. Today, corporate IT and business professionals are demanding specialized online content tailored to the specialized sub-sectors of IT solutions that they must understand. As technology, vendors and IT and business professionals have all become much more specialized, the internet has become a preferred purchase research medium, which has dramatically increased research activity, accelerated information consumption and improved professional decision-making.

IT vendors seek high-ROI marketing opportunities that can provide them access to the specific sectors of IT buyers aligned with the solutions they sell. To be more efficient and effective, they need to distinguish these prospective buyers from accounts or individuals who are not yet ready to engage in the buying process. Thus, they look for assistance in identifying the specific accounts and individuals who are actively researching upcoming purchases. To more quickly and successfully position their respective solutions against alternatives being considered, they also seek assistance from marketing service providers to help influence these audiences by utilizing advanced demand-generating content marketing and targeted branding.

Our Solutions

IT and business professionals rely on our content platform for decision support information tailored to their specific purchasing needs. Our specialized content strategy and comprehensive services enable IT vendors to better identify, understand, reach and influence corporate IT and business professionals who are actively researching purchases in specific IT sectors. Our solution benefits from the following competitive advantages:

Our solutions increase efficiency and effectiveness for both IT and business professionals and IT vendors. We facilitate IT and business professionals’ ability to find specific information related to their purchase decisions, and we enable IT vendors to reach IT buyers who are actively researching specific solutions related to vendors’ products and services. Our solutions benefit IT and business professionals and IT vendors in the following ways:

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Benefits to IT and Business Professionals

Benefits to IT Vendors

Our Strategy

Our goal is to deliver superior performance by continuously enhancing our position as a global leader in purchase intent-driven marketing and sales services that deliver business impact for enterprise technology vendors by strengthening our offerings in our three core capability areas – our specialized content that connects IT and business professionals with IT vendors in the sectors and sub-sectors that we serve, the purchasing intent insight analytics and data services our content and member traffic enables, and the marketing services we provide to clients to help meet their business growth objectives. In order to achieve this goal, we intend to:

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Platform and Content

Our integrated content platform consists of a network of specialized websites that serve the needs of IT and business professionals who are making corporate purchase decisions. At critical stages of the purchase decision process, these content offerings through different channels meet IT and business professionals’ needs for expert, peer and IT vendor information and provide a platform on which IT vendors can launch targeted marketing campaigns that generate measurable, high ROI.

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The table below provides a representation of the key market opportunities we address for the IT vendors who are our customers:

Audience: Market Segment Sites

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Media Groups

Based upon the logical clustering of our members’ respective job responsibilities and the marketing focus of the products being promoted by our customers, we currently categorize our content offerings to address the key market opportunities and audience extensions across a portfolio of distinct media groups. Each of these media groups services a wide range of IT vendor sectors and sub-sectors and is driven by the key areas of IT and business professionals’ interests described below:

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We also cover servers, application and desktop solutions deployed in distributed computing environments. The dominant platform, Windows, no longer represents an offering of discrete operating systems but rather a diverse computing environment with its own areas of specialization around IT. As Windows servers have become more stable and scalable, they have taken share in data centers and currently represent one of the largest server sub-sectors. Given the breadth of the Windows market, we have segmented our Windows-focused media based on IT and business professionals’ infrastructure responsibilities and purchasing focus. Our online properties in this sector include SearchWindowsServer.com, covering servers, storage, and systems management; SearchDomino.com and SearchExchange.com, each targeted toward senior management for distributed computing environments. This network of sites provides resources and advice to IT and business professionals pursuing solutions related to such topics as Windows backup and storage, server consolidation, and upgrade planning. SearchEnterpriseDesktop.com focuses on the deployment and management of end-user computing environments. SearchMobileComputing.com covers the IT management issues surrounding the increasing deployment of personal technologies such as tablets and smartphones in the workplace. Combined with our two properties that focus on server virtualization, SearchVirtualDesktop.com and BrianMadden.com, each focusing on desktop virtualization, gives us a comprehensive offering addressing the fast-growing area of virtualization technologies.

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Product and Service Offerings

We use our online offerings to provide IT vendors with numerous touch points to identify, reach and influence key IT decision makers. The following is a description of the products and services we offer:

IT Deal Alert. IT Deal Alert is a suite of products and services for IT vendors that leverages the detailed purchase intent data that we collect about end-user IT organizations. Through proprietary scoring methodologies, we use this insight to help our customers identify and prioritize accounts whose content consumption around specific IT topics indicates that they are “in-market” for a particular product or service. We also use the data directly to identify and further profile accounts’ upcoming purchase plans.

Core Online. Our core online offerings enable our customers to reach and influence prospective buyers through content marketing programs designed to generate demand for their solutions, and through display advertising and other brand programs that influence consideration by prospective buyers.

Demand Solutions. Our suite of demand solutions offerings allows IT vendors to maximize ROI by capturing sales leads from the distribution and promotion of content to our audience of IT and business professionals. All of our demand solutions campaigns offer the Activity Intelligence Dashboard, a tool that gives our customers’ marketers and sales representatives a near real-time view of their prospects, including insights on the research activities of technology buying teams at the individual, team and account levels.

Our demand solutions offerings may also include the following program components:

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Brand Solutions. Our suite of brand solutions offerings provides IT vendors exposure to targeted audiences of IT and business professionals actively researching information related to their products and services. We leverage our Activity Intelligence product framework to enable significant segmentation and targeting of specific audiences that can be accessed through these programs. Components of brand programs may include:

Custom Content Creation. We will at times create white papers, case studies, webcasts or videos to our customers’ specifications through our Custom Content team. These customized content assets are then promoted to our audience within both demand solutions and brand solutions programs.

Customers

We market to IT vendors targeting specific audiences who are actively researching purchasing decisions. We maintain multiple points of contact with our customers in order to provide support throughout their organization and during critical stages of the sales cycle. As a result, individual customers often run multiple marketing programs with us in order to reach discrete portions of our targeted audience. Our products and services are delivered under both short-term contracts that run for the length of a given marketing program, typically less than six months, and via integrated, longer-term contracts covering various client needs across approximately a year. We have developed a broad customer base and delivered campaigns to approximately 1,200 companies in 2017. During 2017, 2016, and 2015, no single customer represented 10% or more of total revenues.

See Note 13 to our Consolidated Financial Statements for geographic data related to our revenues and long-lived assets.

Sales and Marketing

We have an internal direct sales department that works closely with existing and potential customers to develop customized marketing programs that provide highly targeted access to IT and business professionals. We organize the sales force by the sector-specific media groups that we operate and have a global accounts team that works with our largest customers. We believe that our sector-specific sales organization and integrated approach to our product and service offerings allows our sales personnel to develop a high level of expertise in the specific sectors they cover and to create effective marketing programs tailored to the customer’s specific objectives. As of December 31, 2017, our sales and marketing staff consisted of approximately 291 people. The majority of our sales staff is located in our Newton, Massachusetts headquarters and our offices in San Francisco, California and London, England.

We pursue a variety of marketing initiatives designed to support our sales activities by building awareness of our brand to IT vendors and positioning ourselves as a “thought leader” in ROI-based marketing. These initiatives include purchasing online sponsorships in media vehicles that reach technology marketers, as well as engaging in direct communications with the database of relevant contacts we have built since inception. Examples of our direct communications include selected e-mail updates on new product launches and initiatives. We also produce videocasts, blogs and white papers for technology marketers where we provide information on the latest best practices in the field of online business-to-business (“B2B”) tech marketing.

Through our Analyst Relations, Press and Public Relations activities, we develop and maintain relationships with key analysts, publications and influencers covering B2B marketing and sales topics.

Online Member Acquisition

Our primary source of traffic to our websites is through non-paid traffic sources, such as our existing registered member base and organic search engine traffic. Organic search engine traffic is also the primary source of new registered members for our sites. Because our sites focus on specific sectors of the IT market, our content is highly targeted and is an effective means for attracting

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search engine traffic and from this, growing our membership. We also make marketing expenditures designed to supplement our non-paid traffic and registered members. We employ a variety of online marketing vehicles such as keyword advertising on the major search engines and targeted list rentals of opt-in e-mail subscribers from a variety of targeted media sources.

Technological Infrastructure

We have developed an expandable operations infrastructure using hardware and software systems from established IT vendors to maintain our websites and online offerings. Our system hardware is co-located at an offsite data center. All of the critical components of the system are redundant, allowing us to withstand unexpected component failure and to undergo maintenance and upgrades. Our infrastructure is scalable, enabling us to make additions that fit into the existing environment as our system requirements grow based on traffic and member growth. Our critical data is copied daily to an online backup storage solution. The data is also copied to an off-site online storage facility. We maintain a quality assurance process to constantly monitor our servers, processes and network connectivity. We have implemented these various redundancies and backup systems in order to minimize the risk associated with damage from fire, power loss, telecommunications failure, break-ins, computer viruses and other events beyond our control. We believe that continued development of our technological infrastructure is critical to our success. We have made, and expect to continue to make, technological improvements in this infrastructure to improve our ability to service our members and customers.

Competition

The market for IT vendor marketing spend is highly competitive, and in each of the sectors we serve, as well as across the products and services we offer, our primary competitors include media companies that produce content specifically for IT and business professionals, providers of technology-based point solutions for data analysis and other service providers. Our primary media competitors, each of which possesses substantial resources to compete, are J2 Global, Madison Logic, QuinStreet, International Data Group, and CBS Interactive/CNET. In the online market we generally compete on the basis of target audience, quality and uniqueness of information content, ease of use of our websites for IT and business professionals, and the quality and quantity of sales leads generated for IT vendors. We also compete for the members who comprise our target audiences primarily with the media companies that produce content specifically for IT and business professionals such as J2 Global, QuinStreet, International Data Group, and CBS Interactive/CNET. In the data-oriented businesses, we compete with providers of predictive analytics and internet-based analysis including companies like 6sense, Infer, Bombora and TheBigWillow. In general marketing services, we compete with list and lead providers of various types. As we continue to expand internationally, we expect to compete with many of the competitors mentioned above, as well as with established media companies based in particular countries or geographical regions.

Member Privacy

We gather in-depth business information about our registered members who consent to provide us such information through one or more of the online registration forms displayed on our websites. We also gather information about users of certain content on our websites by tracking their content consumption or the content consumption of the companies they work for. We post our privacy policy on our websites so that our members can access and understand the terms and conditions applicable to the collection and use of their information. Our privacy policy discloses the types of information we gather, how we use it, and how a member can correct or change this information, including how a member can unsubscribe to our communications and those of our partners. Our privacy policy also explains the circumstances under which we share a member's information and with whom. Members who register for our websites have the option of indicating specific areas of interest in which they are willing to receive offers via e-mail or postal mail; these offers contain content created either by us or our third-party IT vendor customers. To protect our obligations to our members, we impose constraints that are consistent with our privacy policy on the customers to whom we provide member data. Additionally, when we provide lists to third parties, including to our customers, it is under contractual terms that are generally consistent with our obligations to members set forth in our privacy policy, as well as in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

Consumer Protection Regulation

General. Advertising and promotional activities presented to visitors on our websites are subject to federal and state consumer protection laws that regulate unfair and deceptive practices. We are also subject to various other federal and state consumer protection laws, including the ones described below. With respect to our non-U.S. business, we are also subject to the laws and regulations of various other jurisdictions in which we target members.

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CAN-SPAM Act. The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (the “CAN-SPAM Act”) regulates commercial e-mails and provides a right on the part of the recipient to request the sender to stop sending messages, and establishes penalties for the sending of e-mail messages that are intended to deceive the recipient as to source or content. Under the CAN-SPAM Act, senders of commercial e-mails (and other persons who initiate those e-mails) are required to make sure that those e-mails do not contain false or misleading transmission information. Commercial e-mails are required to include a valid return e-mail address and other subject heading information so that the sender and the internet location from which the message has been sent are accurately identified. Recipients must be furnished with an electronic method of informing the sender of the recipient’s decision not to receive further commercial e-mails. In addition, the e-mail must include a postal address of the sender and notice that the e-mail is an advertisement. The CAN-SPAM Act may apply to the e-newsletters that our websites distribute to registered members and to some of our other commercial e-mail communications. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) has issued regulations related to the CAN-SPAM Act, including interpretations of such act that indicate that e-newsletters, such as those we distribute to our registered members, will be exempt from most of the provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act. At this time, we are applying the applicable CAN-SPAM requirements to e-newsletters and all other e-mail communications, and believe that our e-mail practices comply with the requirements of the CAN-SPAM Act.

Other Consumer Protection Regulation. The FTC and many state attorneys general are applying federal and state consumer protection laws to require that the online collection, use and dissemination of data, and the presentation of web site content, comply with certain standards for notice, choice, security and access. In many cases, the specific limitations imposed by these standards are subject to interpretation by courts and other governmental authorities, and courts may adopt these developments as law. In addition, the FTC has published principles to address consumer privacy issues that may arise from so-called “behavioral targeting” (i.e. the tracking of a member’s online activities in order to deliver advertising tailored to his or her interests) and to encourage industry self-regulation for public content. Although the FTC excluded from the principles both “first-party” behavioral advertising and contextual advertising (each being the types of behavioral targeting activities in which we are currently primarily engaged), with respect to other types of behavioral targeting that include the storage of more, and potentially sensitive, data or that collects information outside of the “traditional Web site context” (such as through a mobile device or by an ISP), the FTC has stated that it will continue to evaluate self-regulatory programs. Further, the FTC has indicated that it is considering regulations regarding behavioral targeting which may include implementation of a more rigorous opt-in regime. An opt-in policy would prohibit businesses from collecting and using information obtained through behavioral targeting activities from individuals who have not voluntarily consented. The FTC has also issued further clarifying guidance regarding consumer privacy and data collection with a particular focus on the mobile environment. A few states have also introduced legislation that, if enacted, would restrict or prohibit behavioral advertising within the state. In the absence of a federal law pre-empting their enforcement, such state legislation would likely have the practical effect of regulating behavioral advertising nationwide because of the difficulties behind implementing state-specific policies or identifying the location of a particular consumer.

Privacy. In addition, the European Union (“EU”) and its member states and Canada have regulations dealing with the collection and use of personal information obtained from their citizens, some of which we may be subject to as a result of the expansion of our business internationally. Regulations in these regions have focused on the collection, use, disclosure and security of information that may be used to identify or that actually identifies an individual, such as an e-mail address, a name, or an IP address. Additionally, the EU requires informed consent for the placement of a cookie on a user device.

We believe that we are operating our business in compliance with the regulations that apply to us. However, such laws may be modified or subject to interpretation by governmental agencies or the courts, or, new laws may be enacted in the future, all of which could impact our business and results of operations.

Intellectual Property

We regard our copyrights, domain names, trademarks, trade secrets and similar intellectual property as important to our success, and we rely upon copyright, trademark and trade secrets laws, as well as confidentiality agreements with our employees and others, and protective contractual provisions, to protect the proprietary technologies and content that we have developed. We pursue the registration of our material trademarks in the U.S. and elsewhere. Currently, our TechTarget trademark and logo, as well as certain other marks and logos, are registered in the U.S. with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in select foreign jurisdictions and we have applied for U.S. and foreign registrations for various other marks. In addition, we have registered over 1,600 domain names that are, or may be, relevant to our business, including “www.techtarget.com,” “www.knowledgestorm.com,” “www.bitpipe.com,” “www.technologyguide.com” and those leveraging the “search” prefix used in the branding of many of our websites. We also incorporate a number of third-party software products into our technology platform pursuant to relevant licenses. We use third-party software to maintain and enhance, among other things, the content generation and delivery, and support our technology infrastructure. We are not substantially dependent upon these third-party software licenses, and we believe the licensed software is generally replaceable, by either licensing or purchasing similar software from another vendor or building the software functions ourselves.

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Employees

As of December 31, 2017, we had 622 employees. Other than a small number of employees in the United Kingdom and France, none of our current employees are represented by a labor union or are the subject of a collective bargaining agreement.

Seasonality

The timing of our revenues is affected by seasonal factors. Our revenues are seasonal primarily as a result of the annual budget approval process of many of our customers, the normal timing at which our customers introduce new products, and the historical decrease in marketing activity in summer months. The timing of revenues in relation to our expenses, much of which do not vary directly with revenues, has an impact on the cost of online revenues, selling and marketing, product development and general and administrative expenses as a percentage of revenues in each calendar quarter during the year.

The majority of our expenses are personnel-related and include salaries, stock-based compensation, benefits and incentive-based compensation plan expenses. As a result, we have not experienced significant seasonal fluctuations in the timing of our expenses period to period.

Our business is subject to various risks and uncertainties which may affect our business, our operating results and our share price, among other things. Any of the following risks or uncertainties could adversely impact our business, financial condition and operating results, among other things.

Risks Relating to Our Business and Operations

Because we depend on our ability to generate revenues from the sale of advertising campaigns, fluctuations in advertising spending could have an adverse effect on our operating results.

The primary source of our revenues is the sale of advertising campaigns to our customers. Our advertising revenues accounted for substantially all of our total revenues for the twelve months ended December 31, 2017. We believe that advertising spending on the internet, as in traditional media, fluctuates significantly as a result of a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control. These factors include:

Because most of our customers are in the IT industry, our revenues are subject to characteristics of the IT industry that can affect advertising spending by IT vendors.

Because most of our clients are in the IT industry, the success of our business is closely linked to the health, and subject to market conditions, of the IT industry. The IT industry is characterized by, among other things, volatile quarterly results, uneven sales patterns, short product life cycles, rapid technological developments and frequent new product introductions and enhancements. As a result, our customers’ advertising budgets, which are often viewed as discretionary expenditures, may increase or decrease significantly over a short period of time. Many of our customers have reassessed and will, for the foreseeable future, be likely to continue to scrutinize their spending on advertising campaigns. Prior market downturns in the IT industry have resulted in declines in advertising spending, which can cause longer sales cycles, deferral or delay of purchases by IT vendors and generally reduced expenditures for advertising and related services. Our revenues and profitability depend on the overall demand for advertising services from our customers. We believe that demand for our offerings has been in the past, and could be in the future, disproportionately affected by fluctuations, disruptions, instability or downturns in the IT industry, which may cause customers and potential customers to exit the industry or delay, cancel or reduce any planned expenditures for our marketing and advertising service offerings. Any slowdown in the formation of new IT companies, or decline in the growth of existing IT companies, may cause a decline in demand for our offerings.

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In addition, the advertising budgets of our customers may fluctuate as a result of:

Our future growth will depend in large part on continued increased sales of our IT Deal Alert product and service suite.

We sell a suite of products and services called IT Deal Alert, which is based on our Activity Intelligence analytics. The IT Deal Alert suite currently consists primarily of Priority Engine, TechTarget Research, Qualified Sales Opportunities and Deal Data. Our increase in revenues in the year ended December 31, 2017, compared to the year ended December 31, 2016, was driven in part by an increase in sales of IT Deal Alert products. We expect that IT Deal Alert, as well as the expansion of the features in our IT Deal Alert product offerings, will be major components of our future growth. The failure of our IT Deal Alert products to meet anticipated sales levels, our inability to continue to expand successfully our IT Deal Alert suite, or the failure of our current or new IT Deal Alert products and services to achieve and then maintain widespread customer acceptance could have a material adverse effect on our business and financial results. In addition, competitors may develop a service or application that is similar to our IT Deal Alert suite, which could also result in reduced sales for those product offerings.

Our revenues are primarily derived from short-term contracts that may not be renewed.

The primary source of our revenues is the sale of marketing and advertising services to our customers, and we expect that this will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. Our contracts are primarily short-term, typically six months or less, and are generally subject to termination without substantial penalty by the customer at any time, generally with minimal notice requirements. We cannot assure you that our current customers will fulfill their obligations under their existing contracts, continue to participate in our existing programs beyond the terms of their existing contracts or enter into any additional contracts for new programs that we offer. In addition, our efforts to enter into longer-term arrangements with customers for our IT Deal Alert products and services may not be successful. If a significant number of customers or a few large customers decided not to continue purchasing marketing and advertising services on our websites, we could experience a rapid decline in our revenues over a relatively short period of time.

If we are unable to deliver content and services that attract and retain a critical mass of members, our ability to attract customers may be affected, which could in turn have an adverse effect on our revenues.

Our success depends on our continued ability to deliver original and compelling content and services to attract and retain members, as well as our ability to garner a critical mass of members of our websites. Our member base is comprised of corporate IT and business professionals who demand specialized websites tailored to the sectors of the IT products for which they are responsible and that they purchase. Our content and services may not continue to attract and retain a critical mass of members necessary to attract customers and generate revenues consistent with our historical results and expectations of future results. We also may not develop new content or services in a timely or cost-effective manner. Our ability to develop and produce this specialized content successfully is subject to numerous uncertainties, including our ability to:

If we are not successful in maintaining and growing our member base through the deployment of targeted and compelling content, our ability to retain and attract customers may be affected, which could in turn have an adverse effect on our revenues.

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We depend upon internet search engines to attract a significant portion of the members who visit our websites, and if we were listed less prominently in search result listings as a result of changes in the search engines’ algorithms or otherwise, our business and operating results would be harmed.

We derive a significant portion of our website traffic from users who search for IT research and editorial content through internet search engines, such as Google, MSN, Bing and Yahoo!. A critical factor in attracting members to our websites is whether we are prominently displayed in response to an internet search relating to IT content. Search result listings are determined and displayed in accordance with a set of formulas or algorithms developed by the particular internet search engine. The algorithms determine the order of the listing of results in response to the user’s internet search. From time to time, search engines revise their algorithms. In some instances, these modifications may cause our websites to be listed less prominently in unpaid search results, which will result in decreased traffic from search engine users to our websites. Our websites may also become listed less prominently in unpaid search results for other reasons, such as search engine technical difficulties, search engine technical changes and changes we make to our websites. In addition, search engines have deemed the practices of some companies to be inconsistent with search engine guidelines and have decided not to list their websites in search result listings at all. Although we could mitigate certain algorithm changes affecting our traffic with increased marketing expenditures, if we are listed less prominently or not at all, in search result listings, traffic to our websites could decline, which could impact our operating results. Increased marketing spend to increase site traffic could also impact our results of operations.

There are a number of risks associated with our international operations, as well as the expansion of those operations, that could adversely affect our business.

Approximately 28% of our revenues for the year ended December 31, 2017 were derived from customers with billing addresses outside of the U.S. Approximately 32% of our online revenues were derived from international geo-targeted campaigns, which are campaigns that are targeted at members who reside outside of North America. We have offices in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Singapore and Australia. We also publish websites in Spanish, French, German, Portuguese and Chinese, targeting members worldwide who speak those languages.

In addition to many of the same challenges we face domestically, there are additional risks and costs to doing business in international markets, including:

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The United Kingdom’s vote to withdraw from the EU in accordance with the national referendum held on June 23, 2016 (“Brexit”) could adversely affect us. In particular, our European and Middle East operations are based out of the United Kingdom. We employ approximately 60% of our non-U.S. workforce in the United Kingdom (10% of our overall workforce), and we generate approximately 10% of our revenues from customers with billing addresses in the United Kingdom. Additionally, our United Kingdom office provides sales support to other European and Middle East regions, including our French and German operations, and there could be a material adverse impact on our ability to continue providing this support depending on the terms of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal. In March 2017, the United Kingdom’s government initiated the exit process under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, commencing a period of up to two years for the United Kingdom and other EU member states to negotiate the terms of the withdrawal. The proposed withdrawal could, among other potential outcomes, adversely affect the tax, tax treaty, currency, operational, legal and regulatory regimes to which our business in the European marketplace is subject. The withdrawal could also, among other potential outcomes, disrupt the free movement of goods, services and people between the United Kingdom and the EU and significantly disrupt trade between the United Kingdom and the EU and other parties. Further, uncertainty around these and related issues, including political uncertainty in other EU member states, could lead to adverse effects on the economy of the United Kingdom and the other economies in which we operate. There can be no assurance that any or all of these events will not have a material adverse effect on our business operations, results of operations and financial condition.

As a result, we may face difficulties and unforeseen expenses in expanding our business internationally and, if we attempt to do so, we may be unsuccessful, which could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.

Competition for customers’ marketing and advertising spending is intense, and we may not compete successfully, which could result in a material reduction in our market share, the number of our customers and our revenues.

We compete for potential customers with a number of different types of offerings and companies, including: broad‑based media outlets such as television, newspapers and business periodicals that are designed to reach a wide audience; general purpose portals and search engines; and offline and online offerings of media companies that produce content specifically for IT and business professionals, including International Data Group, J2 Global, QuinStreet, Madison Logic and CBS Interactive/CNet. Customers may choose our competitors over us not only because they prefer our competitors’ online offerings to ours but also because customers prefer to utilize other forms of marketing and advertising services offered by our competitors that are not offered by us and/or to diversify their marketing and advertising expenditures. Many of our current and potential competitors have longer operating histories, larger customer bases, greater brand recognition and significantly greater financial, marketing and other resources than we have. They may also offer different pricing than we do, which could be more attractive to customers. Competitors have historically responded, and may continue to respond, to market conditions by lowering prices to try to attract our customers. As a result, we could lose market share to our competitors in one or more of our businesses and our revenues could decline.

We may not innovate at a successful pace, which could harm our operating results.

Our industry is rapidly adopting new technologies and standards to create and satisfy the demands of users and advertisers. It is critical that we continue to innovate by anticipating and adapting to these changes to ensure that our content‑delivery, demand generation and IT Deal Alert products and services remain effective and interesting to our members, customers and partners. In addition, we may need to make significant expenditures to achieve these goals. If we fail to accomplish these goals, we may lose members and the customers that seek to reach those members, which could harm our operating results. Existing and planned efforts to develop new products, including any subscription-based offerings, may be costly and ultimately not successful.

We may be unable to continue to build awareness of our brands, which could negatively impact our business and cause our revenues to decline.

Building and maintaining recognition of our brands is critical to attracting and retaining our member base. We intend to continue to build existing brands and introduce new brands that will resonate with our targeted audiences. In order to promote our brands, we may find it necessary to increase our marketing budget, hire additional marketing and public relations personnel or otherwise increase our financial commitment to creating and maintaining brand loyalty among our clients. If we fail to promote and maintain our brands effectively, or incur excessive expenses attempting to promote and maintain our brands, our business and financial results may suffer.

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If we do not retain our key personnel, our ability to execute our business strategy will be adversely affected.

Our continued success depends to a significant extent upon the recruitment, retention and effective succession of our executive officers and key management. Our management team has significant industry experience and would be difficult to replace. These individuals possess sales, marketing, financial and administrative skills that are critical to the operation of our business. The competition for these employees is intense. The loss of the services of one or more of our key personnel could have a material adverse effect on our business and operating results.

We may not be able to attract, hire and retain qualified personnel cost-effectively, which could impact the quality of our content and services and the effectiveness and efficiency of our management, resulting in increased costs and losses in revenues.

Our success depends on our ability to attract, hire and retain qualified technical, editorial, sales and marketing, customer support, financial and accounting and other managerial personnel at commercially reasonable rates. The competition for personnel in the industries in which we operate is intense. Our personnel may terminate their employment at any time for any reason. Loss of personnel may also result in increased costs for replacement hiring and training. If we fail to attract and hire new personnel or retain and motivate our current personnel, we may not be able to operate our businesses effectively or efficiently, serve our customers properly or maintain the quality of our content and services. In particular, our success depends in significant part on maintaining and growing an effective sales force. This dependence involves a number of challenges, including:

We may fail to identify or successfully acquire and integrate businesses, products and technologies that would otherwise enhance our product and service offerings to our customers and members, and as a result our revenues may decline or fail to grow.

We have acquired, and in the future may acquire or invest in, complementary businesses, products or technologies. Acquisitions and investments involve numerous risks including:

Our inability to integrate any acquired business successfully, or the failure to achieve any expected synergies, could result in increased expenses and a reduction in expected revenues or revenue growth. As a result, our revenues, results of operations or stock price could fluctuate or decline. In addition, we may not be able to identify or successfully complete acquisitions, which could impact our ability to expand into complementary sectors in the future.

General domestic and global economic, business or industry conditions and financial market instability may adversely affect our business, as well as our ability to forecast financial results.

The U.S. and international economies have experienced inconsistent, unpredictable growth and a certain degree of instability, magnified at times by factors including changes in the availability of credit, volatile business and consumer confidence and unemployment. These and other macro‑economic conditions have contributed to unpredictable changes in the global economy and expectations of future global economic growth. If the economic climate in the U.S. and abroad remains as it is or deteriorates, our customers or potential customers could reduce or delay their purchases of our offerings, which would adversely impact our revenues and our ability to sell our offerings, collect customer receivables and, ultimately, our profitability.

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Because all components of our budgeting and forecasting are dependent upon estimates of growth or contraction in the economy generally, and in the IT market specifically, it can be difficult for us to accurately estimate future income and expenditures. We cannot predict the duration of current economic conditions or the duration or strength of an economic recovery in the U.S. or worldwide generally or in the IT industry or in any of its segments. Further adverse changes may occur as a result of global, domestic or regional economic conditions, changing consumer confidence, unemployment, declines in stock markets, or other factors affecting economic conditions generally. These changes may negatively affect the sales of our offerings, increase exposure to losses from bad debts, increase the cost and decrease the availability of financing, or increase the risk of loss on investments. Any recent growth we have experienced internationally would be negatively affected by any future global downturn.

Risks Related to Data Privacy, Security and Intellectual Property Rights

We may have limited protection of our intellectual property rights, which others could infringe.

Our success and ability to compete are dependent in part on the strength of our proprietary rights, on the goodwill associated with our trademarks, trade names and service marks, and on our ability to use U.S. and foreign laws to protect them. Our intellectual property includes, among other things, our original content, our editorial features, logos, brands, domain names, the technology that we use to deliver our services, the various databases of information that we maintain and make available by license, and the appearances of our websites. We claim common law protection on certain names and marks that we have used in connection with our business activities. Although we have applied for and obtained registration of some of our marks in the U.S. and other countries where we do business, we have not been able to obtain registration of all of our key marks in certain non-U.S. jurisdictions due to prior registration or use by third parties employing similar marks. In addition to U.S. and foreign laws and registration processes, we rely on confidentiality agreements with our employees and third parties and other protective contractual provisions to safeguard our intellectual property.

Policing our intellectual property rights and identifying infringers worldwide is a difficult task, and even if we are able to identify infringers, we may not be able to stop them from infringing our intellectual property. We cannot be certain that third-party licensees of our content will adequately protect our proprietary rights. Intellectual property laws and our agreements may not be sufficient to prevent others from copying or otherwise obtaining and using our content or technologies. In addition, others may develop non-infringing technologies that are similar or superior to ours. In seeking to protect our marks, copyrights, domain names and other proprietary rights, we could face costly litigation and the diversion of our management’s attention and resources.

Furthermore, the relationship between regulations governing domain names and laws protecting trademarks and similar proprietary rights is still evolving. Therefore, we might be unable to prevent third parties from acquiring domain names that infringe or otherwise decrease the value of our trademarks and other proprietary rights. Any impairment in the value of these important assets could cause our stock price to decline.

We could be subject to claims from third parties based on the content on our websites created by us and third parties. These claims could result in costly litigation, the payment of damages or the need to revise the way we conduct our business.

We could be subject to infringement claims from third parties, which may or may not have merit. Due to the nature of content published on our online network, including content placed on our online network by third parties, and as a creator and distributor of original content and research, we face potential liability based on a variety of theories, including defamation, libel, negligence, copyright or trademark infringement, or other legal theories based on the nature, creation or distribution of this information. Such claims may also include, among others, claims that by providing hypertext links to websites operated by third parties, we are liable for wrongful actions by those third parties through these websites. Similar claims have been brought, and sometimes successfully asserted, against online services. It is also possible that our members could make claims against us for losses incurred in reliance on information provided on our networks. In addition, we could be exposed to liability in connection with material posted to our internet sites by third parties. For example, many of our sites offer members an opportunity to post comments and opinions that are not moderated. Some of this member-generated content may infringe on third-party intellectual property rights or privacy rights or may otherwise be subject to challenge under copyright laws. Such claims, whether brought in the U.S. or abroad, could divert management time and attention away from our business and result in significant cost to investigate and defend, regardless of the merit of these claims. In addition, if we become subject to these types of claims and are not successful in our defense, we may be forced to pay substantial damages. These claims could also result in the need to develop alternative trademarks, content or technology or to enter into costly royalty or licensing agreements. Our insurance may not adequately protect us against these claims. The filing of these claims may also damage our reputation as a high quality provider of unbiased, timely analysis and result in client cancellations or overall decreased demand for our services. We may not have, in all cases, conducted formal evaluations of our content, technology and services to determine whether they expose us to any liability of the sort described above. As a result, we cannot be certain that our

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technology, offerings, services or online content do not or will not infringe upon the intellectual property or other rights of third parties. If we were found to have infringed on a third party’s intellectual property rights or otherwise found liable for damages as a result of such claims, the value of our brands and our business reputation could be impaired, and our business could suffer.

Changes in laws and standards relating to marketing, data collection and use, and the privacy of internet users could impact our ability to conduct our business and thereby decrease our marketing and advertising service revenues.

We use e-mail as a significant means of communicating with our members. The laws and regulations governing the use of e-mail for marketing purposes continues to evolve, and the growth and development of the market for commerce over the internet may lead to the adoption of additional legislation and/or changes to existing laws. If new laws or regulations are adopted, or existing laws and regulations are interpreted and/or amended or modified to impose additional restrictions on our ability to send e-mail to our members or potential members, we may not be able to communicate with them in a cost-effective manner. In addition to legal restrictions on the use of e-mail, internet service providers and others typically attempt to block the transmission of unsolicited e-mail, commonly known as “spam.” If an internet service provider or software program identifies e-mail from us as “spam,” we could be placed on a restricted list that would block our e-mail to members or potential members who maintain e-mail accounts with these internet service providers or who use these software programs. If we are unable to communicate by e-mail with our members and potential members as a result of legislation, blockage or otherwise, our business, operating results and financial condition could be harmed.

We collect information from our members who register on our websites or for services, respond to surveys or, in some cases, view our content. Subject to each member’s permission (or right to decline, which we refer to as an “opt-out”, a practice that may differ across our various websites, depending on the applicable needs and requirements of different countries’ laws), we may use this information to inform our members of services that they have indicated may be of interest to them. We may also share this information with our customers for members who have elected to receive additional promotional materials and have expressly or implicitly granted us permission to share their information with third parties. We also collect information on our members based on their activity on our sites. The U.S. federal government and certain states have adopted or proposed limitations on the collection, distribution and use of personal information of internet users.

Although, to date, our efforts to comply with applicable federal and state laws and regulations have not hurt our business, additional, more burdensome laws or regulations, including more restrictive consumer privacy and data security laws, could be enacted or applied to us or our customers. Such laws or regulations could impair our ability to collect member information that helps us to provide more targeted content to our members and detailed lead data to our customers, thereby impairing our ability to maintain and grow our audience and maximize revenue from our customers. Additionally, the FTC and many state attorneys general are applying federal and state consumer protection laws to require that the online collection, use and dissemination of data, and the presentation of website content, comply with certain standards for notice, choice, security and access. Courts may also adopt these developing standards. In many cases, the specific limitations imposed by these standards are subject to interpretation by courts and other governmental authorities. A few states have also introduced legislation that, if enacted, would restrict or prohibit behavioral marketing and advertising within the state. In the absence of a federal law pre-empting their enforcement, such state legislation would likely have the practical effect of regulating behavioral marketing and advertising nationwide because of the difficulties behind implementing state-specific policies or identifying the location of a particular member. In the event of additional legislation in this area, our ability to effectively target our members may be limited. We believe that we are in compliance with applicable consumer protection laws, but a determination by a state or federal agency or court that any of our practices do not meet these laws and regulations could create liability to us, result in adverse publicity and affect negatively our businesses. New interpretations of these standards could also require us to incur additional costs and restrict our business operations.

In addition, the EU and its member states and Canada have regulations dealing with the collection and use of personal information obtained from their citizens. Regulations in these jurisdictions have focused on the collection, transfer, use, disclosure and security of information that may be used to identify or that actually identifies an individual, such as an e-mail address or a name. Further, within the EU, certain member state data protection authorities regard IP addresses as personal information, and legislation in the EU requires informed consent for the placement of a cookie on a user device. The General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) was approved by the EU Parliament on April 14, 2016 and will become effective on May 25, 2018. The GDPR replaces the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and was designed to, among other things, harmonize disparate data privacy laws found across Europe. Its application and scope are extensive and penalties for non-compliance are significant, including fines of up to 20 million Euros or 4% of total worldwide revenue. Additionally, on January 10, 2017, the EU Commission released a Proposal for Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications (“ePrivacy Regulation”) which will replace the ePrivacy Directive and is intended to align with the overall EU data privacy and protection framework, including the GDPR. Compliance with the GDPR and the final ePrivacy Regulation could require us to add new resources or change our current or future services which may adversely affect our revenues.

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Law makers and regulators are expected to release additional guidance on the implementation of the GDPR over the months leading up to and following its effective date, which may further impact our compliance efforts. We will continue to monitor potential changes in legal or regulatory requirements of privacy laws.

U.S. companies have, since 2000, relied on the Department of Commerce Safe Harbor Principles (“Safe Harbor”) and self-certification process in order to transfer and process the personal data of people in the EU in a manner that the EU, until recently, deemed adequate to protect the security of such information. On October, 6, 2015, the European Court of Justice declared that Safe Harbor was no longer valid. U.S. and EU lawmakers in February 2016 announced a replacement for Safe Harbor, called the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework Principles (“the Privacy Shield”). On July 12, 2016, the European Commission deemed the Privacy Shield adequate to enable data transfers of personal data from the EU to the U.S. On September 23, 2016, we completed the initial documentation and process requirements and self-certified to the Privacy Shield. We received final confirmation from the FTC regarding certification and compliance with the Privacy Shield requirements on February 10, 2017.

U.S. and European lawmakers and regulators have recently expressed concern over the use of third-party cookies or web beacons for the purpose of online behavioral marketing and advertising, and efforts to address these uses may result in broader requirements that would apply to our research activities, including our efforts to understand our members’ internet usage. Such actions may have a chilling effect on businesses like ours that collect or use online usage information generally, or may substantially increase the cost of maintaining a business that collects or uses online usage information, increase regulatory scrutiny and increase the potential of class action lawsuits. In response to marketplace concerns about the usage of third-party cookies and web beacons to track user behaviors, the major browser applications have enabled features that allow the user to limit the collection of certain data. These developments could impair our ability to collect member information that helps us provide more targeted marketing content to our members. In addition, several browser applications, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari, contain tracking protection features and options that allow users to opt out of ad-tracking cookies and in certain cases block behavioral tracking from specified websites. In the event members implement these tracking protection features and options, they have the potential to affect our business negatively.

We believe that we are in material compliance with all laws and regulations that are applicable to us. As referenced above, these regulations and laws may be modified and new laws may be enacted in the future that may apply to us and affect our business. Further, data protection authorities may interpret existing laws in new ways. We may deploy new products and services from time to time, which may also require us to change our compliance practices. Any such developments (or developments stemming from enactment or modification of other laws) or the failure to anticipate accurately the application or interpretation of these laws could create liability for us, result in adverse publicity and materially affect our business and results of operations.

Increased exposure from loss of personal information due to data breaches and hacks could impose significant additional costs on us.

We currently retain confidential information relating to our members in secure database servers. Although we observe security measures throughout our operations, we may not be able to prevent individuals from gaining unauthorized access to these database servers, which could cause intentional malfunctions or loss or corruption of data, software, hardware or other computer equipment. Hackers, if successful, could misappropriate proprietary information or cause disruptions in our service. We may be required to expend capital and other resources to protect our websites against hackers. Our online networks could also be affected by computer viruses or other similar disruptive problems, and we could inadvertently transmit viruses across our networks to our members or other third parties. Providing unimpeded access to our online networks is critical to servicing our customers and providing superior customer service. Our inability to provide continuous access to our online networks could cause some of our customers to discontinue purchasing marketing and advertising programs and services and/or prevent or deter our members from accessing our networks. We cannot assure that contractual provisions attempting to limit our liability in these areas will be successful or enforceable, or that other parties will accept such contractual provisions as part of our agreements.

In addition, many states and foreign jurisdictions in which we operate have enacted regulations requiring us to notify customers and, in some cases, governmental authorities, in the event that certain customer information is accessed, or believed to have been accessed, without authorization. Certain regulations also require proscriptive policies to protect against such unauthorized access. Additionally, increasing regulatory demands are requiring us to provide heightened protection of personal information to prevent identity theft and the disclosure of sensitive information. Should we experience a loss of protected data, efforts to regain compliance and address penalties imposed by such regulatory regimes could increase our costs. Also, data breaches could expose us to a risk of loss or litigation and possible liability from third parties or others, which could have an adverse impact on our business.

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Our business, which is dependent on centrally located communications and computer hardware systems, is vulnerable to natural disasters, telecommunication and systems failures, terrorism and other problems, as well as disruption due to maintenance or high volume, all of which could reduce traffic on our networks or websites and result in decreased capacity for marketing and advertising space.

Our operations are dependent on our communications systems and computer hardware, all of which are located in data centers operated by third parties. These systems could be damaged by natural disasters, power loss, telecommunication failures, viruses, hacking and similar events outside of our control. Our insurance policies have limited coverage levels for loss or damages in these events and may not adequately compensate us for any losses that may occur. In addition, terrorist acts or acts of war may cause harm to our employees or damage our facilities, our clients, our clients’ customers and vendors which could adversely impact our revenues, costs and expenses and financial position. We are predominantly uninsured for losses and interruptions to our systems or cancellations of events caused by terrorist acts and acts of war.

Our ability to attract and maintain relationships with our members, customers and strategic partners depends on the satisfactory performance, reliability and availability of our internet infrastructure. Our internet marketing and advertising revenues relate directly to the number of advertisements and other marketing opportunities delivered to our members. System interruptions or delays that result in the unavailability of internet sites or slower response times for members would reduce the number of advertising impressions and leads delivered. This could reduce our revenues as the attractiveness of our sites to members and advertisers decreases. Our insurance policies provide only limited coverage for service interruptions and may not adequately compensate us for any losses that may occur due to any failures or interruptions in our systems. Further, we do not have multiple site capacity for all of our services in the event of any such occurrence.

In addition, our networks and websites must accommodate a high volume of traffic and deliver frequently updated information. They have experienced, and may experience in the future, slower response times due to higher than expected traffic, or decreased traffic, for a variety of reasons. There have been instances where our online networks as a whole, or our websites individually, have been inaccessible. Also, slower response times, which have occurred more frequently, can result from general internet problems, routing and equipment problems involving third-party internet access providers, problems with third-party advertising servers, increased traffic to our servers, viruses and other security breaches that are out of our control. In addition, our members depend on internet service providers and online service providers for access to our online networks or websites. Those providers have experienced outages and delays in the past, and may experience outages or delays in the future. Moreover, our internet infrastructure might not be able to support continued growth of our online networks or websites. Any of these problems could result in less traffic to our networks or websites or harm the perception of our networks or websites as reliable sources of information. Less traffic on our networks and websites or periodic interruptions in service could have the effect of reducing demand for marketing and advertising on our networks or websites, thereby reducing our revenues.

Our business depends on continued and unimpeded access to the internet by us and our members. If government regulations relating to the internet change, internet access providers may be able to block, degrade, or charge for access to certain of our products and services, which could lead to additional expenses and the loss of customers and clients.

Our products and services depend on the ability of our members to access the internet. Currently, this access is provided by companies that have significant market power in the broadband and internet access marketplace, including incumbent telephone companies, cable companies, mobile communications companies, and government-owned service providers. Some of these providers have taken, or have stated that they may take measures, including legal actions, that could degrade, disrupt, or increase the cost of member access to our advertisements or our third-party publishers’ advertisements by restricting or prohibiting the use of infrastructure to support or facilitate our offerings, or by charging increased fees to us or our members to provide our offerings. On December 14, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal the net neutrality rules which were intended, in part, to prevent network operators from discriminating against legal traffic that traverses their networks. It is unclear whether or if such a repeal will be subject to challenge or preemption if the U.S. Congress passes new laws regarding net neutrality. In addition, as we expand internationally, government regulations concerning the internet, in particular net neutrality, may be nascent or non-existent. This regulatory environment, coupled with the potentially significant political and economic power of local network operators, could cause us to experience discriminatory or anti-competitive practices that could impede our growth, cause us to incur additional expense, or otherwise negatively affect our business. Such interference could result in a loss of existing customers and clients, and increased costs, and could impair our ability to attract new customers and clients, thereby harming our revenues and growth.

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Risks Related to Our Financial Statements and General Corporate Matters

If we do not maintain proper and effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting, our ability to produce accurate financial statements could be impaired, which could adversely affect our operating results, our ability to operate our business and investors’ views of us.

Ensuring that we have adequate disclosure controls and procedures, including internal financial and accounting controls and procedures, in place to help ensure that we can produce accurate financial statements on a timely basis is a costly and time-consuming effort that needs to be re-evaluated frequently. On an ongoing basis, both we and our independent auditors document and test our internal controls and procedures in connection with the requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and, as part of that documentation and testing, identify areas for further attention and improvement. Implementing any appropriate changes to our internal controls may entail substantial costs in order to modify our existing accounting systems, take a significant period of time to complete; and distract our officers, directors and employees from the operation of our business. These changes may not, however, be effective in maintaining the adequacy of our internal controls, and any failure to maintain that adequacy, or consequent inability to produce accurate financial statements on a timely basis, could increase our operating costs and could materially impair our ability to operate our business. In addition, investors’ perceptions that our internal controls are inadequate or that we are unable to produce accurate financial statements may seriously affect our stock price.

Our ability to raise capital in the future may be limited.

Our business and operations may consume resources faster than we anticipate. In the future, we may need to raise additional funds to expand our sales and marketing and service development efforts or to make acquisitions. Additional financing may not be available on favorable terms, if at all. If adequate funds are not available on acceptable terms, we may be unable to fund the expansion of our sales and marketing and research and development efforts or take advantage of acquisition or other opportunities, which could seriously harm our business and operating results. If we incur debt, the debt holders would have rights senior to common stockholders to make claims on our assets and the terms of any debt could restrict our operations, including our ability to pay dividends on our common stock. Furthermore, if we issue additional equity securities, stockholders will experience dilution, and the new equity securities could have rights senior to those of our common stock. Any debt financing is likely to have financial and other covenants that could have an adverse impact on our business if we do not achieve our projected results. Because our decision to issue securities in any future offering will depend on market conditions and other factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing or nature of our future offerings. Thus, our stockholders bear the risk of our future securities offerings reducing the market price of our common stock and diluting their interest.

The impairment of a significant amount of goodwill and intangible assets on our balance sheet could result in a decrease in earnings and, as a result, our stock price could decline.

We have acquired assets and businesses over time, some of which have resulted in the recording of a significant amount of goodwill and/or intangible assets on our consolidated financial statements. We had $93.8 million of goodwill and $0.5 million of net intangible assets as of December 31, 2017. The goodwill was recorded because the fair value of the net tangible assets and/or intangible assets acquired was less than the purchase price. We may not realize the full value of the goodwill and/or intangible assets. As such, we evaluate goodwill and other intangible assets with indefinite useful lives for impairment on an annual basis or more frequently if events or circumstances suggest that the asset may be impaired. We did not have any intangible assets with indefinite lives as of December 31, 2017. We evaluate other intangible assets subject to amortization whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of those assets may not be recoverable. If goodwill or other intangible assets are determined to be impaired, we will write off the unrecoverable portion as a charge to our earnings. If we acquire new assets and businesses in the future, as we intend to do, we may record additional goodwill and/or intangible assets. The possible write-off of the goodwill and/or intangible assets could negatively impact our future earnings and, as a result, the market price of our common stock could decline.

The trading price of our common stock may be volatile and decline substantially.

The trading price of our common stock may be volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. In addition to the factors discussed in this “Risk Factors” section and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, these factors include:

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In addition, the stock market in general, and historically the market for internet-related companies in particular, have experienced price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. Securities class action litigation has often been instituted against companies following periods of volatility in the overall market and in the market price of a company’s securities. Such litigation, if instituted against us, could result in substantial costs, divert our management’s attention and resources and harm our business, operating results and financial condition.

Our full year and quarterly operating results are subject to fluctuations, and these fluctuations may adversely affect the trading price of our common stock.

We have experienced fluctuations in our full year and quarterly revenues and operating results. Our revenues and operating results may fluctuate from quarter to quarter due to a number of factors described in this Risk Factors section, many of which are outside of our control. Specifically, our results could be impacted quarter by quarter by changes in the spending priorities and marketing budget cycles of customers; the addition or loss of customers; the addition of new sites and services by us or our competitors; and seasonal fluctuations in marketing spending, based on product launch schedules, annual budget approval processes for our customers and the historical decrease in marketing spending in the summer months. Due to the foregoing as well as other risks described in this Risk Factors section, our results of operations in one or more quarters may fall below the expectations of investors and/or securities analysts. In such an event, the trading price of our common stock is likely to decline.

Provisions of our certificate of incorporation, bylaws and Delaware law could deter takeover attempts.

Various provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws could delay, prevent or make more difficult a merger, tender offer, proxy contest or change of control. Our stockholders might view any transaction of this type as being in their best interest since the transaction could result in a higher stock price than the then-current market price for our common stock. Among other things, our certificate of incorporation and bylaws:

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Future sales of shares of our common stock by existing stockholders could depress the market price of our common stock.

If our existing stockholders sell, or indicate an intent to sell, substantial amounts of our common stock in the public market, the trading price of our common stock could decline significantly. A large portion of our outstanding shares of common stock is held by our officers, directors and significant stockholders. Our directors, executive officers and significant stockholders beneficially own approximately 14.8 million shares of our common stock, which represents 54% of our outstanding shares as of December 31, 2017. If these additional shares are sold, or if it is perceived that they will be sold in the public market, the trading price of our common stock could decline substantially.

A limited number of stockholders have the ability to influence the outcome of director elections and other matters requiring stockholder approval.

Our directors, executive officers and significant stockholders beneficially own approximately 54% of our outstanding common stock as of December 31, 2017. These stockholders, if they act together, could exert substantial influence over matters requiring approval by our stockholders, including the election of directors, the amendment of our certificate of incorporation and bylaws and the approval of mergers or other business combination transactions. This concentration of ownership may discourage, delay or prevent a change in control of our company, which could deprive our stockholders of an opportunity to receive a premium for their stock as part of a sale of our company and might reduce our stock price. These actions may be taken even if they are opposed by other stockholders.

None.

On October 26, 2017, the Company and Hines Global REIT Riverside Center, LLC (“Hines”) entered into a Third Amendment (the “Third Amendment”) to the lease agreement for office space in Newton, Massachusetts, dated as of August 4, 2009, by and between the Company and MA-Riverside Project, L.L.C. (predecessor-in-interest to Hines) as amended (the “Newton Lease”). The Third Amendment extends the lease term to December 31, 2029 and preserves the Company’s option to extend the term for an additional five-year period subject to certain terms and conditions set forth in the Newton Lease. The Third Amendment reduces the rentable space from approximately 110,000 square feet to approximately 74,000 square feet effective January 1, 2018 and provides the Company with a one-time cash allowance of up to $3.3 million, which may be used by the Company for any purpose. Beginning on January 1, 2018, base monthly rent under the Third Amendment will be $0.3 million. The base rent will increase biennially at a rate averaging approximately 1% per year, beginning on January 1, 2020. The Company remains responsible for certain other costs under the Third Amendment, including operating expenses and taxes.

We are not currently a party to any material legal proceedings and we are not aware of any pending or threatened litigation against us that could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results or financial condition.

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PART II

Our common stock is listed on the Nasdaq Global Market under the trading symbol “TTGT”. The following table sets forth the high and low sales prices of our common stock, as reported by the Nasdaq Global Market, for each quarterly period in 2017 and 2016:

The closing sale price of our common stock, as reported by the Nasdaq Global Market, was $17.28 on February 28, 2018.

Holders

As of February 28, 2018 there were 87 stockholders of record of our common stock based on the records of our transfer agent.

Dividends

We did not declare or pay any cash dividends on our common stock during the two most recent fiscal years. We currently intend to retain earnings, if any, to fund the development and growth of our business and do not anticipate paying cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future. Our payment of any future dividends will be at the sole discretion of our Board of Directors after taking into account various factors, including our financial condition, operating results, cash needs and growth plans.

Equity Compensation Plan Information

Information relating to compensation plans under which our equity securities are authorized for issuance is set forth under “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters” in Item 12 below.

Stock Performance Graph

The following graph compares the cumulative total return to stockholders of our common stock for the period from December 31, 2012 to December 31, 2017, to the cumulative total return of the Russell 2000 Index and the S&P 500 Media Industry Index for the same period. This graph assumes the investment of $100.00 on December 31, 2012 in our common stock, the Russell 2000 Index and the S&P 500 Media Industry Index and assumes any dividends are reinvested.

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COMPARATIVE STOCK PERFORMANCE

Among TechTarget, Inc.,

the Russell 2000 Index and

S&P 500 Media Industry Index

The information included under the heading “Stock Performance Graph” in Item 5 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K is “furnished” and not “filed” and shall not be deemed to be “soliciting material” or subject to Regulation 14A, shall not be deemed “filed” for purposes of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), or otherwise subject to the liabilities of that section, nor shall it be deemed incorporated by reference in any filing under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Exchange Act.

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Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer

The following table provides information about purchases by our company during the three months ended December 31, 2017 of equity securities that are registered by us pursuant to Section 12 of the Exchange Act.

Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer

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The information set forth below is not necessarily indicative of results of future operations, and should be read in conjunction with Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and the consolidated financial statements and related notes thereto included in Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K to fully understand factors that may affect the comparability of the information presented below, (in thousands except per share data).

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Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (“EBITDA”) is a non-GAAP financial measure used by management when reviewing our performance. EBITDA represents earnings before interest expense (income) net, provision for (benefit from) income taxes, depreciation and amortization. Adjusted EBITDA represents EBITDA as further adjusted to exclude stock-based compensation, other (income) expense net, secondary offering costs and other one-time charges, if any. We present Adjusted EBITDA as a supplemental performance measure because we believe it facilitates operating performance comparisons from period to period and company to company by backing out potential differences caused by variations in capital structures (affecting interest expense), tax positions (such as the impact on periods or companies of changes in effective tax rates or net operating losses), the age and book depreciation of fixed assets (affecting relative depreciation expense), acquisition-related charges (such as amortization of intangible assets and earnouts) and the impact of non-cash stock-based compensation expense costs. Because Adjusted EBITDA facilitates internal comparisons of operating performance on a more consistent basis, we also use Adjusted EBITDA in measuring our performance relative to that of our competitors and in connection with our compensation of our executive officers and senior management. Adjusted EBITDA is not a measurement of our financial performance under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”) and should not be considered as an alternative to net income (loss), operating income (loss) or any other performance measures derived in accordance with GAAP or as an alternative to cash flow from operating activities as a measure of our profitability or liquidity. We understand that although Adjusted EBITDA is frequently used by securities analysts, lenders and others in their evaluation of companies, Adjusted EBITDA has limitations as an analytical tool, and you should not consider it in isolation, or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP. Some of these limitations are:

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The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. This discussion and analysis contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including those discussed below and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, particularly under the heading “Risk Factors.” Please refer to our “Forward-Looking Statements” section on page 53.

Overview

Background

We are a Delaware corporation incorporated on September 14, 1999. Through continued innovation around our specialized online content for buyers of enterprise information technology (“IT”), we have become a global leader in purchase intent-driven marketing and sales services that deliver business impact for enterprise technology vendors. Our offerings enable technology vendors to better identify, reach and influence corporate IT decision makers actively researching specific IT purchases. We improve vendors’ ability to impact these audiences for business growth using advanced targeting, analytics and data services complemented with customized marketing programs that integrate demand generation and brand marketing and advertising techniques.

IT and business professionals have become increasingly specialized, and because each of the websites within our network of over 140 websites focuses on a specific IT sector such as storage, security, networking, or business applications, IT and business professionals rely on us for key decision support information tailored to their specific areas of responsibility.

We enable IT and business professionals to navigate the complex and rapidly-changing IT landscape where purchasing decisions can have significant financial and operational consequences. Our content strategy includes three primary sources which IT and business professionals use to assist them in their pre-purchase research: independent content provided by our professionals, vendor-generated content provided by our customers and member-generated, or peer-to-peer, content. In addition to utilizing our independent editorial content, registered members appreciate the ability to deepen their pre-purchase research by accessing the extensive vendor supplied content available across our website network. Likewise, these members derive significant additional value from the ability our network provides to seamlessly interact with and contribute to information exchanges in a given field.

We had approximately 19.1 million and 18.0 million registered members – our “audiences” – as of December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively. While the size of our registered member base does not provide direct insight into our customer numbers or our revenues, the value of our services sold to our customers is a direct result of the breadth and reach of this content footprint. This footprint creates the opportunity for our clients to gain business leverage by targeting our audiences through customized marketing programs. Likewise, the behavior exhibited by these audiences enables us to provide our customers with data products to improve their marketing and sales efforts. The targeted nature of our member base enables IT vendors to reach a specialized audience efficiently because our content is highly segmented and aligned with the IT vendors’ specific products. With it, we have developed a broad customer base and, in 2017, delivered marketing and sales services programs to approximately 1,200 customers.

Executive Summary

Our total revenues for the year ended December 31, 2017 increased approximately $1.9 million, to $108.6 million, or 2% compared with the same period in 2016, driven by higher IT Deal Alert^TM revenues, offset somewhat by lower revenues from our core online offerings. IT Deal Alert revenues were up 58% in 2017, compared to 2016, and quarterly IT Deal Alert revenues topped $10.0 million for each of the quarters in 2017. Revenues from our Priority Engine^TM and Deal Data^TM products more than doubled in 2017, compared to 2016.

We continue to have success selling longer-term deals and, in the fourth quarter of 2017, 24% of our online revenues were derived from longer-term contracts, compared to 15% in the fourth quarter of 2016. The amount of revenue that we derived from longer-term contracts in the fourth quarter of 2017 increased more than 97% compared to the amount that we recognized in the fourth quarter of 2016.  

The news on IT Deal Alert has been consistently positive, and in regards to our core offerings, we are glad to report that things are brightening. Many of the headwinds that we faced in recent years have alleviated. First of all, we will no longer have the negative comparisons from our discontinued face-to-face events business. Secondly, the dollar has weakened, which should theoretically help our international business. Most importantly, the temporary disruptions to the marketing budgets from four of our largest core

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customers, who were going through major divestitures or acquisitions, are now behind us as we begin 2018. We continue to see better metrics in regards to core spending by our customers that also use IT Deal Alert. As we continue to add more IT Deal Alert customers, this should also bode well for our core results.

Online international geo-targeted revenues, where our target audience is outside North America (“International”), increased 7% for 2017, compared with the prior year, driven by International IT Deal Alert growth, but was partially offset by a decrease in core online sales.

Gross profit percentage was 74% and 72% for 2017 and 2016, respectively. Online gross profit increased by $5.8 million, primarily attributable to the increase in online revenues as compared to the prior year. Events gross profit decreased by $2.0 million as a result of the decreased events revenues as compared to the prior year. As we announced on February 14, 2017, we have phased out our events product line.

Business Trends

The following discussion highlights key trends affecting our business.

Our key strategic initiatives include:

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Our core online revenues were down 16% in 2017 compared to 2016, which was disproportionately driven by our largest customers. We have looked extensively at the dynamics between our IT Deal Alert and core online offerings and have evaluated whether our growth in IT Deal Alert customers is taking away from our core online revenues from those same accounts. The data, however indicates that this is not the case, and while it is certainly the case that our sales team is leading with IT Deal Alert, and emphasizing the benefits of integration across both IT Deal Alert and core online offerings, if customers do not buy integrated solutions, and instead buy standalone offerings, it is increasingly the case that their purchase may be an IT Deal Alert offering. Our analysis of customer trends, however, indicates that this dynamic is not the major contributor to overall declines in core online.

For the largest global accounts referenced above, the declines in their core online spending approximately offset their increases in IT Deal Alert spending. These spending decisions, however, are disconnected. Outside of the largest global accounts, we continue to see some very interesting dynamics, as those non-global accounts that spent on IT Deal Alert in 2017 had a lower percentage decrease in core online spending than non-global accounts that did not spend on IT Deal Alert. We believe takeaway is that IT Deal Alert provides us with the best foundation to grow core online revenue going forward.

Sources of Revenues

Revenue for the twelve month periods ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015 by product and geo-target were as follows (in thousands):

We sell customized marketing programs to IT vendors targeting a specific audience within a particular IT or business sector or sub-sector. We maintain multiple points of contact with our customers to provide support throughout their organizations and their customers’ IT sales cycles. As a result, our customers often run multiple advertising programs with us in order to target their desired audience of IT and business professionals more effectively. There are multiple factors that can impact our customers’ marketing and advertising objectives and spending with us, including but not limited to, IT product launches, increases or decreases to their advertising budgets, the timing of key industry marketing events, responses to competitor activities and efforts to address specific marketing objectives such as creating brand awareness or generating sales leads. Our products and services are generally delivered under short-term contracts that run for the length of a given program, typically less than six months. In 2016, we began to enter into longer-term contracts with certain customers and, in the fourth quarter of 2017, 24% of our online revenues were from longer-term

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contracts of approximately 12 months. In the year ended December 31, 2017, demand generation and brand advertising remained our primary sources of revenues, while data analytics-driven intelligence solutions, driven by growth in our IT Deal Alert products and services, contributed approximately 46% of online revenues as compared with approximately 31% and 22% for the same period in 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Online revenues represented 100%, 96%, and 94% of total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015, respectively. As previously disclosed, we have phased out our events product line.

Product and Service Offerings

We use our online offerings to provide IT vendors with numerous touch points to identify, reach and influence key IT decision makers. The following is a description of the products and services we offer, which may be provided separately or combined as part of an integrated marketing campaign

IT Deal Alert. IT Deal Alert is a suite of products and services for IT vendors that leverages the detailed purchase intent data that we collect about end-user IT and business organizations. Through proprietary scoring methodologies, we use this insight to help our customers identify and prioritize accounts whose content consumption around specific IT topics indicates that they are “in-market” for a particular product or service. We also use the data directly to identify and further profile accounts’ upcoming purchase plans.

Core Online. Our core online offerings enable our customers to reach and influence prospective buyers through content marketing programs designed to generate demand for their solutions, and through display advertising and other brand programs that influence consideration by prospective buyers.

Demand Solutions. Our suite of demand solutions offerings allows IT vendors to maximize return on investment by capturing sales leads from the distribution and promotion of content to our audience of IT and business professionals. All of our demand solutions campaigns offer the Activity Intelligence Dashboard, a tool that gives our customers’ marketers and sales representatives a near real-time view of their prospects including insights on the research activities of technology buying teams at the individual, team and account levels.

Our demand solutions offerings may also include the following program components:

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Brand Solutions. Our suite of brand solutions offerings provides IT vendors exposure to targeted audiences of IT and business professionals actively researching information related to their products and services. We leverage our Activity Intelligence product framework to enable significant segmentation and targeting of specific audiences that can be accessed through these programs. Components of brand programs may include:

Custom Content Creation. We will at times create white papers, case studies, webcasts or videos to our customers’ specifications through our Custom Content team. These customized content assets are then promoted to our audience within both demand solutions and brand solutions programs.

Events

Events revenues represented 0%, 4%, and 6% of total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015, respectively. Historically, we have operated a select number of face-to-face events, the majority of which were free to IT and business professionals and were sponsored by IT vendors. In 2017, we ceased to offer these services to our customers and instead focus our efforts on enhancing our data driven product offerings and working with our customers to gain the fullest advantage that our data-driven products can offer.

Cost of Revenues, Operating Expenses and Other

Expenses consist of cost of online and events revenues, selling and marketing, product development, general and administrative, depreciation, amortization, and interest and other expense, net. Personnel-related costs are a significant component of each of these expense categories except for depreciation, amortization and interest and other expense, net.

Cost of Online Revenues. Cost of online revenues consists primarily of: salaries and related personnel costs; member acquisition expenses (primarily keyword purchases from leading internet search sites); freelance writer expenses; website hosting costs; vendor expenses associated with the delivery of webcast, podcast, videocast and similar content, and other offerings; stock-based compensation expenses; facility expenses and other related overhead.

Cost of Events Revenues. Cost of events revenues consists primarily of: direct expenses, including site, food and beverages for the event attendees and event speaker expenses; salaries and related personnel costs; travel-related expenses; facilities expenses and other related overhead.

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Selling and Marketing. Selling and marketing expenses consist primarily of: salaries and related personnel costs; sales commissions; travel-related expenses; stock-based compensation expenses; facility expenses and other related overhead. Sales commissions are recorded as expense when earned by the employee, based on recorded revenue.

Product Development. Product development includes the creation and maintenance of our network of websites, advertiser offerings and technical infrastructure. Product development expense consists primarily of salaries and related personnel costs; stock-based compensation expenses; facility expenses and other related overhead.

General and Administrative. General and administrative expenses consist primarily of: salaries and related personnel costs; facility expenses and related overhead; accounting, legal and other professional fees; and stock-based compensation expenses.

Depreciation. Depreciation expense consists of the depreciation of our property and equipment and other capitalized assets. Depreciation is calculated using the straight-line method over their estimated useful lives, ranging from three to twelve years.

Amortization of Intangible Assets. Amortization of intangible assets expense consists of the amortization of intangible assets recorded in connection with our acquisitions. Separable intangible assets that are not deemed to have an indefinite life are amortized over their estimated useful lives, which range from five to ten years, using methods that are expected to reflect the estimated pattern of economic use.

Interest and Other Expense, Net. Interest expense, net consists primarily of interest costs and the related amortization of deferred issuance costs on amounts borrowed under our Senior Secured Credit Facilities Credit Agreement for a term loan (“Term Loan Agreement”) and amortization of premiums on our investments, less any interest income earned on cash, cash equivalents and short-term and long-term investments. We historically have invested our cash in money market accounts, municipal bonds, government agency bonds, U.S. Treasury securities, and corporate bonds.

Other expense, net consists of non-operating gains or losses, primarily related to realized and unrealized foreign currency gains and losses on trade assets and liabilities.

Application of Critical Accounting Policies and Use of Estimates

The discussion of our financial condition and results of operations is based upon our consolidated financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the U.S. The preparation of these consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates, judgments and assumptions that affect the reported amount of assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses and related disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities. On an ongoing basis, we evaluate our estimates, including those related to revenue, long-lived assets, goodwill, allowance for doubtful accounts, stock-based compensation, contingent liabilities, self-insurance accruals and income taxes. We based our estimates of the carrying value of certain assets and liabilities on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable. In some cases, changes in the accounting estimates are reasonably likely to occur from period to period. Our actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions.

We believe the following critical accounting policies affect our more significant judgments used in the preparation of our consolidated financial statements. See the notes to our consolidated financial statements for information about these critical accounting policies as well as a description of our other accounting policies.

Revenue Recognition

We generate substantially all of our revenues from the sale of targeted marketing and advertising campaigns, which we deliver via our network of websites, data analytics solutions, and, historically, events. In all cases, we recognize revenue only when the price is fixed or determinable, persuasive evidence of an arrangement exists, the service is performed and collectability of the resulting receivable is reasonably assured.

Although each of our online media offerings can be sold separately, most of our online media sales involve multiple online offerings. Because objective evidence of fair value does not exist for all elements in our bundled product offerings, we use a best estimate of selling price of individual deliverables in the arrangement in the absence of vendor-specific objective evidence or other third-party evidence of fair value. We establish best estimates considering multiple factors including, but not limited to, class of client, size of transaction, available media inventory, pricing strategies and market conditions. We believe the use of the best estimate of selling price allows revenue recognition in a manner consistent with the underlying economics of the transaction. We apply a relative selling price method to allocate arrangement consideration at the inception of the arrangement to each deliverable in a multiple element arrangement. Revenue is then recognized as delivery occurs.

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We evaluate all deliverables of an arrangement at inception and each time an item is delivered, to determine whether they represent separate units of accounting. Based on this evaluation, the arrangement consideration is measured and allocated to each of these elements. Additionally, we offer sales incentives to certain customers, primarily in the form of volume rebates, which are classified as a reduction of revenues and are calculated based on the terms of the specific customer’s contract. We accrue for these sales incentives based on contractual terms and historical experience. See Note 2 to our Consolidated Financial Statements for additional information regarding the anticipated impact of the adoption of ASU No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606) effective January 1, 2018.

Online Offerings

IT Deal Alert. IT Deal Alert is a suite of products and services for IT vendors which includes Qualified Sales Opportunities, Priority Engine, Deal Data and TechTarget Research. Qualified Sales Opportunities revenue is recognized when the Qualified Sales Opportunity is delivered to the customer, Priority Engine revenue is recognized ratably over the duration of the service, Deal Data revenue is recognized upon delivery of the data to the customer and Research revenue is recognized when the product is delivered.

Core Online. Our core online offerings enable our customers to reach and influence prospective buyers through content marketing programs designed to generate demand for their solutions, and through display advertising and other brand programs that influence consideration by prospective buyers.

Demand Solutions. As part of our demand solutions campaign offerings, we may guarantee a minimum number of qualified leads to be delivered over the course of the campaign. We determine the content necessary to achieve performance guarantees. Scheduled end dates of campaigns sometimes need to be extended, pursuant to the terms of the arrangement, to satisfy lead guarantee obligations. We estimate a revenue reserve necessary to adjust revenue recognition for extended campaigns. These estimates are based on our experience in managing and fulfilling these offerings. The customer has cancellation privileges which generally require advance notice by the customer and require proportional payment by the customer for the portion of the campaign period that has been provided. We recognize revenue from duration-based campaigns over the duration of the campaign, which is typically less than six months, and recognize revenue from cost per lead marketing services during the period in which leads are delivered to our customers.

Brand Solutions. Brand solutions consist mostly of banner revenue, which is recognized in the period in which the banner impressions, engagements or clicks occur, and microsite revenue, which is recognized over the period during which the microsites are live.

Custom Content. Custom content revenue is recognized when the creation is completed and delivered to the customer.

Events

We recognize revenue from events in the period in which the event occurs. The majority of our events were free to qualified attendees; however, certain events were based on a paid attendee model. We recognize revenue for paid attendee events upon completion of the event. As previously disclosed, we have phased out our events product line.

Amounts collected or billed prior to satisfying the above revenue recognition criteria are recorded as deferred revenue.

Long-Lived Assets

Our long-lived assets consist primarily of property and equipment, capitalized software, goodwill, and other intangible assets. Goodwill and other intangible assets have arisen principally from our acquisitions. The amount assigned to intangible assets is subjective and based on our estimates of the future benefit of the intangible assets using accepted valuation techniques, such as discounted cash flow and replacement cost models. Our long-lived assets, other than goodwill, are amortized over their estimated useful lives, which we determine based on the consideration of several factors including the period of time the asset is expected to remain in service. Intangible assets are amortized over their estimated useful lives, which range from five to ten years, using methods of amortization that are expected to reflect the estimated pattern of economic use. Consistent with our determination that we have only one reporting segment, we have determined that there is only one reporting unit and test goodwill for impairment at the entity level. We evaluate the carrying value and remaining useful lives of long-lived assets, other than goodwill, whenever indicators of impairment are present. We evaluate the carrying value of goodwill annually using the two-step process required by Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) 350, Intangibles – Goodwill and Other (“ASC 350”). The first step of the impairment test is to identify potential impairment by comparing the reporting unit’s fair value with its net book value (or carrying amount), including goodwill. The fair value is estimated based on a market value approach. If the fair value of the reporting unit exceeds its carrying

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amount, the reporting unit’s goodwill is not considered to be impaired and the second step of the impairment test is not performed. Whenever indicators of impairment are present, we would perform the second step and compare the implied fair value of the reporting unit’s goodwill, as defined by ASC 350, to its carrying value to determine the amount of the impairment loss, if any. As of December 31, 2017, there were no indications of impairment based on our step one analysis, and our estimated fair value exceeded our carrying value by a significant margin.

Fair Value of Financial Instruments

Financial instruments consist of cash and cash equivalents, short-term and long-term investments, accounts receivable, accounts payable, contingent consideration and long-term debt. Due to their short-term nature and liquidity, the carrying value of these instruments with the exception of contingent consideration and long-term debt approximates their estimated fair values. The fair value of contingent consideration was estimated using a discounted cash flow method. Amounts outstanding under our long-term debt are subject to variable rates of interest based on current market rates, and as such, we believe the carrying amount of these obligations approximates fair value.

Allowance for Doubtful Accounts

We offset gross trade accounts receivable with an allowance for doubtful accounts. The allowance for doubtful accounts is our best estimate of the amount of probable credit losses in our existing accounts receivable. We review our allowance for doubtful accounts on a regular basis, and all past due balances are reviewed individually for collectability. Account balances are charged against the allowance after all means of collection have been exhausted and the potential for recovery is considered remote. Provisions for doubtful accounts are recorded in general and administrative expense. If our historical collection experience does not reflect our future ability to collect outstanding accounts receivable, our future provision for doubtful accounts could be materially affected. To date, we have not incurred any write-offs of accounts receivable significantly different than the amounts reserved.

The allowance for doubtful accounts was $1.8 million and $2.0 million at December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.

Stock-Based Compensation

We measure stock-based compensation at the grant date based on the fair value of the award and recognize stock-based compensation in our results of operations using the straight-line method over the vesting period of the award. We use the Black-Scholes option pricing model to determine the fair value of stock option awards. We calculated the fair values of the options granted using the following estimated weighted average assumptions:

The expected volatility of options granted in 2017, 2016, and 2015 was determined using a weighted average of the historical volatility of our stock for a period equal to the expected life of the option. The risk-free interest rate is based on a zero coupon U.S. treasury instrument whose term is consistent with the expected life of the stock options. We have not paid and do not anticipate paying cash dividends on our shares of common stock; therefore, the expected dividend yield is assumed to be zero. We applied an estimated annual forfeiture rate based on historical averages in determining the expense recorded in each period.

Internal-Use Software and Website Development Costs

We capitalize costs of materials, consultants and compensation and related expenses of employees who devote time to the development of internal-use software and website applications and infrastructure involving developing software to operate our websites. We begin to capitalize our costs to develop software and website applications when planning stage efforts are successfully completed, management has authorized and committed project funding, and it is probable that the project will be completed and the software will be used as intended. Our judgment is required in determining the point at which various projects enter the state at which costs may be capitalized, in assessing the ongoing value of the capitalized costs and in determining the estimated useful lives over

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which the costs are amortized, which is generally four years. To the extent that we change the manner in which we develop and test new features and functionalities related to our websites, assess the ongoing value of capitalized assets or determine the estimated useful lives over which the costs are amortized, the amount of website development costs we capitalize and amortize in future periods would be impacted. We review capitalized internal-use software and website development costs for recoverability whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of the asset may not be recoverable. We would recognize an impairment loss only if the carrying amount of the asset is not recoverable and exceeds its fair value. We capitalized internal-use software and website development costs of $2.9 million, $2.8 million, and $2.9 million for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015, respectively.

Income Taxes

We are subject to income taxes in both U.S. and foreign jurisdictions, and we use estimates in determining our provision for income taxes. We recognize deferred tax assets and liabilities based on temporary differences between the financial reporting and income tax bases of assets and liabilities using statutory rates.

Our net deferred tax liabilities are comprised primarily of book to tax differences on stock-based compensation and timing of deductions for deferred rent, accrued expenses, depreciation, and amortization. As of December 31, 2017, we had foreign net operating loss (“NOL”) carryforwards of $0.7 million, which may be used to offset future taxable income in foreign jurisdictions until they expire at various dates through 2022. The deferred tax assets related to the foreign NOL carryforwards have been fully offset by a valuation allowance.

On December 22, 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (“the Act”) was signed into law making significant changes to the Internal Revenue Code. Changes include, but are not limited to, a corporate tax rate decrease from 35% to 21% effective for tax years beginning after December 31, 2017 and a one-time transition tax on the mandatory deemed repatriation of cumulative foreign earnings as of December 31, 2017. We have calculated our best estimate of the impact of the Act in our year end income tax provision in accordance with our understanding of the Act and guidance available as of the date of this filing and as a result have recorded $0.4 million as additional income tax benefit in the fourth quarter of 2017, the period in which the legislation was enacted. The amount related to the remeasurement of certain deferred tax assets and liabilities, based on the rates at which they are expected to reverse in the future, was a benefit of $0.4 million. The provisional amount related to the one-time transition tax on the mandatory deemed repatriation of foreign earnings was $45 thousand, based on cumulative foreign earnings net of deficits of $0.9 million.

Net Income Per Share

We calculate basic earnings per share (“EPS”) by dividing earnings available to common stockholders for the period by the weighted average number of common shares and vested, undelivered restricted stock awards outstanding during the period. Because the holders of unvested restricted stock awards do not have nonforfeitable rights to dividends or dividend equivalents, we do not consider these awards to be participating securities that should be included in our computation of earnings per share under the two-class method. Diluted EPS is computed using the weighted average number of common shares and vested, undelivered restricted stock awards outstanding during the period, plus the dilutive effect of potential future issuances of common stock relating to stock option and restricted stock award programs using the treasury stock method. In calculating diluted EPS, the dilutive effect of stock options and restricted stock awards is computed using the average market price for the respective period. In addition, the assumed proceeds under the treasury stock method include the average unrecognized compensation expense of stock options and restricted stock awards that are in-the-money. This results in the “assumed” buyback of additional shares, thereby reducing the dilutive impact of stock options and restricted stock awards.

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Results of Operations

The following table sets forth our results of operations for the periods indicated: