Head to Head Review: Perion Network (NASDAQ:PERI) and Yelp (NYSE:YELP)

Perion Network (NASDAQ:PERI) and Yelp (NYSE:YELP) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, risk, institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation and profitability.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Perion Network and Yelp, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Perion Network	1	1	4	0	2.50
Yelp	2	3	1	1	2.14

Perion Network currently has a consensus price target of $14.00, indicating a potential upside of 44.18%. Yelp has a consensus price target of $35.00, indicating a potential upside of 5.80%. Given Perion Network’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Perion Network is more favorable than Yelp.

Profitability

This table compares Perion Network and Yelp’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Perion Network	-1.12%	2.68%	2.13%
Yelp	10.28%	20.17%	15.18%

Volatility & Risk

Perion Network has a beta of 1.54, suggesting that its share price is 54% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Yelp has a beta of 0.98, suggesting that its share price is 2% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Perion Network and Yelp”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Perion Network	$498.29 million	0.87	$12.61 million	($0.12)	-80.92
Yelp	$1.41 billion	1.48	$132.85 million	$2.21	14.97

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

Insider & Institutional Ownership

68.1% of Perion Network shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.1% of Yelp shares are held by institutional investors. 2.8% of Perion Network shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 7.4% of Yelp shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Yelp beats Perion Network on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Perion Network

Perion Network Ltd. provides digital advertising solutions to brands, agencies, and publishers in North America, Europe, and internationally. It offers Wildfire, a content monetization platform; search monetization solutions, including website monetization, search mediation, and app monetization; and cross-channel digital advertising software as a service platform. The company also provides supply management platform; demand management platform for campaign planning and design; analytics platform, which provides information and performance insights; creative platform, a robust media platform; and an AI platform that uses machine learning to bring intelligence to the various phases of campaigns. In addition, it offers an actionable performance monitoring platform to support the various phases of campaign management; an online video player and integrated ad server to upload, manage, and stream video content; content monetization system, which integrates ads within the content layouts at the page level. Further, the company provides a publisher management system that provides analytics and performance optimization tools, as well as reports; search-demand management systems; monetization products that integrate and onboards demand vendors; and AI Systems. Additionally, it offers Intelligent HUB (iHUB), which connects the supply and demand sides of the marketplace; and strategic optimization of relevant traits (SORT), a provisional patent technology that eliminates the need for cookies. The company was formerly known as IncrediMail Ltd. and changed its name to Perion Network Ltd. in November 2011. Perion Network Ltd. was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Holon, Israel.

About Yelp

Yelp Inc. operates a platform that connects consumers with local businesses in the United States and internationally. The company's platform covers various categories, including restaurants, shopping, beauty and fitness, health, and other categories, as well as home, local, auto, professional, pets, events, real estate, and financial services. It provides free and paid advertising products to businesses, which include cost-per-click advertising and multi-location Ad products, as well as enables businesses to deliver targeted advertising to large and high-intent audience; and business listing page products. The company also offers other services comprising Yelp Guest Manager, a subscription-based suite of front-of-house management tools for restaurants, nightlife and certain other venues, which include online reservations, a waitlist management solution that allows consumers to check wait times and join waitlists remotely, as well as through hostless kiosks, and seating and server rotation management tools; Yelp Knowledge program that offers business owners local analytics and insights through access to its historical data and other proprietary content; and Yelp Fusion, which offers free access to various basic information through publicly available APIs, and paid access to content and data for consumer-facing enterprise use. In addition, it provides content licensing, as well as allows third-party data providers to update and manage business listing information on behalf of businesses. Further, the company offers its products directly through its sales force; indirectly through partners; and online through its website and business app, as well as non-advertising partner arrangements. It has partnership with Grubhub for providing consumers with a service to place food orders for pickup and delivery. The company was incorporated in 2004 and is based in San Francisco, California.