LendingTree (NASDAQ:TREE) executives used the company’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call to underscore what CEO Scott Peyree described as a “very strong” finish to the year and to outline a four-pillar strategy aimed at expanding the company’s role as a broad financial product shopping destination.
The company said 2025 was marked by double-digit growth in variable marketing dollars (VMD) and faster growth in adjusted EBITDA. Peyree said VMD rose 14% in 2025, while adjusted EBITDA increased 28%. He added that all three reportable segments posted double-digit VMD growth, with insurance and small business lending highlighted as key drivers.
Insurance momentum and partner breadth
Management also emphasized breadth across its insurance marketplace. Peyree said carriers ranked four through 10 on LendingTree’s network grew revenue with the company by 65% in 2025 versus the prior year, and he noted that growth was “broad-based,” including gains among the top three carriers as well.
In response to questions about sustainability, Peyree attributed the environment to carriers’ profitability and renewed competitiveness after a period of reduced marketing spend. He said carriers have become “more aggressive” over the past three to six months in competing for market share, and he expects rate decreases to bring more consumers back into the shopping market over time. He also said carriers have continued opening up more geographies than a year ago, and that LendingTree has increased consumer traffic to its insurance products through marketing improvements.
CFO Jason Bengel said the insurance backdrop remains favorable and that the company is focused on improving margins through investments in marketing technology (MarTech). Bengel said the company saw a “material increase in margins” in insurance in January and February compared with Q4 levels, and he expects that to generally continue, while also noting the company is being cautious in guidance given the limited number of months of data so far in 2026.
Consumer segment: small business growth without margin sacrifice
Peyree said the consumer segment’s profit increased 17% in 2025, driven by what he called “remarkable” growth from the small business team. He said small business revenue rose 60% for the year and grew 78% year-over-year in the fourth quarter. Peyree added that the company has continued investing in its small business concierge sales force to guide business owners through the application process and funding, and he said further expansion of the team is planned for 2026.
Importantly, Peyree said the company did not sacrifice margin to generate growth. He said consumer segment margin was stable at 51% for both the quarter and full year.
Providing additional segment-level color, Bengel said small business remains the main driver within the consumer segment, pointing to strength in the merchant cash advance market and continued investment in concierge staffing and marketing placements. For personal loans, Bengel noted record credit card balances as a tailwind for debt consolidation use cases, but said 2025 included “quite a bit” of buy box expansions that the company is not expecting to repeat in 2026. He said the focus there is on better matching consumers with lenders and finding additional sources of traffic.
Home segment: cautious outlook amid rate uncertainty
Peyree said the home segment delivered 6% year-over-year revenue growth in Q4, but margins were pressured by increasing media costs and lower conversion rates for lender partners. He noted the 30-year mortgage rate had dipped below 6% for the first time since 2022 and said the company is hopeful lower rates could help unlock a historically slow mortgage market.
However, Peyree said the company’s published guidance does not assume continued improvement in rates, suggesting that any additional rate declines could represent upside to its home segment outlook. Bengel said the company is not assuming “any real rate benefit” for home in its forecast, while noting home equity could be supported by “re-record home equity balances.” He added that the company is investing in lead quality and expanding its small lender network, which he said could provide margin support, and that home segment margin is expected to be roughly in line with Q4.
On the mortgage market’s potential “tipping point,” Peyree reiterated that rates around 5.75% are where refinance activity begins to build, with more acceleration around 5.5% and a potentially larger wave below 5%. He said the market is still “too high” to drive significant refinance traffic and that affordability issues also weigh on home purchase activity.
AI initiatives and concerns about disintermediation
Peyree devoted a portion of his remarks to artificial intelligence, calling AI-enabled search innovation an opportunity rather than a threat. He acknowledged investor concerns about disintermediation but argued there are legal and regulatory structures that would make it difficult for “agentic AI” to bypass the company’s model, and he pointed to partner incentive structures that limit the likelihood of certain outcomes.
He highlighted early results from AI in LendingTree’s operations, including AI voice capabilities in its call center. Peyree said the company has seen “$10+ million in revenue growth per quarter” over the last six quarters from call center initiatives, compared with operating expense growth of “a few hundred thousand dollars per quarter” over the same time period. He also said marketing teams have used AI to improve creative and testing speed, contributing to a 17% year-over-year increase in overall conversions through the network in Q4, despite “legacy SEO” headwinds.
In Q&A, Peyree said LendingTree is working on multiple fronts to stay visible as large language models (LLMs) change search behavior, including efforts to be referenced by LLMs, potential participation in emerging LLM advertising tests, and building conversational funnels and tools such as comparison experiences and the personal loan rate table described in his prepared remarks.
2026 “North Star” strategy and brand investment plans
Peyree said the company’s “North Star” is to become the “number one destination to shop for financial products,” supported by the breadth of its partner network. He outlined four strategic pillars:
- Accelerate the core business
- Improve the consumer experience
- Expand product offerings
- Rebuild and reposition the brand
As examples, Peyree cited continued small business concierge expansion, development of a concierge sales force in auto lending, investments to expand media business development capabilities, and upgrades to marketing technology platforms. On consumer experience, he pointed to improvements for logged-in users, adapting learnings from the Spring app to LendingTree’s website, and building a personal loan rate table based on proprietary rate data that could be used on the site, in the app, with partners, and “embedded within LLMs.”
On expanding offerings, Peyree said the company’s next 18 months of partnership efforts are focused on areas including commercial insurance, pet insurance, boat and RV insurance, wealth management, robo-advisors, and student lending.
For brand, Peyree said the company has strong aided awareness but wants to improve unaided awareness and reposition the brand beyond mortgages. He said the company has made key brand hires and started redesigning its homepage, with plans to target brand spend in several large geographic markets in the second half of 2026.
Bengel said the initial brand investment contemplated in guidance is “probably less than $10 million” at the outset, with spending dependent on business performance and the results of the brand campaigns.
Trigger leads legislation and capital allocation comments
Asked about “trigger leads,” Peyree described them as situations where a consumer’s hard credit pull—such as during a mortgage process—leads credit bureaus to sell the information to third-party buyers, creating a poor consumer experience due to a flood of calls. He said Congress passed a bill that will stop that practice and said it would improve lead quality for LendingTree’s direct clients. He also said third parties that previously bought trigger leads may shift to buying consumers “on the front end” from companies like LendingTree, potentially improving monetization.
On predictability in insurance, Peyree said the last two quarters have shown more stability than prior periods, and he expects smaller swings in carrier targeting and spend. Bengel added that as more carriers become more prominent, the business should become “less defined by” a small number of carriers, improving predictability.
On M&A and capital allocation, Peyree said reducing the company’s debt load remains a priority, while acknowledging lower valuations could make acquisition opportunities more interesting over time. He said the company is not “aggressively pursuing” acquisitions currently. Bengel added that after a “soft call” on the term loan in February, the company is now free to pay down debt at par, but said it intends to maintain flexibility and “hold on to cash” in the near term given broader uncertainty.
About LendingTree (NASDAQ:TREE)
LendingTree, Inc operates an online marketplace that connects consumers with a network of lenders and financial service providers. Through its platform, borrowers can compare loan offers for mortgages, home equity loans, personal loans, student loans, auto loans and small business financing. The company also offers tools for comparing credit cards and deposit accounts, allowing users to research rates and terms from a range of providers in one place.
Founded in 1996 by Doug Lebda, LendingTree pioneered the comparison-shopping model for consumer credit products.
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