CarGurus, Inc. (NASDAQ:CARG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Marvin Fong: Okay, great. And then a question just about the dealer adds for the quarter and maybe what you’re thinking about for this coming quarter. So, was the decline concentrated perhaps in independent to smaller dealers, or was it just kind of across the board? I think someone else in your space has suggested that independents are under particular pressure this quarter. But — and then secondly, what are your — what’s embedded in your guidance, or how are you thinking about the dealer count in terms of your guidance for the first quarter? Thanks.

Sam Zales: Thanks, Marvin. I think what you saw in fourth quarter, a small decline was really based on a couple of factors. One is seasonality. Every year that I’ve been in the business for eight years November, December is that time, Jason just talked about that the more — we didn’t see anything in a differentiation but by one segment or another. But any dealer is going to get more cautious on their budgets as they come into the new year and finish up the year to maximize their profitability. So, that’s the typical time in any market scenario that we have seen a churn hit in that time period. We also reinitiated our annual business review. So you’ll know by following the Company over the last number of years, coming out of 2020 into 2021 and even through most of 2022, we were very deliberate and careful about reinitiating an annual business review, which says to a dealer you’re receiving X in quantity of leads and an ROI that we expect should be Y therefore your price point should move to Z or you can move to one of these new packages that’s most valuable to you.

And as we got more aggressive then you’ll see us continue to move going forward with this strategy of saying we have to take our fair value out of the ROI equation with our partners is we involuntarily said if some dealers can’t accept that price increase, we’re going to move forward and turn that lead volume over to another dealer who will and will pay for that performance. So, I think both of those factors are really a process that will sort of define the fourth quarter. And I don’t think we’re sharing any details on first quarter, but we have confidence in where we’re going from here.

Jason Trevisan: And I would just add that especially because of the annual business review process that has sort of reignited a bit here, while we look at dealer count and we look at QARSD and those are helpful ways to model the business, we really focus on net new MRR. And dealer count often falls out of that. It’s not always linear, but it tends to track. But in an ABR environment where we are holding a little firmer on price than we have sometimes in the past, you may very well find that we can end up with better net new MRR, better revenue growth and not as strong a dealer count, and we’re okay with them, that the trade-off will take.

Marvin Fong: Yes, that makes total sense. I appreciate the color, both of you.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Brad Erickson with RBC Capital Markets.

Unidentified Analyst: Just a quick question. It sounded like arbitration got a little bit better in the quarter. Is that some potential TAM unlock for you guys as per unit arbitration costs come down, you can start to access potentially

Jason Trevisan: Sorry to interrupt. We’ve not been able to hear your question so far. Can you repeat it? Thanks.

Unidentified Analyst: Sorry. Can you hear me?

Jason Trevisan: That seems a little better.

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