Magnite, Inc. (NASDAQ:MGNI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Barrett: Do you want to handle that, David?

David Day: Yes, sure. Yes. No, I think it assumes, again, some of these — the mix shifts that we’re seeing we continue to expect very robust growth in these premium channels. And so I think overall take rates as an average, will decline somewhat. But the rate of ad spend growth is significant. We see great momentum there. And as we see — and so as we move through the year, end and then particularly as we get the presidential — the 2022 comps behind us and into 2024, you’ll see that will lead us to the kind of — as was mentioned earlier, probably low to mid-single — low to mid double-digit growth in CTV. In other words, the CTV growth as we guided to, is higher than DV+, and our average is high single-digits, you’ll see something with a double-digit growth in CTV next year?

Matt Swanson: Yes, that’s helpful. And then the context when you’re giving on the adjusted EBITDA margins, I know that you pointed out to say specifically at those revenue numbers. You always seem to get a lot of leverage and to deliver that upside to the topline. Can you just help us think a little bit about that? Like are there a bunch of other investment opportunities that you’d like to go after if revenue growth ends up being better than expected? Or do you think we should expect to kind of see that drop straight to leverage?

David Day: I think you’ll see if we have greater top line growth, I think you’ll see a more of that drop to the bottom-line. There are a few investments on the margin that we would make. But we’re making all the most important investments that we need, and that is embedded in this model. I think the other thing I’d like to call out is — and I think we briefly mentioned it last quarter. But we will have a one-time event in Q1. We’re bringing the whole company together that has cost of $4 million plus. And that actually — it’s a super important event for us. We see a lot of value in it. That will lower margins in Q1, but it also represents almost 100 basis points of margin as you look at our profile next year. And so we do that one-time event. And so the core business, we’re still seeing nice flow-through even at the lower top line growth rates than what we think we’ll have in the future.

Matt Swanson: Thank you.

Operator: The next question is from Dan Day with B. Riley FBR. Please go ahead.

Dan Day: Yes, guys, appreciate taking the questions. Michael, I wanted to come back to the point you made earlier on live sports. I agree, it feels like we’re at a tipping point there, especially 2024 potential direct-to-consumer ESPN — you’ve got this live sports accelerator product out there. Just wondering how active the pipeline is for new business there. and whether that’s a significant piece of the business at all today immaterial? Or how much of a revenue driver you think that can be in 2024.

Michael Barrett: In 2024, it’s a tricky one, right? Because all of the services aren’t made available just yet — we think it will be a contributor. There’s no question. There’s a little bit of a disconnect right now between piping the programmatic dollars into that environment. If you think about a way the DSPs work, generally speaking, they pace campaigns over an X period of time and they try to balance it, right, so that you’re not firing off is the $1 million campaign, no one wants to spend $1 million on day 1. You want to spread over the period of time. Sports is completely different, right? It’s a huge spike on a Saturday afternoon, and it’s gone. And if you miss that opportunity. So, there’s tweaking of the algorithms that have to work but everyone is hard at work making it work better.

I think from a consumer experience, if you watch sports streaming, you understand what I’m saying, here, you’re you see one more just billboard that says, will we return to programming soon, you’re going to pull your hair out. So yes, I think it’s a huge opportunity. I think it’s one of those areas where there’s much more openness from a publisher standpoint, from a premium publisher standpoint to engage with programmatic because it just makes so much sense.