Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jed Nachman: Yeah. Thanks for the question. We have been really pleased with our local channel, both includes — which includes both kind of the Self-serve as well as our rep sold business. From a salesforce perspective, certainly we feel there are benefits in our remote past year and being able to retain our top performing reps who are now distributed across the country, and that’s been a real boon for us in terms of making sure that we have the right people in the seats. And as that salesforce ages, you’re going to get more productivity out of them. And ultimately, we’re also giving them a product to sell too, which is really, really important as you watch the product portfolio evolve over the past few years and the confidence level with which they can talk to local businesses, we know we’re delivering more value than we ever have and that’s been really an important part of the success on the local sales team.

Cory Carpenter: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Colantuoni with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Christopher Suchecki: Hi. This is Chris Suchecki on for John. Thanks for taking the question. So, we think we picked up on an uptick in ad loads across the Yelp app, particularly in the services category. Was this just some testing we picked up on? Or are you able to talk about if you’ve made a permanent adjustment to the services ad load? And then maybe just some comments on how you’re thinking about greater ad load could impact consumer experience and then lead monetization. Thank you.

Jeremy Stoppelman: Hi, Chris. This is Jeremy. We’re constantly running experiments that are very good the search experience. And so, nothing to report there as far as something massively different than historical. I do think a lot of the activity within services, it’s important to note within request-a-quote. And so a lot of what’s happening within the request-a-quote is fully or near fully monetized. And it’s a great consumer experience. Because you’re telling us more about your project and you’re hearing from people that can actually fulfill that and ideally within a reasonable timeframe. So, we see it as kind of a win all around in that the progress, valuable leads and opportunity to engage with the consumer. The consumer gets responsive businesses and Yelp facilitate that and gets paid. So that’s where a lot of the focus is and a lot of the value is within services.

Christopher Suchecki: Got it. Thanks so much.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Fitzgerald with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

Brian Fitzgerald: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Last quarter, you guys called out some interesting, almost countercyclical trends in services. I think it was room first maybe increasing ad spend even if they saw demand cool. So, you noted home services was up 20% year-over-year this quarter. So, maybe it looks like that trend continued. Curious if there’s anything else you can call out there or any other services categories, especially weak or strong.

Jeremy Stoppelman: Hi, Brian. This is Jeremy. I don’t remember the specific on recruits. I’m not sure about that. But yeah, we did — we have seen services demand from advertisers remain robust and home services even more so. What’s going on there, I think, hard to fully unpack given the strange, call it, macro environment. But I think part of it is as business has slowed down, is a great boom time year of 2021. Businesses did have — continue to have to spend on keeping their trucks rolling and keeping themselves busy. And so, they’re looking for reliable channels in which to invest and get a return on their investment from a leads perspective. And I think that’s why so many have turned to Yelp is because we’re a reliable source of high-quality leads.