Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jed Nachman: Yes, thanks for the question. We were not yet ready to quantify the spend since we’re still at the experimentation stage, and as I mentioned, we did increase that spend by about $5 million from the fourth quarter to the first quarter. We’re obviously very encouraged by what we saw as we moved through ’23, and I really do want to underscore that it has taken a very significant product effort to enable us to not just efficiently buy leads. But also to lead them and to direct them to service pro. So, we think that’s all goodness regardless, and we intend to remain financially disciplined around the spend. So, as we continue to prove out our ability to execute on doing this in a financially disciplined way, we would expect to increase spend.

In the adjusted EBITDA guide that we’ve given for the year, there are two components there. One, very significantly reflects this shift from equity to cash compensation, which we talked about on the Q3 call that I think is important to acknowledge. We also have held out some portion of spend in our overall guidance for the year for increasing spend on SCM. And again, as we move through the year, we’ll provide updates on how that’s going and how much spend we think that we can absorb in a financially beneficial way.

Shweta Khajuria: Got it. Thank you.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Sergio Segura with KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Sergio Segura: Great, thanks. I have two. So first, a follow-up on the percentage of monetized leads and services. Wondering if you guys see still a lot of low-hanging fruit there to pick? Or maybe is that jump that you’ve made to 30%? Will that be a little bit tougher going forward? And then the second question is on Yelp audiences, I know it’s really early, but have you seen any impact from Chrome beginning to deprecate the third-party cookie? Or would you expect any impact as the year progresses? Thank you.

Jeremy Stoppelman: Hi there, Sergio. This is Jeremy. I think I can hop in here. So, as you mentioned, we have reached 30% monetized connections, up from 25% the year before. That’s a great leap. We’re proud of that. I think we’d point to wins on the ad tech side as well as Request-a-Quote for helping us achieve that. Again, where the ceiling is, it’s hard to say. I don’t think we’re right up against the ceiling. I think we have plenty of headroom. And how do we get there? Well, I think it’s continue doing what we’re doing on the services side. So, we continue to invest significantly in Request-a-Quote, as well as our ad matching technology. And we have a deep portfolio of improvements coming this year, so we’ll keep you posted on how that progresses.

But I think we’re feeling confident about our product investment. And our product-led strategy on the services side. When it comes to Yelp audiences and sort of their cookie deprecation, I guess, first off on the grand scheme of things, like the overall revenue that comes or requires cookies in the grand scheme of things is not very material. But that said, we are working on these sort of post-cookie solutions. There’s a few different industry approaches. And our teams are all over those working with the clients that, do rely on cookies for advertising with us. If you asked me kind of mid-year, last year, how was that going? A lot of clients were in kind of the procrastination phase, in terms of getting serious about the migration, but I think now as cookie deprecation has come in.

There is more clarity on when cookies are going away, there’s a lot more motivation on the client side. So, we feel confident about the solutions and the go-forward from here, but it’s something that we’re keeping a close eye on, to make sure that we can keep that YA revenue going for the long-term.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. This will conclude today’s conference call. Thank you all for joining us today. You may now disconnect.

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