David Evans
Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open
Thanks, Lynne. For the first quarter, total revenue was $32.7 million, representing an increase of 22% over the first quarter of 2017. Revenue within our core direct business was $32.1 million, representing 31% growth over Q1 2017. As you know, we have several important drivers impacting revenue growth. These include MAU growth, growth in new and existing advertisers, and improved engagement enhancements with our banks. MAUs grew modestly 13% over the first quarter of 2017 to $58.7 million. As Lynne mentioned, we continue to make significant progress with our existing banks in engagement enhancements, and we continue to gain traction with new advertisers. We saw progress from our growing and existing clients’ budgets as well. Our first quarter 2018 ARPU was $0.55, up 17% versus $0.47 in the first quarter of 2017, reflecting continued strength in our advertiser base. As I discussed with you on our last earnings call, while we generally know our advertisers’ annual budgets, which translates into fairly good visibility around the full year revenue, exact dates and timing related to the launch of the ad campaigns can shift. Consistent with that messaging, our first quarter revenue benefited from greater than anticipated pull forward of campaign activity in the second quarter into Q1. This pull forward of campaign activity from Q2 into Q1, is reflected in our second quarter guidance. Our annual revenue guidance for our core direct business remains unchanged, and is consistent with our prior expectations. As for other platform solutions, and as Scott mentioned previously, we are significantly reducing our investments in this endeavor in the short term, and therefore do not expect any meaningful contribution from this business for the remainder of 2018. I will discuss our guidance in more detail in a moment. Adjusted contribution profit, which we define as GAAP revenue minus revenue share, data and other third party data costs, was $14.2 million in the first quarter, compared to $10.6 million in the first quarter of 2017. Adjusted EBITDA was a $3.1 million loss in the first quarter of 2018, compared to a $4.9 million loss in the prior year period, as evidenced by strong year over year revenue growth and additional scale in the business. Adjusted EBITDA ad adjusted contribution profit excludes $2.5 million of noncash warrant expense we recognized in Q1. We ended the quarter with $89.8 million in cash, including proceeds from our IPO completed in February, compared with $24.4 million at year end 20179, and $4.9 million in availability from our AR facility. With the announcement that Chase will be coming on to the Cardlytics platform, we are very excited about the longer term prospects for the business, and would expect significant growth in MAUs when we launch. Furthermore, and consistent with our messaging from the roadshow, we have already started planning for the necessary investments across the organization in preparation for this momentous launch. For the remainder of 2018, we expect to make investments across sales, marketing, R&D and implementations in the amount of $14 million to $15 million across both OpEx and CapEx. In anticipation of bank launches, we will set up hosting environments, position new sales professionals in the field, and deploy best in class technology for the largest and most respected banks in the world. As Scott mentioned earlier, we’ll partially offset some of these costs by redeploying resources that previously were focused on other platform solutions. We would expect to repurpose around $2 million of resources through this process. It is important that we have best in class infrastructure in place, as well as a sales force that will now start the process of securing larger budgets from existing advertisers, and contracts with new advertisers. As for topline impacts, we settled on our agreement with Chase only recently, and it is therefore too early to conclude exactly what kind of topline impact, if any, they will have on the business in 2018. But to be clear, despite the typical uncertainty around bank launch timing, investors should understand we have begun selling existing and new advertisers for potential material growth in MAUs. It is important to know that our 2018 in guidance for core direct revenue remains unchanged. As Scott mentioned, we do not expect future material revenues from other platform solutions, as we are doubling down on our efforts to scale our direct product, and therefore expect 2018 total revenue to be between $153 million and $156 million. With the investments we expect to make this year, we expect a 2018 adjusted EBITDA loss to be between minus $16 million and minus $14 million. Adjusted EBITDA for the year exclude any accruals for FI share commitment shortfall, which we estimate to be roughly $2 million in the second half of 2018. Now turning to our second quarter guidance. There are a few factors to consider in our financial outlook. First, as I mentioned earlier, we experienced approximately $2 million worth of pull forward campaign activity into the first quarter from the second quarter. Second, we do not expect any material revenue contribution from other platform solutions. That being said, overall and importantly, we are on track to slightly above what we expected for the first half of 2018. Taking these two factors into account, we currently expect second quarter revenue to be between $34 million and $35 million. We expect an adjusted EBITDA loss for the second quarter to be between minus $4.2 million and minus $4 million. As Lynne mentioned, the Wells Fargo pilot continues to progress very nicely. We off to a great start for the year and feel encouraged by the progress we're making with our banks and marketing partners. With that said, I'll hand it back to Scott for his closing remarks before we open the call to your questions. Scott?