Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the EverCommerce’s Fiscal Year 2022 Third Quarter Earnings Call. My name is Cole, and I will be your operator for today. [Operator Instructions] And as a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today, Thursday, November 10, 2022. And now I would like to turn the conference over to Brad Korch, SVP and Head of Investor Relations for EverCommerce. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining. Today’s call will be led by Eric Remer, EverCommerce’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Marc Thompson, EverCommerce’s Chief Financial Officer. Joining them for the Q&A portion of the call is EverCommerce’s President, Matt Feierstein. This call is being webcast with a slide presentation that reviews the key financial and operating results for the three months ended September 30, 2022. For a link to the live or replay webcast, please visit the Investor Relations section of the EverCommerce website, www.evercommerce.com. The slide presentation and earnings release are also directly available on the site. Please turn to Page 2 of our earnings call presentation, while I’ll review our Safe Harbor statement. Statements made on this call and contained in the earnings materials available on our website that are not historical in nature may constitute forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on the current expectations and beliefs of management. Actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties that are described in more detail in our filings with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements, except as required by law. We will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures to provide additional information to you, our investors. A reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP historical measures is provided in both our earnings press release and our earnings call presentation. I will now turn the presentation over to our CEO, Eric Remer.

Thank you, Brad. On today’s call, I will highlight third quarter results and discuss key customer trends and metrics before turning the call over to Marc to dive deeper into our financials. EverCommerce remains on pace to deliver mid-double-digit growth, combined with solid profitability for the full year despite increased macroeconomic headwinds, particularly affecting our marketing service solutions, which I’ll discuss further in a moment. For the quarter, our reported year-over-year revenue growth of 23%. And normalizing for the effects of M&A, our pro forma revenue growth was 13% for the quarter. On an LTM basis, our year-over-year pro forma revenue growth was 18%. We continue to operate the business, balancing growth and profitability. And for the third quarter, our adjusted EBITDA and adjusted unlevered free cash flow margin were approximately steady at 19% and 14%, respectively. Customer payments growth are a key part of our business strategy. Our total payments volume, or TPV, grew 22% year-over-year, as we continue to see increased uptake of payments processing within our core vertical system of action. Our annualized net revenue retention, or NRR, was 100% in the quarter. Finally, we’re announcing today that this week, our Board of Directors authorized an increased extension of our share repurchase program, doubling the amount to $100 million and extending the program through year-end 2023. As we look to where our public equity is trading, we continue to think that utilizing our excess cash flow to invest in our own business is a very accretive use of capital. We continue to believe EverCommerce has a massive opportunity to drive the digitization of the service economy, which is still in the early innings and will provide us a strong tailwind to fuel growth for years to come. As a quick reminder, EverCommerce provides vertically tailored end-to-end SaaS…

Thanks, Eric. Today, I’ll review our third quarter fiscal 2022 results, provide our outlook for the fourth quarter and also update our full year fiscal 2022 guidance. Total revenue in the third quarter was $158.1 million, up 23% from the prior year period. Within total revenue, subscription and transaction fees were $120.1 million, up 31% from the prior year period. And marketing technology solutions were $36.3 million, up 15% from the prior year period. During the third quarter, the U.S. dollar continued to strengthen further from the rates used when we provided guidance. We estimate that this strengthening caused the $200,000 headwind in the third quarter. Please also note that the third quarter revenue includes a post-acquisition reclassification of DrChrono revenue, the details of which are shown on Slide 11. We manage our business for sustainable organic growth and selectively utilize strategic acquisitions to augment this growth. As a result, we believe it’s important for investors to evaluate our business growth on a pro forma basis, which is how we measure and manage the business internally. We calculate our pro forma revenue growth as though all acquisitions closed as of the end of the latest period were closed as of the first day of the prior year period, including before the time we completed the acquisition. We believe the pro forma growth rate provides the best insight into the underlying growth dynamics of our business. Our year-over-year pro forma growth rate for the third quarter was approximately 13%, while our year-over-year LTM pro forma growth rate was approximately 18%. As Eric mentioned, we have and will continue to prioritize balanced growth and profitability. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $30.2 million, representing a 19.1% margin. As a reminder, the year-over-year change in adjusted EBITDA margin is reflective of our investments in…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question today will come from Kirk Materne with Evercore. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thanks guys. Eric, I appreciate the commentary on the business. I guess, just can you give us some idea of why some of the challenges you’ve seen in marketing, you don’t think spillover perhaps into the core side of the business or payments? Yes, I’d imagine the concern is that people see that getting hit and then that sort of flows through to other pockets. Can you just give us some insight or how you’re thinking about that to sort of try to derisk that from sort of impacting your guidance going forward?

Yes. Kirk, thank you for the question. I appreciate that. And if you think about the business, then we kind of continue to reiterate this, the core business and the core system of action, which is the vertical business management software that we provide to the small businesses, those are kind of core workflows to these businesses. These are some of the essential services for these organizations. We’ve also embedded payments, which is kind of pretty core to the workflows. As we expanded that out, we added additional solutions like marketing services. And although it’s a very great value add, it really is kind of a complementary tool to the core of what they’re ultimately doing. That business is very different than that core solution, that is when business is kind of pull back, and we’ve seen this in other much larger marketing service companies, whether that was Google or Facebook or other organizations that are generating some sort of advertising, that’s where that part of the business gets hit. And if you look at the other side of the business, which we really have seen nothing material in business as usual as expected on the core business, it is because that is the kind of core essential workflow to those organizations. And where we have embedded payments, that doesn’t get pulled out. That just begins again, getting paid – getting people pay more effectively and faster remains core to the business as well.

Okay. And I don’t know if you want to take this one or maybe Marc, but how are you guys thinking about – are there any things that customers are asking for in terms of billing terms or anything like that, that you all are having to sort of adjust for as it relates like free cash flow as we had in the fourth quarter? I assume the answer is no, but I was just wondering if you could just talk about sort of your timing on cash flow, those type of things. Thanks guys.

Yes, I’ll start and Marc can add. Yes, Krik again. But no, it’s been – again, we’re dealing with a lot of small businesses that are paying small dollars on a monthly basis, and we have to either extend terms or that type of billing procedures for any of our customers today.

Correct.

And our next question will come from Samad Samana with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hey guys thanks for taking my questions. This is Jeremy Sahler on for Samad. I guess, first up, so it’s good to see that 30% year-over-year increase in customers taking more than in one product. But 10% of the base is kind of a downward tick from the 11% last quarter. Are you seeing kind of a change in customer behavior? Or are there any products that customers are taking less of?

Yes, I’ll start with that. Actually, the percentage is always a little skewed because that is kind of a good thing that the customer base is growing. So as an overall percentage, as we continue to bring on new customers, although we’re not reporting new customer growth at this point in time, we do it on an annual basis. As you can see as the percentage goes down, the overall cost of the base continues to kind of grow. So we’re really focused again on how many new customers, I mean, how many customers – existing customers we can take additional products and services, and that number continues to grow. And the percentage actually just provides us, when you look at internally, a longer runway to kind of penetrate that base. And the last piece of your question is, no, we haven’t really seen anything material on our core customers, utilizing our core system of actions in terms of changing behavior or the needs to utilize these solutions to date.

Got you. And then you mentioned in your opening remarks that you’re kind of reprioritizing spend, your most growth in your highest growth areas. I guess, can you kind of, I guess, elaborate on that a little bit? Where are you seeing the most growth and kind of – is there anywhere that’s kind of weaker than other areas? Or I don’t know, if that’s put up by a micro vertical?

Yes. So again, the core system of actions are where the growth is for the most part, and it really EverPro, which is our kind of home field service category, that category has performed well pre-COVID, through COVID, post-COVID and continues to perform well. Similarly with EverHealth, the one area within our overall kind of core system of actions that we’ve mentioned several times, that lags the rest of the business from a growth perspective, it’s definitely in the fitness and kind of EverWell, specifically in the fitness-related solutions, software solutions. And really – that is really tied to many of them have just had not achieved kind of their pre-COVID levels. This is the ultimate gyms that utilize the software. And so that is the one area in the overall ecosystem that is probably lags the rest of the growth of the business.

Understood. Thanks for taking my questions guys.

[Operator Instructions] our next question will come from Matt Hedberg with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. Thanks for taking my questions. Eric, maybe just to put a finer point on the lead gen business. Obviously, it seems like there’s a macro element there. But are there things that you guys are doing internally sort of what you can control to boost that business a bit?

Yes. Thanks, Matt. I appreciate the question. I’m going to let Matt take the, this call – take this question.

Yes. I mean, Matt, that’s a great question. As we’ve seen that just quarter-over-quarter continued decrease in those advertising budgets and their corresponding spend. The things that we can do are obviously diversify. So continue to expand that advertiser base. And we have that large embedded opportunity within our own ecosystem to do so. We can continue to expand efforts into categories that are currently less impacted than some of our traditional discretionary categories. So, i.e., essential field services categories like plumbing, great expansion opportunity. And then obviously, from a medium to longer-term opportunity continue to diversify our traffic sources that we use to essentially sell the leads out to our customers. So continue to build demand in our organic traffic capabilities through SEO efforts, really help just derisk across the base of how we do that business.

Got it. That’s super helpful, Matt. Thanks for that. And then maybe, I guess, Eric, Marc or Matt. But Eric, you made the comment, I think you said you haven’t guided for 2023 yet. But I think you suggested kind of near where the business is growing organically. Now I just wanted to maybe put a finer point on that. Is that assuming – I think you just grew 13% organically this quarter. Is that kind of what we’re thinking like that range? Or is it maybe just put – maybe just a little bit more clarification on what you meant by that.

Yes, I think Matt, this is Marc. Thanks. I think the way to think about it is, first of all, the – what Eric described on the call was really assuming these headwinds continue, we’d be growing in the same area. So the 13% you’re referring to, certainly in that area is what we’re referring to.

Got it. Thanks a lot.

And our next question will come from Ryan MacWilliams with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hey guys. Thanks for taking my question. How should we think about the net retention level going forward? Are headwinds here driven by increased customer churn or customers staying with EverCommerce but reducing their marketing spend?

Thanks, Ryan. Our net revenue retention remains approximately 100%, and we think that we’ll maintain that in that level, and we think of opportunity to grow that over time. Again, the marketing service customers are a different type of customer than their core system of action. I mean, they’re built into the whole NRR anyway, but they don’t really affect it because there’s much less of those customers than there are in the core system of action. So you will have some – we haven’t seen a lot of attrition from those customers, pullback on overall spend. So they still need leads to still buy our services. They’re just not buying as much as high of a level. So we do not expect kind of the pullback and we’ve not seen that, although we’ve got a fairly significant pullback in Q3. We’ve not seen any degradation to NRR from that category or the overall business as a whole. Is that – Matt?

Yes, I’d say we feel really strongly about the drivers of growth towards that metric going forward. Obviously, payments as Eric talked about, payments is so critical to the system of action, embedding that in that. And that’s so key from an operational efficiency standpoint. Truly, why customers using our systems of action even make flat to that even tighter in any tighter time. So we still feel like the levers to drive NRR are very strong in the business and excited to continue to do the work that we have to maintain it and expand it.

I appreciate the color there. And good to hear about the opportunity for increased operating leverage from here. So you guys have strong margins today, but is there any way you could cut spend? And are you seeing any improvement in trends for your sales and marketing expenses, so things like maybe they spend on Google AdWords getting better or worse? Thanks.

I’ll start, and then Matt and Marc can jump in. To date, on the second part of the question, there’s nothing material on either side. I think it will remain in the efficacy of our ability to acquire customers at levels that make sense and similar to historical levels. Over time, I’ll let Marc talk about the kind of increased leverage in the business. But we see a lot of opportunities. And as we continue both in the 2023 as growth has slowed a little bit in Q3 and kind of into 2023, we think we can expand – continue to expand our operating leverage across the business.

Yes. I think, Ryan, just to add to that, there’s – we’ve talked about this before. I mean, we’re now quarter beyond one year out from the IPO. So we’re starting to see ourselves hit the top of the crescendo, if you will, on public company costs. As an example, we’d expect to start to see some operating leverage on the G&A side related to those. And then there’s other things within the overall operation. They’re all part of the short to midterm, which includes things like brand consolidation, which can drive a lot of efficiencies throughout the operation, both at the product level and certainly right on through the sales and marketing. Those things are longer obviously, mid- to long-term marks. But those are the types of things we’ll be continuing to focus on as we operate forward.

Appreciate the color. Thanks guys.

And our next question will come from Pat Walravens with JMP Securities. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you very much. So Marc, you have $550 million in debt. The interest rate is adjusted LIBOR plus 3.25 [ph], right? So now you’re paying over 7% on $550 million debt like $40 million a year in interest. So just how your higher rates play into your guidance strategy? How does it play into how you think about making acquisitions? How does it play into thinking about the stock buybacks? I mean, at some point, should you just pay down more of the debt? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

So it’s a great question, Pat. Thanks for asking it. In the quarter, we did exercise a swap on $200 million of the debt to fix the rate there, to mitigate that interest rate exposure you’re thinking about. I think as we’ve talked about before, we’re comfortable operating the business with this level of leverage. And as the Board and the management team together think about allocation of capital, we certainly have built into our models cost of capital as we move forward thinking about the various things like that. And what I would just say is, we maintain a very strong balance sheet. We do have what we consider to be a very manageable amount of leverage in the business. As I mentioned, we just derisk that somewhat. But also going forward, we always have the $190 million untapped revolver to the extent that we would ever need that for things like M&A or something like that.

Yes and then Pat, just to add to that – sorry, just to add to from a Board perspective, as we increase the buyback when the Board continues to kind of look at the business as just the allocation of capital and the value creation for shareholders, they felt at this moment in time is the best utilization of capital. But again, we continue to generate cash flow. We think we have a long and a very diversified base of customers. So we feel very comfortable with our ability to continue to generate cash flow and actually increase that. And that could be utilized for different things in the future as well. You brought up a couple of that whether that is debt, M&A or things of that nature. But if you think at this time, it was a very good use of capital, and that was kind of the overall Board’s decision.

Okay. Got it. It sounds like you guys are giving a lot of thought. And then Eric, we just – it’s getting a little colder in California. We just had the guy come and fix our furnace today. So I remember last quarter, you said break it, fix it should provide resilience and that made sense to me. And I share that point of view to investors. I really didn’t think about this marketing side of it. And I’m just wondering, was it a surprise to you, too? Or was it not a surprise that the marketing business fell off so fast.

We budgeted – I mentioned in the Q2 earnings call that we started to see some degradation in the marketing service part of the business. And so we saw that happening. And clearly, we put that into our numbers. And we thought we had brought that down enough. And so it’s – and it wasn’t really into the second half of Q3 that we started to see that kind of pull down a little bit further. And unfortunately, in that business, it doesn’t have to make – when things pull back, a couple of million dollars isn’t huge in the scheme of things, but in terms of a budget, in terms of the guidance, it actually makes a difference, obviously, as you know. And so that degradation could happen fast. When people stop, they stop spending. And we felt a little bit of that in Q3, unlike on our software business, which is obviously the vast majority of our business. There’s just much more predictability as you talked about from a – it’s like break it, fix it. So we were a little bit surprised by the overall kind of degradation in the second half, but we’ve kind of put that and budget that for that in Q4.

Okay, great. Thank you guys.

And our next question will come from Bhavin Shah with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess, just picking from the marketing side. Can you guys just provide some insight, I guess, in a normalized environment, what the seasonality of this business should be from a quarterly perspective as we just think about the impacts going forward or the potential impact going forward?

The question was seasonality number...

Season-wise, yes.

Yes. I mean, in a normalized environment, we typically see Q4 and into early Q1 as the trough periods, and Q2 into Q3 as the typically higher periods.

Got it. That’s helpful there. And then just a customer acquisition cost. Just given the evolving backdrop, have you seen any change in terms of the ability and the pricing that kind of acquired for new customers?

To date, it’s been no material increase, or as you asked earlier, decrease in the cost of acquisition for customers.

Yes. I mean, we’re pretty used to kind of playing in a world where we advertise in multiple channels. We’re used to cost fluctuation, and that’s just part of the game of how we manage it. Obviously, digital is a core competency, and it’s something we’re used to seeing. But to Eric’s point, we have not seen significant fluctuations outside of the normal of what we manage.

Super helpful. Just last quick one for me. Just in terms of the TPV growth, it slowed down a little bit in terms of the year-over-year growth rate and sequentially looking at it relative to prior periods. Are you seeing anything changing in the underlying metrics in terms of the health of your customers and their ability to track end consumers and their willingness to pay that’s changing that has you concerned or worried at all?

No, not at all. It’s a great question. And I think the – if you look at the core system of action integrated payments, it represents some 75% of our business, it’s really been, for the most part, business as usual. And you see no degradation in either attrition or NRR or things like that. I think again, what we called out the marketing services, that was the one area that we saw degradation in Q2 a little bit, obviously, a little bit more in Q3. And I talked about it earlier in an earlier question. The only area within that kind of core customer base, and it hasn’t necessarily been an increase in churn or lower NRR, but kind of a slowed growth rate is really in that fitness part of our fitness software within that EverWell group. And that’s really just driven by the kind of fitness world in general just has not recovered from kind of pre-COVID level. So as we have a lot of opportunity within our fitness with some really big deals that we can penetrate into, we still feel really great about the opportunity. But definitely lag the overall other software solutions we provide.

That’s helpful guys. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you very much.

And this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Eric Remer for any closing remarks.

Thank you so much. Look, although we’re generally disappointed we haven’t achieved our objective for the quarter, we remain very excited and extremely bullish about the future prospects for EverCommerce. The digitization of the service economy is just beginning, and EverCommerce truly is the leading software enabling that digital transformation. Thank you so much.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect your lines at this time.