Peter Corrao
Analyst · Ryan Bergan with Craig-Hallum
Thanks, Alan, and thanks, everyone, for joining us this afternoon for the Third Quarter 2012 Inuvo Conference Call.
The management is pleased with both the operation and financial achievements that the company made during the third quarter and fiscal 2012. Sequential revenues increased 20% to $15.5 million, when compared to the second quarter of 2012, while our adjusted EBITDA topped $1 million, an increase of more than 500% when compared to the same time period.
We focused our strategic plan on increasing Tier 1 market search queries from our ALOT users, restructuring our ValidClick business to focus on smaller publishers, and increasing revenue from our owned and operated properties, including Local.alot and Yellowise. In doing so, we were able to achieve higher revenues along with increased adjusted EBITDA and consequentially improve our overall financial results.
I’d like to mention that while hurricane Sandy has affected many of our employees personal lives, I want to assure our shareholders that while our New York City office was closed for a week during this storm, the storm does not had a material impact on our business results.
During the third quarter, search queries increased in Tier 1 markets over Q2 results, as we added new Tier 1 users to the markets while continuing our marketing efforts in new countries. We plan to continue to increase our focus on more profitable and higher monetizing Tier 1 search queries with ALOT, and further we plan to expand our third-party Publisher Network by adding new ValidClick publishers. And importantly, we have launched additional enhancements to our BargainMatch platform, all of which we will expect will increase our revenues in Q4 of 2012.
Now let me give you a brief update regarding Inuvo’s 2 business segments. The company’s high gross margin Software Search segment continues to grow, delivering revenue of $7.9 million for the third quarter of 2012, compared to $7.4 million of Q2 2012. The increase in our top line growth is primarily attributed to the increase in Tier 1 search queries from the user base of our ALOT Appbar, which is a result of our targeted Tier 1 users, a higher revenue sharing rate from our monetizing partner due to our hitting higher revenue targets with them, and we continue to have a market presence in 26 countries and 8 various languages. And we were really pleased with the solid performance that this business has given us throughout Q3.
Now the development of our Publisher Network which comprises the other half of our business is also expanding. We have over 1,500 publishers and we expect to continue to grow our third-party publisher base throughout Q4. Additionally, our Publisher Network has experienced growth in our Local.alot and Yellowise owned and operated sites, and we expect our Publisher Network to generate quarter-over-quarter revenue growth as well for Q4 2012.
In addition to the increased revenue growth that the company experienced, we also maintained strict controls over our operating costs in an effort to improve our bottom line. Because of this, we remain ahead of previous expense reduction projections as we moved towards overall profitability. We’re currently tracking $900,000 ahead of our anticipated annualized operating savings of $2.9 million from the expense reductions expected after our Vertro merger.
So to summarize our quarter and our outlook. Revenue growth. In our Publisher Network segment, we had a revenue growth rate of 40% in the third quarter of 2012 compared to the second quarter of 2012. Our Software Search segment had a revenue growth rate of 6% for the third quarter of 2012 compared to the second quarter of 2012. In September of 2012, we attained revenue growth leading to a higher revenue share from our advertising partner for our Publisher Network segment. And in July of 2012, for the first time in over a year, revenue growth in our Software Search Segment reached a level that yielded a higher revenue share from our advertising partner in that business.
We expect these higher revenue share rates to continue in Q4 2012 and the higher percentage revenue share with each advertising partner is substantial and meaningful component of our revenue growth. Our Yellowise and Local.alot owned and operated sites are contributing meaningful incremental revenues on a quarter-by-quarter basis and we expect their growth to continue. In addition, we expect to see meaningful revenue coming from our BargainMatch.com product.
Now on cost containment. With the Vertro merger, we anticipated that we saved the $2.9 million in operating expense synergies on an annualized run rate. And as I already mentioned at the close of Q3 2012, we were on a run rate of approximately $900,000 ahead of that expectation, and we expect these savings to flow-through to our bottom line throughout Q4 2012 and beyond. Additionally, cash expenditures for our direct marketing and bundled downloads for our Appbar distribution has declined significantly since the Vertro merger in March 2012.
So for example, in the 3 months ended June 30, 2012, we spent $6.4 million compared to $5.8 million in the 3 months ended September 30, 2012 and that’s while we’re growing the revenue.
So let me turn the call over to Wally, our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide greater detail on our financial results. Wally?