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Inuvo, Inc. (INUV)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Wed, Mar 13, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Inuvo 2012 Year-End Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This conference is being recorded today, Wednesday, March 13, 2013. And I would now like to turn the conference over to Thomas Walsh of Alliance Advisors. Please go ahead.

Thomas Walsh

Analyst

Thank you, and good afternoon. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today for the Inuvo, Inc. fourth quarter and 2012 year end conference call. Mr. Rich Howe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Wally Ruiz, Chief Financial Officer of Inuvo, will be our presenters on the call. Before we begin, I'm going to review the company's Safe Harbo Statement. Statements in this conference call that are not descriptions of historical facts are forward-looking statements relating to future events. And as such, all forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. When used in this call, the words anticipate, could, enable, estimate, intend, expect, believe, potential, will, should, project and similar expressions as they relate to Inuvo, Inc., are such forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ from those anticipated by Inuvo, Inc. at this time. In addition, other risks are more fully described in Inuvo, Inc.'s public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be reviewed at www.sec.gov. With that out of the way, I'd now like to turn the callover to Mr. Rich Howe, Chairman and CEO of Inuvo. Rich, please go ahead.

Richard K. Howe

Analyst

Thank you, Thomas, and thanks, everyone, for joining us. On today's call, I would like to provide a brief overview of the fourth quarter and the 2012 fiscal year, review a number of important announcements we've made and then provide some insights on the company's strategy as we head into 2013. Following my opening statements, I will turn the call over to Wally for a more detailed accounting of our financial results, after which I will have some closing remarks about how the first quarter of 2013 is shaping up. Before we begin, let me first explain a change we've made to the naming of our reporting segments and briefly describe those segments so there will be clarity going forward when we make reference to them. In 2013, we have organized our business along 2 business lines, respectively, the Network and the Applications segments. The Network segment includes all the revenue derived from the delivery of advertisements on to partner and owned and operated websites. The Applications segment includes all the revenue associated with the company's applications, which are direct-marketed to consumers through various online marketing methods. In 2012, the Network and Applications segments represented 54% and 46% of overall revenues, respectively. In Q4, these segments represented 58% and 42% of overall revenue, delivering $9.5 million and $6.8 million, respectively. In fiscal year 2012, revenues grew almost 50% as compared to fiscal year 2011, going from $35.8 million to $53.4 million, aided by new product introductions, growth within the network and the acquisition of Vertro in March. Now, while the first quarter of 2012 included only 1 month of the Vertro acquisition, the second through fourth quarters of 2012 more accurately represented the ongoing business following the merger. Between Q2, the first full quarter of combined operations, our revenue was…

Wallace D. Ruiz

Analyst

Thank you, Rich. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss the company's fourth quarter and full year 2012 financial results. My comments will refer to the press release and the 10-K which were filed today. As Rich mentioned, Inuvo today reported net revenue of $16.2 million in the fourth quarter and $53.4 million for the full year of 2012. This is 145% increase over the same quarter last year and a 49% increase over the full year last year. Both the Network and the Applications segment contributed to the higher revenue in the fourth quarter. For the year overall, the Network segment was lower than last year. The 2012 revenue includes 10 months of combined operations from the merger with Vertro, and 2011 includes no combined operations from the merger, as it closed on March 1, 2012. The Network segment represented 58% of the company's total revenue in the fourth quarter and 54% of the company's total revenue for the year. Net segment reported $9.5 million of revenue in the quarter and $28.9 million in the full year, an increase of 44% in quarter-over-quarter and a decrease of 19% in the year-over-year comparison. The increase in the fourth quarter of 2012 over the same quarter of the prior year is primarily due to the strong increase in the delivery of advertisements to partner websites. Early in 2012, we decided to align our ValidClick marketing to a broader market of smaller website publishers where we could add more value and be more assured of the traffic. The result was a 50% increase in ValidClick partner revenue quarter-over-quarter. At the same time, the expansion of our owned and operated websites, particularly local.alot.com, we increased owned and operated revenue nearly 90% quarter-over-quarter. The decrease in the Network segment revenue…

Richard K. Howe

Analyst

Thanks, Wally. We've had a strong 2012, and we are heading into 2013 with a really great start. For Inuvo, historically, the first calendar quarter of a year tends to trend down off of the fourth quarter in the prior year as marketing budgets shrink following the holiday period and as marketers themselves slowdown spending as they negotiate their new fiscal year budgets internally. Now, despite these seasonal adjustments, our revenues have been strong through the beginning of March. We are currently forecasting Q1 2013 revenue between $16.2 million and $16.5 million, a range that would position us well for another strong year given revenue has historically risen between Q2 and Q4. Revenue in the first quarter through March 12 has averaged $185,000 per day, with the Network segment contributing 60% of those revenues and the Applications segment contributing 40%. In closing, I would like to summarize. We had a significant growth year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter in 2012. We've had a strong start in 2013, with Q1 revenue expected to be between $16.2 million and $16.5 million. We are moving the company, and have funded the move with a $1.75 million grant that should save us $120,000 per month, putting us on a path towards net income positive in 2013. We are introducing mobile implementations into our Network segment in a way that opens us up to an exciting new chapter within the Network. We continue to expand our owned and operated websites, starting with the expansion of our U.S. local search site into Europe. We pulled back spending on the ALOT Appbar while we optimize campaigns based on the new marketplace policies. And finally, we are bundling BargainMatch with every download of ALOT, and would like to grow the user base significantly in 2013 starting with the 150,000 users we already have today. In conclusion, for 2013, we are already hard at work to assure both growth and profitability objectives are met and believe we have a plan to get us there. I'd like to now turn the call over to the operator for questions and answers. Operator?

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of John Gilliam from Point Clear Strategic.

John Gilliam

Analyst

What was the total ad spend in Q4, that's the total for search ads?

Wallace D. Ruiz

Analyst

John, we spent about $5 million in search cost in the fourth quarter.

John Gilliam

Analyst

Okay. And you mentioned that we had pulled back on that in lieu of the changes from Google's -- the changes they required in the marketing approach that -- the various field that they're using. I'm assuming that probably first started in the first quarter of this year. Where are we tracking, would you say, for that ad spend in Q1?

Wallace D. Ruiz

Analyst

Yes, you're correct. We are tracking down from Q4, so we are -- we will be below that $5 million going forward.

John Gilliam

Analyst

Okay, okay. You mentioned an increase of about 90% with the owned and operated revenue -- the revenue from owned and operated websites. What percentage of that was from the BargainMatch website?

Richard K. Howe

Analyst

Very little of it, John.

John Gilliam

Analyst

Okay. Can you give us an idea of the -- what we would expect starting -- I know there's obviously still some noise related to the move to Arkansas. But I guess, somewhere in Q2 or early Q3, we would be at a more normalized operating environment that -- what should we expect on a -- for nondiscretionary OpEx, what should we budget for on a month-to-month basis for nondiscretionary OpEx? And basically, expenses, not including the search ad spend.

Wallace D. Ruiz

Analyst

I think if you use Rich's model that you spoke about of about a savings of about $120,000 a month and work that off of where we've been, it would be a good start.

John Gilliam

Analyst

Okay, okay. You mentioned the launch of a -- of a BargainMatch mobile app. What ballpark where -- when are you looking to launch that?

Richard K. Howe

Analyst

I didn't say I was going to launch it. I said we were working on one, and we are. Q2 or Q3, likely. Right now the focus of the attention is, as I said on the call, is really directed towards the Network segment and the expansion in the mobile. That's where we're seeing a lot of opportunity right now.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And at this time, I'm showing no further questions in my queue. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Rich for closing comments.

Richard K. Howe

Analyst

Thank you, operator. I'd like to thank everyone who joined us on today's call. We appreciate your continued interest in Inuvo and look forward to reporting progress over the coming quarters.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude our conference for today, and we thank you, all, for your participation. And at this time, you may now disconnect.