Cars.com Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 2, 2023

There are 9 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the cars.com Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being recorded and a live webcast and the accompanying slides can be found at investor. Cars.com. An archive of the webcast will be available at cars.cominvestorrelationswebsite. I'd now like to turn the call over to Robin Moore Randolph, Director of Investor Relations.

Speaker 1

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Cars.com 3rd quarter 2023 conference call. With me this morning are Alex Vetter, CEO and Sonia Jain, CFO. Alex will start by discussing the business highlights from our Q3, Then Sonia will discuss our financial highlights in greater detail along with our 2023 outlook. We'll finish the call with Q and A.

Speaker 1

Before I turn the call over to Alex, I'd like to draw your attention to our forward looking statements and the description and definition of non GAAP financial measures, which can be found in our presentation. We will be discussing certain non GAAP financial measures today, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted operating expenses and free cash flow. Reconciliations of these non GAAP Financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure can be found in the financial tables included with our earnings press release and in the appendix of our presentation. Any forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. For more information, please refer to the risk factors included in our SEC filings, including those in our most recently filed 10 ks, which is available on the IR section of our website.

Speaker 1

We assume no obligation to update any forward looking statements. Now, I'll turn the call over to Alex.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Robin, and welcome to our Q3 2023 earnings call. I'm pleased to report that we delivered another quarter of solid results at the high end of our guidance range. I'm also excited to announce our acquisition of D2C Media, a leading automotive Technology and digital solutions provider in Canada that enables us to expand our geographical footprint and gain approximately 1,000 new dealer customers. Before we discuss D2C, let's start with our strong quarterly results. Our 3rd quarter revenue grew 6% year over year driven by growth across folio, including 9% year over year ARPD growth.

Speaker 2

This resulted in adjusted EBITDA margins of 28% and we are well positioned to build on this growth. Last month, we launched Cars Commerce, our new go to market B2B brand As a natural evolution of our growth strategy, Cars Commerce reinforces our ability to deliver a connected platform that simplifies the pre tail, retail and post sale experiences for shoppers, retailers and OEMs. The mission of Cars Commerce is to simplify everything about buying and selling cars. We aim to eliminate complexity and increase transparency throughout the local retail experience where sales and service are best facilitated. Our asset light platform approach, which combines our high intent audience and industry leading technology solution, drives significantly more value and efficiency to dealers and OEMs.

Speaker 2

Our simplified go to market strategy will drive a sustainable growth and adoption of our marketplace, solutions and media products. Central to our platform is Cars.com, our trademark brand that is the number one most recognized marketplace in the industry, attracting nearly 26,000,000 in market shoppers each month. This quarter, our traffic increased to 151,000,000 visits And our organic traffic remains strong at 62%. The Cars.com audience is highly engaged With more than 84% planning to purchase a vehicle within 6 months and nearly half within 30 days, Clearly, we have the audience to match buyers and sellers at scale. Our research consistently shows that approximately 75% of our audience is undecided on make and model and 90% have not selected a dealership.

Speaker 2

This is where the consumer pretail journey begins with visits to Cars.com for unbiased content, ratings and reviews. And we continually improve our marketplace experience to help consumers make more informed decisions. This quarter, we launched My Garage, which allows consumers to add their vehicle to our virtual garage and gain access to new features such as the cars.com market value. Cars.com market value connects our marketplace retail data with our real time trade in values, helping consumers track the value of their vehicle and know the optimal time to sell or trade in their car. We will continue to add capabilities to My Garage and encourage consumers to register profiles on cars.com to keep them engaged between vehicle purchases.

Speaker 2

Not only do we provide consumers with critical information regarding vehicles, we also enhance their experience with dealership insights to help them decide where they'll purchase or trade in their car. We are a leader in reputation management technology and have the largest reviews For many consumers and especially in the current environment of high interest rates, financing considerations are as important as The average new vehicle price on our marketplace is up 29% and used car prices increased 40% compared to 2019. Approximately 9,000 dealers have enabled shoppers to get pre approved using our instant financing solution. Given the significant consumer and customer value, We included instant financing in our 2023 marketplace repackaging initiative, which is now complete and is As part of the Cars Commerce launch, we have consolidated our media point solutions under the Cars Commerce Media Network umbrella. Customers of our marketplace and solutions can access our 26,000,000 monthly end market shoppers on cars.com across social, Search, display, video and content.

Speaker 2

By reaching a highly engaged audience, both local and national automotive advertisers can influence the decision journey while shoppers are actively determining what, where, when and how to purchase their next vehicle. We know that our retail media solutions drives meaningful business outcomes and solve real audience and measurement challenges that our customers currently face. For local dealers, we have seen our product suite outperform Google search advertising by as much as 50% on a lower cost per lead basis. In addition, we see that we're reaching the Cars.com audience across video, display and social channels also improves dealer website traffic by more than 30% compared to single channel advertising. Bringing together our local media point solutions under KAR's Commerce Media Network will allow us to better package our media products for greater retail outcomes.

Speaker 2

Cars Commerce Media also works for OEMs. As an example, in the Q3, one of our OEM partners increased their advertising investment with us for an electric vehicle campaign, which resulted in not only elevated searches and dealer connections on cars.com, but also on dealer websites that we observe via Dealer Inspire. Specifically, there was a double digit lift in leads on dealer websites, a clear indication that KAR's Commerce Media Network drives retail sales results. Turning to solutions, which also contributed to our strong revenue growth. Our website solutions are endorsed by nearly every OEM in the United States.

Speaker 2

Today, we power more than 6,300 dealer websites, up 8% And we grew website upsells by more than 1,000 compared to the prior year. Accu Trade, our trade and appraisal solution also continues to gain traction growing to more than 8 50 units compared to 400 in the prior year and up nearly 100 units on a sequential basis. Accu Trade creates a much needed used car pipeline for dealers. Dealers using our technology complete appraisals in a fraction of the time that it typically takes, while also increasing accuracy and transparency for the consumer. By ARMY, everyone in the dealership with accurate turnkey technology, we are improving both dealership profitability and the consumer experience online and in the store.

Speaker 2

For the quarter, dealers conducted more than 500,000 appraisals, a nearly 20% sequential increase. Our solutions momentum continues. We are excited about our acquisition of D2C Media, a leading automotive Technology and digital solutions provider in Canada. It affords us the opportunity to further expand our Cars Commerce platform into the Canadian market and demonstrates our continued commitment to empowering dealers with innovative digital solutions. D2C Media has Approximately 1,000 customers today and together we have website endorsements covering approximately 60% of OEMs operating in Canada, positioning us to unlock additional growth opportunities.

Speaker 2

B2C has demonstrated strong financial performance, consistently generating double digit top line growth and strong adjusted EBITDA margins. This acquisition will allow us to accelerate the growth of both websites and our digital solutions into Canada. Before I turn the call over to Sonia, I want to recognize our team of innovators, creators and problem solvers who work every day to swiftly tailor our products and simplify everything about car buying and selling. Together, we posted another quarter of solid results, launched Cars Commerce, grew dealer revenue, turned the corner on OEM sales and expanded our growth opportunities with the acquisition of D2C Media. I am also honored to We are excited to welcome the newest D2C employees to the KARs Commerce team, where together we will continue to drive our platform strategy.

Speaker 2

Now, I'd like to turn over the call to Sonia to provide additional details on the quarter. Sonia?

Speaker 3

Thank you, Alex. I too am pleased with our strong performance. We delivered accelerated year over year revenue growth and sequential improvement in margin at and above the high end of our guidance. I'm also excited about our acquisition of D2C Media, which we expect will be immediately accretive to our top line growth rate and adjusted EBITDA margin. But first, let's start with our quarterly results.

Speaker 3

Revenue for the quarter totaled $174,000,000 a 6% increase compared to the prior year, driven by dealer revenue that grew 8% year over year to $157,000,000 OEM and national revenue was $15,000,000 2% lower compared to the prior year. However, looking specifically at our OEM advertising customers, revenue increased 12% year over year and sequentially OEM and national revenue grew $2,100,000 Additionally, other revenue was down approximately $2,000,000 year over year, primarily due to the planned expiration of a non cash Accu Trade license agreement with a former owner that expired earlier this year. Moving to our expenses. We continue to exercise disciplined expense management while investing to support our revenue growth. Adjusted operating expenses were $151,000,000 $14,000,000 higher than a year ago, primarily due to higher investment in marketing, specifically brand media to support the Cars.com Possibilities advertising campaign, in person employee events and compensation expense.

Speaker 3

Our brand investments are critical to our organic traffic strength and ensure And financial efficiency for our business, and it also allows us to deliver a unique high intent audience to our customers that cannot be duplicated through traditional paid advertising channels. Product and technology investment increased $3,000,000 year over year As we continue to invest in consumer and customer experiences, Alex referenced My Garage and Cars.com market value, New features launched this quarter that drive consumer engagement on our marketplace, enhancing our organic traffic strength and dealer value delivery. Net income for the quarter totaled $4,500,000 or $0.07 per diluted share compared to a net loss of $0.04 per diluted share a year ago. The change in net income is primarily attributable to the change in the fair value of contingent consideration associated with the For the quarter, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $49,000,000 or 28.4 percent of revenue at the high end of our guidance range. Sequentially, our margin expanded 125 basis points.

Speaker 3

As Alex mentioned, this quarter we completed our 2023 marketplace repackaging initiative. Results have been positive With over 80% of our 9% year over year growth in ARPD driven by a combination of repricing and upgrades. To that point, nearly 70% of repackaged customers upgraded to either the value added preferred or premium package. These higher tier packages include more of our platform advantages and as a result provide dealers with greater value. As an example, upgrading to the preferred or premium package has a double digit improvement on inventory turn times for dealers.

Speaker 3

With 2023 repackaging behind us, our customer base is stabilizing and we ended the quarter with 18,750 customers. Independent of repackaging, our QV retention rate remained near historic highs. Continued demand for our solutions, Both websites and Accu Trade also bolstered our ARPD growth for the quarter. Website customers continued to grow. At the quarter end, we powered more than 6,300 websites, up over 400 from a year ago and up over 150 sequentially.

Speaker 3

We remain focused on value delivery to our customers and the size and scale of our audience is an important component of that equation. For the quarter, total traffic increased to 151,000,000 visits and monthly unique visitors totaled 26,000,000. Today, we acquired D2C Media, a leading Canadian provider of website and digital advertising solutions that extends our reach into new markets with our already strong solutions portfolio. D2C Media has approximately 1,000 dealer customers, a strong in market With tenured experience in the Canadian market and importantly, a business that has consistently delivered double digit revenue growth and high adjusted EBITDA margins. We're excited about D2C's potential to help us accelerate our profitable top line growth.

Speaker 3

Not only do we have the ability to grow our website footprint with Trade to Canadian customers. Now turning to our balance sheet. Our strong cash flow and liquidity position gives us the financial flexibility to invest in growth opportunities like B2C. Cash provided by operating activities for the 9 month period ended September 30, 2023, totaled $92,000,000 and free cash flow was $76,000,000 compared to $77,000,000 a year ago. Cash flow was strong year over year despite the $16,000,000 year over year increase in cash taxes, the majority of which was offset by favorable changes in working During the 1st 9 months of the year, we paid down $26,000,000 of debt, reducing our total debt outstanding to $455,000,000 as of September 30, 2023.

Speaker 3

And year to date, we also repurchased 1,300,000 shares for $24,000,000 and we continue to see value in share repurchases. At quarter end, our net leverage ratio was 2.1x, At the low end of our target range of 2 to 2.5 times, we continue to maintain ample liquidity of $279,000,000 comprised of $49,000,000 in cash on hand and $230,000,000 of undrawn revolver. Yesterday, we funded the D2C Media acquisition with a combination of cash on hand and revolver draw. Pro form a for the acquisition, our net leverage ratio as of September 30 would have been 2.5 times, at the high end but still within our target range. I also want to reaffirm our commitment to our balanced capital allocation strategy.

Speaker 3

Given our strong free cash flow generation, we remain committed to paying down debt and continuing to repurchase shares. Now for our Q4 guidance. We expect to deliver revenue of approximately $177,000,000 to $179,000,000 representing year over year growth of 5.2% to 6.4%. Our guidance reflects continued growth in dealer revenue, driven by continued adoption of Dealer Solutions and Media Products as well as modest sequential improvement in OEM and national revenue. In addition, our 4th quarter guidance includes 2 months of revenue associated with our acquisition of B2C Media, which we expect will contribute approximately 1.5% of our total revenue dollars in the 4th quarter.

Speaker 3

Recall that sequentially, the 4th quarter is often impacted by seasonal trends. And our year over year growth rates reflect both The successful launch of Accu Trade Connected and the favorable renegotiation of key website agreements from the Q4 of last year. For the full year, our 4th quarter guidance, along with performance to date, places us comfortably within our previously shared revenue guidance range of 4% to 6%. Full year performance reflects the benefit of this year's marketplace repackaging initiative, continued penetration of our dealer solutions and modest improvement in OEM revenue, offset by a challenging environment for auto adjacent advertisers, including insurance companies. We expect 4th quarter adjusted EBITDA margin of 29.5% to 30.5%, in line with our previous guidance of approaching 30%.

Speaker 3

Our consistent and reliable growth demonstrates that our asset light platform strategy with connected technology solutions generate strong diversified revenue streams for our business. This, along with our focused execution, position us well to further drive sustainable, profitable growth. And with that, I'd like to open the call for Q and A. Operator?

Operator

Please be prepared to ask your question when prompted. And our first question comes from Tom White from D. A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Great. Good morning. Thanks and nice quarter Guys, a question on OEM ad spend. It sounds like it's perking up a bit. It's clearly it's been a few years since new vehicle Production levels and inventories were kind of sufficient enough to have these OEMs really need to support their franchise dealers with much spend.

Speaker 4

And in that time, I'd imagine that the types of digital advertising technologies and product offerings that are available to OEMs and Getting pitched to OEMs have evolved and changed quite a bit. I'm curious if you'd say that that was true and how can you guys ensure that cars.com Can recapture kind of its fair share of this OEM digital ad revenue as it recovers in the coming quarters? Like do you think you've got The right products, do you need to change or add kind of new offerings to capture that OEM kind of ad spend And then just a quick follow-up on dealer count. It sounds like it stabilized here and the repackaging is done. Just curious Any kind of boomerang customers that maybe churned earlier in this year kind of coming back now that it looks like inventories on dealer lots are I have been building a bit.

Speaker 4

Thanks.

Speaker 2

Tom, thanks for your comments on the quarter. We too are pleased. And to start on your question regarding OEM, products are always going to change and evolve, but I think our Core reason to believe is more about audience. We're capturing organically the highest concentration of active end market shoppers that are Actively comparing makes and models and deciding what and where to buy in real time. I mean, if you look at OEM spending over the last, Call it 10 years, it's been obsessed with legacy digital KPIs around frequency clicks impressions And we see the market moving much closer towards retail outcomes and that as OEMs need to rethink their business models and become more efficient, They're going to need to spend less money, but maximize sales output.

Speaker 2

And we see clearly through our data that when OEMs invest in Cars dot It drives dealer retail results. And so, yes, we'll tweak our product mix and we'll offer new solutions that Uses technology to its advantage, but ultimately the value prop is access to a high intention audience. I think on the marketplace side, we are seeing Boomerang dealers that have come back. I think that anytime you raise rates en masse on your Price points that we were asking and so we are seeing dealers come back to us, particularly now that demand is cooling and inventory levels Our rising dealers are looking to figure out how they're going to be able to move their inventory at a faster rate.

Speaker 5

Great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Rajat Gupta from JPMorgan, your line is open.

Speaker 6

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Just had a question on a broader growth algorithm for the company. Outside of the D2C Position and with some of the repackaging initiatives now behind you, what should investors be banking on as a key source of growth Into 2024 and beyond, is it the cross sell of the new products? Is it rebound in dealer count, OEM, national revenue?

Speaker 6

I mean, any one or two areas that you would stress on That would be the key drivers of growth going forward. Just a broader question, I'm going to have like a more model follow-up. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Roger, thanks for the question. I think what's exciting about the business is that we're sitting at a point in time where our growth vectors Are very diversified in many. I think, let's start with just dealer count. We've got less than 20,000 dealers in a domestic TAM of 40,000. And then even with the addition of D2C Media in Canada, we've got now 1,000 dealers in Canada with a TAM of close to 10,000 dealers that we can go after there as well.

Speaker 2

Importantly, even though we repackaged and repriced this year, That doesn't mean that there is an additional opportunities to keep doing that in future years. And certainly, we think OEM, obviously, it bounced in the quarter, which is exciting to see. We've asked for investor patience as we retool that business and we get a nice bounce And we see tremendous upside in OEM spending over next year as well. I think The big area of untapped opportunity is now bringing our digital solutions to the OEMs as well. 50% of new vehicle sales have Trade in, yet most OEMs do not have a trade in solution for their customers as they want to offer on their Tier 1 websites And we see continued adoption from OEMs wanting to outfit their dealer networks with tech.

Speaker 2

So we've got a lot of opportunity for growth, whether it's product, pricing, packaging, But certainly the market share alone is a reason to believe. Sonia, I don't know what else you'd add.

Speaker 3

No, I think you covered it really well. I think Dealer customer growth continues to be a vector for us. And then I think importantly for marketplace repackaging this year, it was kind of a 2 pronged initiative. We did take price obviously, which you've seen reflected in our ARPD, but we also put in place a packaging structure That we can leverage going forward as we think about how to advance more of the platform value in a bundled context And platform contest as opposed to point solutions, which are a little harder to increment quickly.

Speaker 6

Got it. Just to follow-up on Alex comments on the OEM revenue You're now stabilizing and a big opportunity. Is there any way to like size that? How you anticipate that progressing? Beyond the Q3, you gave some guidance for the Q4 that will be sequentially up, but like how should we think about that run rate into next year?

Speaker 6

And just relatedly, Presumably that has higher incremental drop through to the bottom line versus the dealer business.

Speaker 7

If you

Speaker 6

could add more color on that It would be helpful.

Speaker 2

Yes. Certainly, the OEM revenues are some of the highest margin revenues that the business enjoys, and it's been on a multiyear Slide with the inventory shortages and now that inventory levels are blossoming again, there is an opportunity for us to expand this line of the business, The OEM revenue comes in lumps and seasonal needs for urgency by the OEMs to Ramp up something in a period. And so it is a little bit harder to predict without the reoccurrence of that revenue, but we definitely see Big upside in OEM spending, close to $20,000,000,000 are being spent domestically by OEMs and advertising, yet 90% of those dollars are going to people that aren't in the market to buy a car. And so we see tremendous upside in our go to market, which is part of why we Rebranded as Cars.com Commerce Media, so that OEMs know that we can actually help them facilitate transactions at the retail level.

Speaker 7

Got it.

Speaker 3

And I think we'll also be able we'll be in a good position to share more detail, right, when we give our 2024 guidance in a couple of months around how to think about The shape of OEM revenue evolving, but I do think and I think you probably got our takeaway is we were really pleased to see Kind of that sequential improvement and turning the corner a little bit, so to speak, on OEM performance and their The attractiveness they see in our audience.

Speaker 6

Understood. Great. Thanks for all the color. I'll jump back in queue.

Operator

And we have a question from Naved Khan from B. Riley Securities. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Yes. Thank you and congrats on the results. I had a couple of questions. So in your Q4 outlook, I think you guys expect you guys said that you expect OEM to be up sequentially. And I'm wondering If you're running any campaigns that gives you that level of visibility or is it more of a broad based trend that's kind of helping this line?

Speaker 7

And the other question I had is just on the D2C Media. Just Alex, maybe can you talk about the levers that you have to kind of Drive the business up from here, you said it was a double digit grower on its own. Just give us some thoughts on Your thoughts on what you can do to kind of take it to the next level?

Speaker 3

I think maybe just really briefly on the OEM Given that we are part of the way through the quarter, a lot of OEMs book with us in advance. So we have upfront that we do with them at the beginning of every year and then we have incremental sales on top of that. And so at this point in the quarter, we have Pretty solid visibility into our expectations, which is informing our guidance around OEM and national revenue.

Speaker 2

Correct. And then on D2C, a couple of answers there. 1st and foremost, D2C only has 1,000 dealers out of a TAM of over $10,000 in Canada alone. So there's organic upside to grow just the share of dealers using the D2C platform in Canada. But importantly, if you look at the OEM endorsements, currently as DI, we only had 6 OEM endorsements in Canada where D2C has 12.

Speaker 2

There is some duplication, but the net effect is that we 15 OEMs where we have a license to hunt in the Canadian market. And so it opens up the sales aperture for that team to Banding Canada even faster than they currently are. It reminds me a lot of DI and what it looked like there where we ran that playbook Here in the U. S. Market, so I consider this to be a similar play that we've run and executed before.

Speaker 2

I think the final one is that Accu Trade continues to build momentum. We are adding features. We're improving the onboarding. We're seeing higher Dealer utilization and the value there is overwhelming. We want to distribute this technology throughout Canada and the D2C Media team being locally entrenched With strong relationships to an established dealer base certainly gives us a distribution path for Accu Trade in Canada.

Speaker 2

I think further on, obviously, there is an aspiration to launch our marketplace in Canada, but that will come once we've built up the supply side of our business In the country.

Speaker 7

Understood. And in terms of just the product, Alex, you will have Dealer Inspire Product and now you have the DTC. Is there somewhere down the line, is there scope for Consolidating that or do you see one better than the other and kind of just moving every customer to that? Is that something we can expect or Is that not necessarily the case?

Speaker 2

There is a plan to align roadmaps and leverage More synergy between the two platforms, but we are consolidating both brands under the Cars Commerce umbrella, So that we can work directly with OEMs for inclusion in their preferred programs and then provide robust reporting analytics And support that's North American in nature. And so that strengthens our OEM relationships and our ability to serve and support

Speaker 7

Understood. Great. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

Operator

And our next question comes from Gary Prestopino from Barrington Research.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Hey, Thanks. Good morning, everyone. A couple of questions here. First of all, Alex, you said Accu Trade appraisals were up 20 percent to 500,000, is that a year over year number or was that sequentially?

Speaker 2

Sequential.

Speaker 4

Okay.

Speaker 5

What in terms of Car sales though through Accu Trade, can you give us some idea of as a percentage of appraisals, how many are actually Picked off by the dealers?

Speaker 2

I don't have that data handy, Gary, but we have visibility on that. And what's important is that we can Because through our back end technology, we can do VIN matching to see which dealer bought the car. And I will tell you that the vast Majority of vehicles are being bought by the dealer network. Sometimes it's not the initial dealer, but the cars are absolutely being acquired by our network.

Speaker 5

Okay, that's great. So then, why don't you shift into D2C Media, You said 1,000 dealers out of 10 ks in Canada. Are most of their dealer base franchised or independents?

Speaker 2

Yes, about 80% of their dealer network is franchise and about 20% independent.

Speaker 5

Okay. All right. And then it's pretty easy

Speaker 8

to see what you can cross sell up into Canada.

Speaker 5

But is there anything that B2C brings to you that you can in terms of their products that you can cross sell into the U. S. Market?

Speaker 2

They do have some great technology, both a CRM platform as well as A BDC tool that helps do appointment setting on behalf of dealers. Gary, we have a lot of Dealers that have personnel that turns over in the U. S. And so we have churn in our marketplace subscriptions and they've built a solution that Helps dealers preserve volume from their websites by leveraging a call center Approach that we think has really enabled them to build a highly sticky solution for dealers. And I could see applicability of that here in the U.

Speaker 2

S. Over the next, call it, 12 months, we'll be consolidating our roadmaps and aligning so that we can build tech once and And that's really the benefit of our Asset Light software model is that we can Get that operating synergy through the technology.

Speaker 5

What about their advanced inventory management? What is that all about, that product?

Speaker 2

Well, they've done some great work there, but as have we and we look forward to sharing more news about some of our inventory management capabilities Going into next year, but obviously as you can imagine, we're syndicating inventory within our platform across multiple solutions and empowering dealer websites and the marketplace. And so dealers have consistently said to us if you could add an inventory management capability That allows me to syndicate my inventory out to other third parties. It would allow me to anchor more of my relationship with Cars Commerce. And so stay tuned on that front. We've got a lot of work underway and it's an area of opportunity for us for sure.

Speaker 5

And then just to be clear, this is not dilutive to your adjusted EBITDA margin, correct?

Speaker 7

No. No. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Gary.

Operator

And we have a question from Kunal Madhukar from from UBS. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Thanks for taking the question. Couple if I could. 1 on the Canadian market, can you talk about the competitive landscape that you are facing and what gives you The confidence that you can drive growth in a market that is probably similar to the U. S. In terms of maturity.

Speaker 7

And then on the overall dealer count as a whole, how should we think of like growth Given that dealer count was declining even prior to COVID and so what should drive The growth in the U. S, once we have troughed, whenever this year, next year, whenever we troughed, What drives the growth? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Sure, Kamal. Thanks for the question. I think your first question was about the competitive landscape in Canada. And I would tell you it is very analogous to what we saw with Dealer Inspire here in the U. S.

Speaker 2

A handful of Providers without scale or infrastructure to really generate that scale and needing an investment To expand. And so the DTC platform is fantastic. The best part of that asset are the people that are locally ensconced Partner and distribute our technology like Accu Trade throughout the region where we've had steady inbound demand from Canadian dealers, but not A real fulfillment capability to serve the market in real time. And so we've now rapidly built in Distribution throughout the country. I think on the dealer count side, look, yes, we've been on a dealer slide Prior to COVID, but you also have to remember and we documented a chart in our earnings that shows that dealer count.

Speaker 2

If you look at Where some of that dealer growth or dealer loss came from was been the fall of digital dealers. It largely scaled up Over the last few years as companies like Vroom, Carvana, Shift, Tread, Car Lots expanded virtual Dealerships and those businesses have a lot bigger challenges that resulted in a pullback of close to 700 dealerships I think the key to growing dealer count is provide incredible value, which we have through our organic traffic, Value delivery, our website solutions and our technologies and tools, but what's also important is having a robust service and support network That meets them where they are. And so we're established in the market and we see great opportunity to continue to grow dealer sales.

Speaker 3

I just want to maybe add a couple more thoughts to that, which is we did experience dealer losses during COVID, but post COVID, Essentially post kind of Q2 of 2020, we were on a very steady progression upwards In terms of dealer customer addition. And I would attribute it to a couple of different things. I think, our investments in the business To improve traffic, the quality of our SEO, the strength of our organic audience, expansion of our product We on the solution side, which is another sort of avenue by which dealers can get to know our marketplace. I think that's important to know. We have seen a little bit of pressure in the last Several quarters on the dealer customer number, which as Alex mentioned, is very much attributable to some of the challenges certain digital dealers We're experiencing over, call it, the last year, which then resulted in them pulling back advertising spend when Their business models were going through those challenges.

Speaker 3

But we were on a very steady clip of dealer customer growth and Actually dealer customer growth even prior to COVID, so that trend has been there. It's just a little bit more under pressure the last couple of quarters with digital dealers. And then our decision, frankly, To go ahead with marketplace repackaging, which we view as really key to driving future growth in the business, A, because it gives our customers access to a broader access to our platform, which improves their performance. We've seen it in inventory term We've seen it in add efficiency and drive value in the future. So I just wanted to provide that additional color.

Operator

And our next question is from Marvin Fong from BTIG. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Congratulations on the quarter. Just a broader question, I guess, that seeing as how you're Active in M and A again. Just I know that you are now back up to sort of the upper end of your leverage ratio, but could you just kind of talk about Your appetite for additional M and A or was this more like a one off opportunistic acquisition?

Speaker 8

And then I have a follow-up.

Speaker 3

Yes. No, I mean, I think, we believe D2C is a really attractive way for us to expand Our geography and also sort of extend the reach of our solutions, I think we continue to be open minded around M and A as an opportunity to accelerate our growth, either geographically or as you've seen to accelerate our growth either geographically or as you've seen in other cases where it's helped us really leapfrog our product portfolio and product development. So it will continue to be interesting, but we have been very committed to maintaining and operating within our target leverage range. I think the great news for us as a business is just given the cash flow profile of the business, we can do a little bit of everything. So we can in fact go out and do deals like this that are really accretive to our portfolio.

Speaker 3

And we do believe we'll be able to sort of swiftly pay down debt while continuing Be out there in the market from a share repurchase perspective.

Speaker 8

Great. Thanks, Sonia. And maybe just a 2 part question on D2C operationally. So just so I understand, Basically, because of the way the OEM endorsements work like these, the D2C and Dealer Inspire basically have to operate Separately and Dealer Inspire can like go into D2C's Endorsense, right? And just wanted to clarify how the 2 are going to kind of Operate side by side until you can kind of integrate the roadmaps.

Speaker 8

And then the second part of the question was just like How what sort of the visibility in terms of sort of like getting that 60% of endorsements higher like or Approval windows by the OEMs opening up in the next year or so or how do you plan on getting that 60% up? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Great question, Marvin. Thank you. So the way the OEM dealer business works for websites is that In Canada as in the U. S, you need to be certified as a preferred provider in order to bring a franchise dealer on board. Certainly, any independent operator, which again D2C Media has got over 200 independent dealers in their current Customer count, so I'm speaking only to franchise, but you need that OEM endorsement.

Speaker 2

And B2C Has been building that up in Canada to 12 endorsements, but they didn't have some of the key ones that Dealer Inspire currently has in Canada. We only have had 6 in Canada because it hasn't been a primary focus for us. Now the team locally can sell Significantly more dealers in Canada than before because they can sell DI's solution now that they're part of the Cars Commerce Family. And so we immediately open up D2C Media's TAM just by the sheer The fact that they can sell on program dealers for OEMs that they currently didn't have. I think over time, we're going to consolidate our efforts under Cars Commerce negotiate to get preferred relationships with all OEMs like we successfully have done in the U.

Speaker 2

S. We know that those relationships are easily brokered into a Canadian expansion. And so we feel very Confident working with our OEM partners that we'll rapidly expand the number of OEMs that we're eligible for because what they're really looking for is capability. And we have shown that we have the capabilities to meet all of their technical product and operational needs. And so It will take us a little time, but I hope by this time next year, we're at a much healthier mix of Full OEM inclusion and no limitations to our distribution in Canada.

Speaker 8

Perfect. That's very helpful. Thanks so much, Alex.

Operator

Thank you. And seeing no further questions, I'll turn the call back over to our host, Robin Moran, for final comments.

Speaker 1

Thank you all for your questions. We continue to share our story and we look forward to seeing many of you as part of our upcoming IR engagements. On November 15, we'll participate in RBC Capital's Conference in New York November 16, we'll participate in D. A. Davidson's Technology Summit, Also in New York and on November 20, we'll participate in Needham's Consumer Tech E Commerce Virtual Conference.

Speaker 1

Details about these events are available on the Events section of our IR website. This concludes our call and thank you for your time today.

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Earnings Conference Call
Cars.com Q3 2023
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