International Flavors & Fragrances Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
February 14, 2024

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the IAC and ANGI 4th Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. I would now like to turn the conference over to Christopher Halpin, CFO and COO of IAC. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Christopher Halpin here and welcome to the IAC and ANGI, Inc. 4th quarter earnings call. Joining me today is Joey Levin, CEO of IAC and CEO and Chairman of ANGI, Inc.

Speaker 1

Similar to last quarter, supplemental to our quarterly earnings releases, IAC has also published its quarterly shareholder letter, which is currently available on the Investor Relations section of IAC's website. We will not be reading the shareholder letter on this call. I'll shortly turn the call over to Joey to make a few brief introductory remarks, We'll then open it up to Q and A. Before we get to that, I'd like to remind you that during this presentation, we may discuss our outlook and future performance. These forward looking statements typically may be preceded by words such as we expect, we believe, we anticipate or similar statements.

Speaker 1

These forward looking views are subject to risks and uncertainties and our actual results could differ materially from the views expressed today. Some of these risks have been set forth in IAC's and ANGI Inc. 4th quarter earnings releases and our respective filings with the SEC. We'll also discuss certain non GAAP measures, which as a reminder, include adjusted EBITDA, which we'll refer to today as EBITDA for during the call. I'll also refer you to our earnings releases, the IAC shareholder letter, our public filings with the SEC and again to the Investor Relations section of our respective websites for all comparable GAAP measures and full reconciliations for all material non GAAP measures.

Speaker 1

Now I'll turn it

Speaker 2

over to Joey. Good morning. Happy Valentine's Day. I think I've done this call on Valentine's Day Many times over the years, so I'm not going to try another bad Valentine's joke. Hopefully, you've all had a chance to read the letter and review the numbers.

Speaker 2

I want to start again by giving a very big thank you to all the teams across the businesses at IAC and the corporate folks at IAC, at ANG, Meredith, MGM, Turo for making our job much easier this quarter. It's a heck of a lot easier to write these letters and get on these calls when the news is good. So to everyone for making that happen. And it wasn't just 1 quarter, 2023 was a year of real hard work, changing our mindset, getting things done on behalf of our customers and the long term health of our businesses. And it really paid off in this last quarter.

Speaker 2

So thank you all. Hopefully, Some of you are listening in this Valentine's morning. And that's why Chris and I have a spring in our step this morning. It's not just Valentine's Day, that's performance. So Drew, let's get the questions.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. The first question comes from Cory Carpenter with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Thank you. I had 2 on Angie. Maybe Joey first, could you just expand on the trends you saw in the Q4 and what led to the upside relative to your guide for ANGI? And then secondly, it would be helpful to hear your expectations on the revenue side for ANGI this year and what's embedded within your 2024 profit outlook?

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Sure. Thanks, Corey. I'll take the first and Chris will do the second. The biggest thing that we've underestimated and we've really continually underestimated this is, notwithstanding talking about it a lot is service professional retention. And The progress there has been tremendous.

Speaker 2

It's a result of a lot of things we've done to drive satisfaction. First of all, targeting better service professionals with sales, giving them more compelling committed offers, giving them a chance of success, Some things we've done on the demand side to improve the mix of demand to help their win rates. And that retention has continued to move up. And I think we haven't gotten as good at sort of modeling that upside and We look at it conservatively, but as that comes through, it makes each individual transaction for us, unit economics more profitable because we have more service professionals active in engaging with service requests. Related to that is Things like bad debt, we've been outperforming on bad debt all year because again we have happier service professionals.

Speaker 2

The other thing is the margins in our paid marketing, and we've been expanding the margins in our paid marketing through, I think, a combination of smarter spend and some conversion And obviously, that's good for margins. And all year 2023 relative to 2022, we've been much tighter on fixed costs and costs in general. And so the combination of those things all came through on profit. And I think a lot of those trends are Almost all of what I just said, I think is durable, sustainable for the future. So that's I think a good thing for Angie's margins.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Corey. In terms of outlook for 2024, we expect the revenue trend to improve over the course of the year from the declines you saw in Q4. But we also think it's important to retain flexibility in terms of revenue growth in order to do what we need to, to keep improving the foundation for user experiences, both on the pro side and the homeowner side. What does that mean? In Q1, we'd expect the decline in revenue year over year to roughly the same rate as we experienced in aggregate in Q4 of 'twenty three, maybe a little bit better in Q1.

Speaker 1

The bulk of the actions that we took last year to eliminate low margin and low quality revenues really showed up in Q2 of last year. So the comps do get easier. Q1 will be the most challenging. We expect year over year revenue declines throughout 24, but expect that percentage to narrow as we lap the easier comps and also the fruits of some of the actions that Joey has talked about and we're taking on demand side, that Joey has talked about and we're taking on demand side begin to show, but we're not forecasting a return to revenue growth this year. On profitability, we expect to sustain the 10% plus EBITDA margins we demonstrated in this last quarter when you normalize for the insurance settlement.

Speaker 1

We expect Q1 adjusted EBITDA to be up slightly year over year despite the lower revenue over what we generated to be up over what we generated in Q1 of 'twenty three. And we'd forecast 10% to 12% adjusted EBITDA margins each quarter in 2024. So and that's how you get $120,000,000 to $150,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA in our guidance. Thank you. Next question, operator?

Operator

The next question comes from John Blackledge with T. B. Cowen. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Great. Thanks. Two questions. First on Dotdash DDM Digital. The ad revenue growth acceleration was better than expected.

Speaker 4

Can you talk about the key drivers of the acceleration? And then for 2024, How should we think about the trajectory of DDM Digital ad revenue growth and EBITDA for the segment just given the acceleration in EBITDA upside in 4Q? And then second question on free cash flow in 2024. It looks like IAC will return to kind of be a big free cash flow generator. Any way to kind of free cash flow conversion of EBITDA in 2024?

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 2

I'll start and then I'll turn to Chris again. Digital revenue growth was really all the key factors: Traffic, meaning volume, price, meaning ad sales rate, premium sales monetization. And that was, I think, a big win for the business and a big change in that we're pretty proud of. You can see that core sessions, which is over 80% of traffic, grew 10% and continue to accelerate. I mean, that's a really nice trend to see.

Speaker 2

And The rate, if you just look at revenue per session, up nicely too. Premium sales is About 2 thirds of our ad revenue and that was solid really for the first time since the ad recession started in Q2 of 2022. That's a credit to again performance of our product, but also the combined sales force just working well together. And programmatic was excellent. We mentioned this in the letter, but we think our CPMs are growing more in the market and that's A combination of again technology and performance and performance marketing, which has been a real source of strength throughout the year is And just one thing I want to add on performance marketing is in this area performance Where we're delivering performance marketing?

Speaker 2

The product that we're creating is Something that our users really want from us. Users really want to hear from food and wine on what is the best air fryer. And we deliver that unbiased. We deliver that with real work put into the product. And then that also happens to monetize well because it delivers performance marketing, but you do that across all the Dotdash Meredith brands and there's a huge opportunity there.

Speaker 2

And I think we've done a really good job. That was sort of central to the acquisition thesis with Meredith, and I think we've done a really good job executing against that and it's showing up a lot over the course of 2023.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Joey. For 24, John, how we would think about overall trends in phasing is We expect digital revenue to continue to grow for all the factors that Joey articulated, while print revenues will continue to decline. Digital traffic and monetization have continued their momentum into the Q1 of 'twenty four. The ad market is Fine, not great, not bad. And we think we're taking share.

Speaker 1

We definitely think we're taking share on traffic and also on Some on revenue per session. So for the year, we'd expect 10% plus digital growth across 24%. Conversely, print revenues declined 12% in Q4 of 2023, And we'd expect similar declines next year, especially in the first half, may slow down a bit in terms of decline in the second half. When you look at our profitability, our guidance is $280,000,000 to $300,000,000 in adjusted EBITDA across all of Dotdash for the year versus $267,000,000 in adjusted EBITDA in $23,000,000 but there's some layers to that. It implies 5% to percent EBITDA growth, but what is really happening is strong growth and margin expansion continuing in digital and then offset by some profitability declines, which is what we'd expect.

Speaker 1

We've said our aim is to have our print EBITDA offset our corporate segment, but in 2023 print actually significantly outperformed corporate by $24,000,000 In this current fiscal year, We'd expect the 2 to be pretty much equal. So really All of that $280,000,000 to $300,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA guidance for this coming year is digital EBITDA. That pattern will be pronounced in the Q1. We expect digital EBITDA to grow 40% plus year over year in the quarter. Print will be roughly breakeven on adjusted EBITDA basis in the corner.

Speaker 1

It's seasonally the smallest revenue and also we've got some expense increases like postage flowing through. And then finally, corporate expense should be roughly equal in the $9,000,000 range to what we saw in for those looking year over year, just remember we had the $44,000,000 lease impairment that flowed through in Q1 of 23% in corporate. When you roll that up, adjusted EBITDA in aggregate will grow in Q1, but strong digital growth will be masked by declines in print. And then for the year, digital revenue should continue as we said at 10 plus growth. You'll see that margin scale, the incremental margins and the seasonal uplift, and we feel good about the momentum trend across the business.

Speaker 1

Your last question on free cash flow conversion across all of IAC, if I'm getting that right. We felt good about getting back to free Cash flow generation last year, it's been a major point of focus by Joey to all of us. And we expect our conversion to only in 24 due to a couple of factors. One is aggregate EBITDA as evidenced in our guidance should be up even with the sale of Mosaic There led by DDM and ANGI. CapEx should stay in the $70,000,000 range.

Speaker 1

Last year in that 15% conversion that you referenced. We purchased the land under our headquarters for $80,000,000 that's obviously not recurring. Interest net interest expense should only improve with higher yield for the full year than we had in our cash last year and then we've got $1,400,000,000 of NOLs, which is a substantial tax yield. So roll that all up and we would expect 50% plus of adjusted EBITDA to convert free cash flow in 2024 and look forward to continue to improve going forward. Thank you, operator.

Speaker 1

Next question?

Operator

The next question comes from Brian Fitzgerald with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Thanks. Angie, thanks again for the comments on the shape of the year There, we want to ask more specifically on consumer demand. I think the service request decline was one of the steepest we've seen Since you've been prioritizing quality and profitability, are you closing in on getting the customer acquisition engine where you want it And beginning to scale that back up, do you have line of sight for when that hits sometime in 2024?

Speaker 2

Sure, Brian. I would say not yet in terms of line of sight. We are making real progress. We are and I'll also just point out and I think you said this in the letter, monetized transactions are doing better monetize as well and matching that better with service professionals. So that service request decline, while steep, is not as Steep to the businesses as it appears.

Speaker 2

But maybe it's helpful to talk about some of the things that we're working on and how those impact the business. I mentioned before and I'll keep mentioning just because it's so important to the business, the service And relatedly, the improvement in monetized transactions per SR. Those things improve our margins on the unit economics of any transaction and they also are going to start to improve our marketing allowables, which means that we can go out in our paid marketing and buy more, buy better because We have better matching behind it. The sources of demand beyond paid marketing is really A combination of direct and SEO and that's going to come from improvements in the product experience. We know what drives homeowner satisfaction and homeowner repeat rate and that's better matching with service professionals and a better chance of getting a job done well.

Speaker 2

And so we are starting to drive those underlying metrics. We shared some of those stats in the letter and we need that now to show up over time in direct and SEO. It's not going to be sort of an automatic where it just Sort of flips on a switch, but it is something that over time with a better experience you start to see those users coming in, coming in more often coming in our free channels and referring their friends and family. That's what happens with a better product experience That does take time for people to realize it. And the other thing I'll say is that is what we saw happen in Europe.

Speaker 2

Europe has grown 20% the last couple of quarters. Europe is I don't know that we'll hold on to 20% exactly, but double digit growth is very real. Europe has been real a while. And that's a product of, I think, a better customer experience. And the other thing just tactically is that the comps do get easier starting in Q2.

Speaker 5

Got it. Thanks, Joey. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Brian. Drew, next question.

Operator

The next question comes from Jason Helfstein with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Thanks guys. Good morning. Two questions on Doctor. Ashmara and then a Housekeeping question. So what percent of ads or coverage does the Cipher cover?

Speaker 6

And is there still risk of CPMs fall post cookie deprecation. And then how do you think potentially about offsetting that with like a higher mix of performance inventory, so kind of the Cypher. And then how are you thinking about the impact of the Amazon media partnership and then thoughts about expanding that to other DSPs and retail partners in 2024? And then I've got a housekeeping question after that.

Speaker 2

Sure. I'll start. The a lot of those questions are related. So First, we have deciphering about 30% of our direct ad campaigns since we launched it less than a year ago. And I think that's like 150 clients and the folks who are buying it are, As far as we can tell, very happy so far.

Speaker 2

No sign that people won't be repeating on that. And then when we've done case studies And we've done a couple, one with a large well known beauty brand. We did a case study with Amazon and in both cases saw a meaningful lift relative cookie based targeting. And so we're we have a lot of confidence in Decipher's ability to deliver for our customers. The one of the things that will drive that DeCypher adoption is plugging into the pipes in the purchase path of DSPs, demand side platforms, so that advertisers can access the Cypress targeting easier or access it in areas where they're already organizing their money and spending their money.

Speaker 2

So Amazon is the first example of that, but we hope and expect that there will be many on that, we're obviously targeting the biggest ones first. We're working with Amazon is happening already. We're working on something with Google and then we will look to really integrate with every ad agency. And this is a thing that's a win win. It's a win for The advertiser on performance, it's a win for the partner where their data combined with our data delivers better, more spend and certainly it's a win for us.

Speaker 2

If we can build into those pipes, which I think is totally doable, then we've got big opportunities for growth from here.

Speaker 6

And then just the last even question For Chris, the search and emerging and other were both weaker as far as the I think the 2024 outlook versus the Street. I guess with Search, is this the new baseline for Search? Just any color. And then are there any one time factors you want to call out Why emerging and other was weaker than the Street as well? Thanks.

Speaker 1

Yes. Thank you, Jason. On search, The business definitely experienced a tougher market environment at the end of last year. You can see that and it's producing $7,500,000 of adjusted EBITDA in the 4th quarter. This is it's continued in the Q1 of this year, but we believe We've reached the baseline where we are and it should grow from here.

Speaker 1

That business has always done a great job of finding new areas in digital advertising create value and create profit streams, that's our goal for 'twenty four. But Hitting a baseline in profitability recently is what drives the $20,000,000 to $40,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA guidance And that's really just a reflection of the softer environment for that business. On emerging and other, it's a different story. Last year, that business, in 'twenty three generated $41,800,000 of adjusted EBITDA. We disclosed a month ago that we'd signed a definitive agreement to sell our Mosaic subsidiary for $160,000,000 in cash that is expected to close very shortly that transaction.

Speaker 1

Last year and this is going to be in our disclosure, Mosaic generated about $1,000,000 of revenue per quarter and averaged about $5,000,000 of EBITDA. So think of it as $20,000,000 of the $41,800,000 of EBITDA is being sold closing this month. Additionally, and this is In Joey's letter, we disclosed that in Q1 of this year, we expect to incur about $20,000,000 of transaction expenses associated with that sale. That's obviously non recurring, but will hit our definition of adjusted EBITDA in the Q1 and for the year. So the emerging and other guidance of 0 to 20, Half of that is non recurring is brought down or it's impacted by $40,000,000 related to Mosaic, half of that is non recurring transaction expenses and then half of that is run rate profitability that we sold for $160,000,000 So On an ongoing basis, I think of it as a $20,000,000 to $40,000,000 adjusted EBITDA segment And the bulk of that would be care.

Speaker 1

Does that help, Jason?

Speaker 6

Yes. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you. Drew, next question.

Operator

The next question comes from Justin Patterson with KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Great. Thank you very much and good morning. Just 2 on ANGI. You've kind of alluded to it a little bit so far, but would love to hear just what the top 2 or 3 priorities are for the business in 2024 Just keep executing on the foundation that you've built. And then just around international, you've mentioned taking some of the learnings from abroad and bringing domestically into the ANGI product.

Speaker 4

Could you elaborate a little more just what that means and how long that could potentially play out? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. So I'd say driving free and repeat traffic through better user experiences. Obviously, that has big impacts on our business, on our P and L, and it's something that everybody in the ANGI organization is thinking about. 2nd, and again, I'm not a broken record on this, but we'll keep going to health of the active SP network. That's the retention gains we've seen, holding those, growing those.

Speaker 2

That's making sure Pros are active and spending more and getting wins for that spend. That's better targeting within the Sales to reach our SP network, and you can see that we've been delivering that through better through a smaller sales force, better targeted. But again, that all speaks to the health of the SP network. And the other one within, again, that same framework is starting to drive online self enroll for SPs. And probably the third would be unit economics, which is Certainly, partially number 1 and number 2, in terms of demand and supply, but It's also driving things like conversion.

Speaker 2

We've had some big wins recently on conversion, but we still, I think, have a long way to go In terms of upside on driving conversion, we went through a period where conversion across most of our channels Leaked a little bit and I think we can get a lot of that back and so we're very focused on driving conversion in ways that are win win for users in our platform. And when that comes through, that moves the unit economics. So those are the big 3. In terms of international, One is, well, first you saw Jeff Kipp who was running the international business, who did a great job getting that All of Europe onto a common platform and winning user experience. Now he is in the U.

Speaker 2

S. And some others from his team are now also helping out in the U. S. We brought the Head of Marketing in Europe is now running Performance Marketing in the U. S.

Speaker 2

And the product and marketing leadership from Europe and the U. S. Are now much more closely intertwined and interacting. The other thing, and this has been a theme for us for a while, is The and maybe it was easier to do this in Europe quietly than it is sort of in the U. S.

Speaker 2

With the public disclosure, but We did a lot to optimize user experience in Europe over short term monetization for long term benefit. And that took a while to come through, but it has delivered in a meaningful way. And those trade offs are trade offs that we've been making in the U. S. And we expect to continue making in the U.

Speaker 2

S. And then the last one is, and this is very, very early for us, but the European business is Almost entirely online self enroll as opposed to a phone Salesforce and the Europe is almost entirely online self enrolling and U. S. Is basically the inverse. So we're working on a lot of learnings there to see how we can drive more online self enroll in the U.

Speaker 2

S. And rely less phone sales and really focus the phone sales on the opportunities that warrant it.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Operator, next question?

Operator

The next question comes from Dan Kurnos with The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Great. Thanks. Good morning. Joey, just two quick follow ups on Angie. You've been talking about it a lot this morning.

Speaker 7

I guess, just how do you balance The consumer and the user and SP experience, if you start going back towards showing multiple SPs per service request. And to follow-up from Brian's question, just are there any verticals where you've started to make a change or you're starting to see a return to SR growth. Just help us think about how you're attacking that a little bit more? And then, Chris, just on Dotdash on the margins, Appreciate the color for the year. You've taken a lot of cost out of that business already.

Speaker 7

So I get sort of the cadence for 20 But like what are we waiting for? Is it a revenue level like you talked about in the past? Or do we need to just see premium continue to Staying strong this year to kind of get that real sort of vertical inflection that I think we're still waiting for on Dotdash margins. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Okay. So first question, Dan, it is This is so far a win win, meaning when we are matching homeowners with more service professionals, We are driving homeowner satisfaction, meaning that promoter score and we think ultimately repeat rate. And we have been seeing ROI for pros increase. And while we can't measure this exactly, our thesis on this is more jobs are getting done on the platform as opposed to off platform. So While there may be more competition within our platform, meaning if we were previously matching with less than 1 and now we're matching with More than one, I think, monetized transactions per SR was 1.27 in the last quarter.

Speaker 2

While we're matching with more and there is therefore more competition, we think more of that is staying in our platform as opposed to the kind of unknown competition for that same job that was previously happening off platform. So we want to keep driving that number up and we want to keep giving both Homeowners and Pros a better chance of success on the platform. And we can see that play out in the numbers so far. So that is that balance that you're asking about is a, we want to continue pushing it up. We can't push it up forever, but we want to continue pushing it up because we think it's a win for all on the platform.

Speaker 2

In terms of verticals, the short answer to your question, I think, is no. But again, the things that we're trying to do our focus on certain user paths and user experiences. So where a user comes in from and then what we do with that user as they move through our ecosystem. And that's kind of how we organize is thinking about each of those paths into our ecosystem and making sure they deliver a winning consumer experience and a winning pro experience. And a lot of that as you've seen in our revenue is modifying those experiences to reduce some revenue.

Speaker 2

But we are, as I say, if we want to talk about a region, confident, Europe did that and Europe has had real success. So that's the path in the U. S.

Speaker 1

Yes. And thanks for the question on margins. You can see the scale in our margin structure by The incremental margins across 2023 and particularly in Q4 of 2023 where we were at basically 90% incremental adjusted EBITDA margins on digital. For 24%, if you think about it as 10% plus, but just for simplicity, say 10% digital revenue growth, That would be $89,000,000 of incremental revenue. If you pick the midpoint of the $280,000,000 to $300,000,000 adjusted EBITDA guidance and you said that is equivalent to digital EBITDA, You're talking about $47,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA uplift.

Speaker 1

So there you have north of 50% incremental margins. Our investments in cost and digital are really content, especially video, which is performing well for us. And frankly, our partners want more video out of our brands, also performance marketing and then investments in Decipher. And we can fund those in part through reallocation of costs from historical activities that are less strategic. So We feel pretty good about our ability to continue to manage our cost structure and feel good about incremental margins.

Speaker 1

We've said we expect 50% to 60% incremental digital EBITDA adjusted EBITDA margins in this business. And we may be able to do better, but we also want to keep the growth momentum going.

Speaker 2

Thanks guys.

Speaker 6

Appreciate it.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Operator, next question.

Operator

The next question comes from Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Thanks so much for taking the questions. Maybe 2 if I could. First, just following up on John's question earlier around Dotdash Meredith, in the letter you talked about the aspects of the business through the lens of premium, programmatic and performance marketing. Can you Talk us through some of the key learnings from 2023 and how you're thinking about the opportunity set through those 3 prisms for the business looking out to 2024 and beyond? And then second, turning to Angie, you talked in the letter about transacting SPs declining but improving from a second derivative standpoint and you're still shrinking the sales force.

Speaker 8

Can you talk about the balance between driving efficiency and return in the sales force and aiming that towards the optimized level of service provider growth? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. I'll do the last one first before I forget it. This is so we You're right, we have been reducing the size of the sales force over the last 18 months. And the main thing is driving up productivity by eliminating unproductive calls. I think we were making a lot of phone calls to a lot of pros that In the end, didn't really make economic sense.

Speaker 2

So we've cut back on that meaningfully. That is a driver of the retention gains that we've seen and that's the driver of the efficiency gains that we've seen too. We're also prioritizing prospects more smartly now. So we have data. We built a system last year To deploy against this, we have data now to rate prospects that we call and make sure that we're Focusing the effort of the sales on the best prospects that are most likely to impact our business for the better, meaning most likely to stick with our platform and most likely to get jobs done well for our homeowners.

Speaker 2

That's also the type of offer we're Pushing through our sales force, we're focused on higher commitment offers that we've known this for a long time, but I think there was a period where we deviated from it that We really have to give PROs a chance to succeed. And so that means getting them to a higher commitment so that they can see enough volume through our platform to see that's a little bit harder in the beginning because you're not going to make as many sales, but it's long term better because those sales are to be more valuable and those pros have a better chance of succeeding with the platform. I think those are the big ones on the sales force. And now I forgot what the other questions were. I will start.

Speaker 2

Okay. Got it.

Speaker 1

So Eric, on DDM, you hit on the 3 key digital revenue categories, drivers of premium, programmatic and performance marketing. The one top of the funnel, so to speak, element though is traffic. So To talk about all the supports or drivers of revenue growth, traffic is growing. You saw we're getting to stability on overall sessions and core is growing 10% in the quarter. Those trends have continued and or strengthened so far this year.

Speaker 1

So overall traffic sessions impressions increasing. That then from an ad perspective either falls into the first is premium that we sell directly to our advertising brands and agencies and then what's left over essentially leads to programmatic. Premium, it's been a tough market for us Since we acquired DDM since we acquired Meredith, really starting in May of 'twenty two when the ad market fell out of bed, But we are seeing momentum there. And as Joey said earlier, we're seeing performance by the combined sales force and we'll keep that momentum going. Programmatic, the team has done a great job with our ad stack and continuing to optimize and improve the performance of our ads and our monetization.

Speaker 1

Decipher will definitely be a tailwind for premium, bless you. And then increasingly as we do the connections into things like Amazon, other DSPs, platforms, we think will increase our programmatic yield, which will be a tailwind there. And then finally, performance marketing, Neil and team are exceptional performance marketers, and you can see the acceleration quarter to quarter Across the portfolio in performance marketing going 0 plus 12 plus 22 plus 31. We expect it to continue. Comps will get tougher, but we think we're as good as anybody in that space.

Speaker 1

And then finally, we don't talk about it much, but licensing, which has been a drag on digital revenue due to some syndication partners and other dynamics is starting to get stronger and we think some of our syndication partners can be a source of growth in 2024. So They're all separate factors, but we feel good about the pace and executing on those this year forward to drive growth. Thanks, Eric. Operator, next question.

Operator

The next question comes from Kunal Madhukar with UBS. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. One on organic traffic, can you talk about what percentage of your total traffic on both DDM as well as ANGI is organic? And then the second question relates to ANGI and you talked about earlier in terms of the number of transactions per service request, the monetized transaction per service request being at 127%. So can you talk about in an ideal state, what is this percentage level that you are targeting? And what does it mean for revenue per monetized transaction?

Speaker 2

Thank you. Sure. On The breakdown of traffic, we don't provide that publicly. I think we've given some data on DDM in the past, but that We don't share obviously organic is a very important and large portion of the mix, but we don't do the breakdown. In terms of monetized transactions for SR, it's a very good and Fair question.

Speaker 2

And the answer is we don't know yet and it gets a little bit back to Dan's question from earlier. We want to keep pushing that up. We want to keep giving homeowners and pros a better chance of a job done well on our platform. There is a point that you would go too high and so we don't want to go beyond that point and we haven't found that point yet. So certainly room from here, but it doesn't go up to infinity.

Speaker 2

And in terms of revenue per SR, that's a little bit different. Obviously, Monetized transactions per SR is going to be a very big driver of that, but also the I'll call it quality of the SR, but Quality may be an unfair word. It's what mix it is. So a home remodel job is worth meaningfully more than a home cleaning job. The channel that comes through matters, how sort of far down the purchase funnel the homeowner might be matters, How much information there is within the SR matters.

Speaker 2

And so those things as we refine the service request can drive revenue per SR up. And one of the things that's been happening certainly over the course of the last year is we've been both improving the mix shift and improving the quality of those SRs to help drive the win rate And that's something that we hope to continue.

Speaker 1

The only thing I'd add is just we've become increasingly focused on monetized transactions per SR As an indication of the 2 sided health of the platform and quality of the experience. So, and there's no silver bullet to optimize that. Clearly, having it Greater than 1 is good, because that's a better consumer experience. If it got to 4 that's suboptimal for SPs because in terms of their experience. So there's something in there.

Speaker 1

But the more that number increases, The higher the quality of SRs we're getting and also the higher the quality of our matching technology and of our SP base. So we believe it has room to run, as Joey said, and it's a key metric to us in terms of the improvement in our overall two sided marketplace. Thank you. Drew, next question.

Operator

The next question comes from Ygal Arounian with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Good morning guys. First, two questions. First on ANGI, we've been talking a lot about the optimizations, but Maybe just a dial in specifically on the user side, because about a year ago, we started talking about Joey started talking about Bringing back a greater focus on the integration, I guess, between ads and leads and services and An optimization around the user, how

Speaker 6

much is left there?

Speaker 5

Can you give us a little update on specifically on the user side and What users are seeing today that might be better than they were seeing a year ago and how much is left? And then on the broader IC business in the letter, you talked about being More offensive on capital allocation with your individual businesses being in a healthier position now. And you also talked about In the light of the shift from goods to experiences and see that as kind of sustaining for longer right around the MGM story, How does that fit into your M and A strategy and where you're focused on finding the right capital allocation? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Sure. So in terms of the ads and leads integration, it's a really Astute question and top of mind for us right now. You focused on the user side, which is where as it relates to integration, we've actually made the most progress. And we have some big things rolling out shortly actually along those lines in terms of again, I'm talking homeowner side. So Previously, the algorithm for how a homeowner would match to Historically, ads froze and leads froze was complicated and I'd say somewhat illogical.

Speaker 2

And we now have improved the algorithm to the point which we are getting ready to roll out now, which we've been testing for, I don't know, 6 or 9 months now, to better distribute and better match. So a little bit of what we've been doing and seeing on the monetized transactions for SR is a result of what we've been testing there. So that a homeowner comes in and has the best chance of Capturing with the right pros independent of whether they were historically ads pros or leads pros. And that is a very big deal for driving the business. On the Pro side, which you didn't ask about, but is also important is I think there's still work to do on the integration.

Speaker 2

So, we still have multiple apps. We still have multiple back end systems. We're Slowly but steadily migrating folks onto common systems, which will reduce our OpEx, reduce our or improve our speed of execution, but we still have a lot of work to do on that side of the integration. And it was work that was never done historically that was sort of hiding in the background and that we are now tackling and is really important to get done, I think will yield real value in terms of our operating efficiency. In terms of capital allocation and the shift towards experiences, those do go hand in hand.

Speaker 2

That is an area of focus for us for sure. We believe this trend is a long term trend, has been a long term trend and will be trend for a while still to come. And we like the idea of businesses that benefit from that trend. So we've spent a lot of time recently looking in that area and looking deeply in that area and we'll continue to do so. Nothing imminent on that, but that is certainly a focus of our capital allocation.

Speaker 2

And I think if we look at last year, We bought back $165,000,000 of IAC. We bought another $100,000,000 of Turo. We bought $80,000,000 worth of land. And those were, I think, easy transactions in each case, given the data That at the time now with steady cash flow and the businesses I think in a more stable place, We're starting to look more opportunistically externally. Again, nothing to Nothing immediately on the horizon, but I think we have the position to do that now.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Operator, let's have one last question.

Operator

Thank you. That question will come from Brent Thill with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Speaker 10

Joey, just a follow-up question on capital allocation. I guess, when you think about what you're seeing in the private market and asset prices, I'm just curious, Many have asked like why not been more aggressive last year when we've had this downturn. Are you starting to see asset prices go back up? Are you seeing Thanks, maybe not as buoyant as most would expect given the public market recovery. Curious in terms of kind of what you're seeing from your perspective?

Speaker 2

Yes, Brent, we tried on a couple of things last year to be opportunistic That was more public market than private market. And while the valuations were down a lot to your point, the Expected premiums were up a lot and we couldn't quite get there on those things. The Private market, I think, is still totally irrational, if you want the real view. I think that These businesses did a phenomenal job, very smartly raising enough capital to be able to wait out markets. And I think there's still a lot of capital that has been raised to go after private opportunities.

Speaker 2

And that capital has a fuse on it to be deployed. And so the private markets need not be rational on those things. And so unless something is on the verge of running out of money, I don't think anybody has to face reality on valuations and therefore it is not I think a productive place for Opportunities, that is a very broad generalization and certainly there will be exceptions to that, if not many exceptions to that. But That's been our experience so far in looking at opportunities there.

Speaker 10

Yes. Maybe if you just to time one quick one on the emerging assets. Anything surprising you in the portfolio that we haven't talked about as it relates to the smaller emerging stories in the portfolio?

Speaker 2

Well, I'm glad you raised it. We didn't talk about Vivien at all. But Vivien is a good growing product and business. I mean, it's kind of amazing what the business has done, continues to grow very healthily in a market that is shrinking dramatically. So the Not many people aren't familiar with Vivian, so let me just explain what they do.

Speaker 2

They're in matching nurses with jobs. They focused primarily on the travel nurse category, which turned out to be a very big category, especially during the pandemic. Still is a very big category, but the growth in that category or that category shrank a lot post pandemic. Still bigger than what it was pre pandemic, but it's trinket. Throughout that whole period, Vivien has been growing.

Speaker 2

And the reason Vivien has been growing is because they have an incredible concentration of the available nurses in the market using the platform actively using the platform, building profiles on the platform, looking for jobs. And while there's been some near term volatility in that market with the pandemic and the need for Nurses in hospitals and facilities, the supply demand imbalance is still enormous, meaning there are many more Facilities that need nurses than there are nurses available to do those jobs. And so Vivien, I think is very well positioned there. Parth Bhakta, who runs that business, who founded and runs that business is a phenomenal entrepreneur and has done a wonderful job growing and building through that. And we think that business has a lot of potential.

Speaker 2

Where it goes from here, we'll see, but it is a The execution so far has been really tremendous in a fun small business not moving the needle for IAC. But since you asked about it, we do like that one in the emerging category. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Thank you all for your support and participation this morning. Operator, that's it. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 6

Bye bye.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
International Flavors & Fragrances Q4 2023
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