TechTarget - Q1 2024

Transcript

Moderator (participant)

Good afternoon. Thank you for attending the TechTarget's first quarter 2024 conference call and webcast. My name is Cameron, and I will be your moderator for today. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for quick questions and answers at the end. I would now like to pass the conference over to your host, Charles Rennick, General Counsel. You may proceed.

Charles Rennick (General Counsel and Corporate Secretary)

Thank you, Cameron, and good afternoon, everyone. The speakers joining us here today are Greg Strakosch, our Executive Chairman, Mike Cotoia, our Chief Executive Officer, and Dan Noreck, our Chief Financial Officer. Before turning the call over to Greg, we would like to remind everyone on the call of our earnings release process. As previously announced, in order to provide you with an update on our business in advance of the call, we have posted our shareholder letter on the Investor Relations section of our website and furnished it on 8-K. You can also find these materials with SEC free of charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. The corresponding webcast, as well as a replay of this conference call, will be made available on the investor relations section of our website. Following Greg's introductory remarks, the management team will be available to answer questions.

Any statements made today by TechTarget that are not factual, including during the Q&A, may be considered forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties, are based on assumptions and are not guarantees of our future performance. Actual results may differ materially from our forecast and from these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including those discussed in the risk factors section of our most recent periodic reports on Forms 10-Q and 10-K. These statements speak only as of the date of this call, and TechTarget undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events that may arise after this conference call, except as required by law. Finally, we may also refer to certain financial measures not prepared in accordance with GAAP.

A reconciliation of certain of these non-GAAP financial measures, the most comparable GAAP measures, to the extent available without unreasonable effort, accompanies our shareholder letter. With that, I'll turn the call over to Greg.

Greg Strakosch (Co-Founder & Executive Chairman)

Great. Thank you, Charlie. On January 10th, we entered into a definitive agreement with Informa to combine TechTarget with Informa Tech's digital business. The combined company will have increased scale with over 8,000 customers in over 20 countries. First-party purchase intent data from over 220 leading digital brands and a permissioned audience of over 50 million people. The combination increases our TAM by 10 times as we will enter 18 new vertical markets with a unique end-to-end solution across our clients' go-to-market. We've been pleased with the progress we have made over the past four months, and we are on track to have this transaction closed during the second half of 2024. The combination creates a company with a strong financial profile. We expect 2024 pro forma revenues to be over $500 million.

Within five years, we expect revenue to grow to over $1 billion, and with at least 35% EBITDA margins. We structured the deal so our shareholders will get some immediate benefit by paying out $11.79 per share in cash, and long-term benefit by providing the opportunity for shareholders to participate in a long-term value creation through a 43% stake going forward. In regards to our first quarter, we are pleased to report revenues above consensus, and we believe our investments and product offerings are and will continue to pay off. We are forecasting Q2 revenues, revenues to be in the range of $57 million-$59 million, $59 million, which represents a 12% sequential increase from Q1 and roughly flat year-over-year.

We see that as support for a stabilized business with some signs of a return to normal seasonality. This reflects a macro technology environment in which customers remain cautious regarding their sales and marketing investment levels. We expect this dynamic to continue throughout 2024 because of uncertainty surrounding inflation, interest rates, the presidential election, and geopolitical issues. We expect a better macro environment in 2025 and 2026, which is good timing, as the combined company will have additional scale to take advantage of the recovery. I will now open the call to questions.

Moderator (participant)

Perfect. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by two. Again, to ask a question, press star one. And as a reminder, if you are using a speakerphone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking a question, and we will pause here briefly as questions are registered. And the first question is from the line of Justin Patterson with KeyBanc. You may proceed.

Miles Jakubiak (Associate Analyst in Equity Research)

Hi, thanks for taking the question. This is Miles Jakubiak on for Justin. Just to start, I would love to get an update on what you're seeing with the macro environment. You touched on a little bit with kind of the transition from R&D spend to S&M, S&M spend, but maybe just touch on, you know, any updates you're seeing there and any change to visibility?

Mike Cotoia (CEO and Director)

Great. Thanks, Miles. In terms of the macro, nothing has really changed over the last several quarters. We still see the enterprise technology market being, you know, facing some headwinds with high interest rates, inflation, as we mentioned in the shareholder, a lot of international tensions, and we have an upcoming presidential election. But I'd say we've been in business... We're going to be celebrating our 25th anniversary this year of being in business, and we've managed through several pullbacks. You know, our playbook is pretty simple. We leverage our strong balance sheet to take an opportunity to invest in the right around product evolution, but, functionality, audience, and content to make sure that we continue to be the leader when it comes to B2B, enterprise B2B marketing and sales services for our customers.

So even though there's no real catalyst, we feel that the investments that we're making are paying off. We've done a lot of stuff on our product front in terms of leveraging some of our AI functionality and capabilities. You know, it's our first full quarter that, customers have been able to leverage our IntentMail.AI, which we've seen a great retention, increase in usage from sales users that are in our platform, that are leveraging our prospect-level intelligence for email outreach and automation, again, based on our prospect-level intelligence, and we combine it with our customer's most recent and most relevant product marketing, positioning.

So we're seeing healthy adoption on that, retention, competitive usage, repetitive usage, and our roadmap on that is gonna continue to expand the features to work with multi-email sequences and integrations into sales engagement platforms. Continuing around the platform and making sure we're making the right investments, as we mentioned in the shareholder letter and in Greg's opening, you know, 2024 doesn't present a lot, doesn't present a lot of catalysts in terms of high interest rates, and as I mentioned, the high inflation. But we know a couple of things to be true, that the tech market will return, interest rates are low, and there'll be a recovery.

So making sure we're making the right investments today to capture that recovery, and as you can see in our Q1 results and our Q2 forecast, we feel we're doing the right things to navigate through this challenging macro.

Miles Jakubiak (Associate Analyst in Equity Research)

That, that's helpful. Thank you. And then maybe just building off that last point, about investments into products. It seems like there's some upcoming improvements to Priority Engine and maybe a little bit more focus on the direct integration side. So, just would love to hear about how you think about current product priorities, as you kind of invest through this cycle. Thank you.

Mike Cotoia (CEO and Director)

Yeah, great. As I mentioned, IntentMail, which is our generative AI offering, is one full quarter in use. We've had a big focus on integrations into our customer CRM, marketing automation platforms. But over the last six to nine months and beyond, we've really made a concentrated effort of integrating our Priority Engine information and data into other technology platforms. Well, we reallocated and invested in internal resources to help support customers who want to integrate Priority Engine data into existing workflows within other platforms. We have announced some partnerships, and we're going to continue to announce some strategic partnerships throughout Q2, Q3, and Q4. And we're working with partners that we are focused on a share of, like, a critical mass of joint customers.

Our customers are looking to get the benefits from TechTarget's first-party data being leveraged with our partner's existing platforms. We're seeing some good success on that, and it's a big focus for us, and we, we're pleased where we are with this, and we're pleased with the roadmap.

Miles Jakubiak (Associate Analyst in Equity Research)

Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it.

Moderator (participant)

The next question is from the line of Bhavin Shah with Deutsche Bank. You may proceed.

Bhavin Shah (Director of Software Equity Research)

Great. Thanks for taking my question. Just, just kind of on that last point in terms of product improvements, just on the, IntentMail and Priority Engine, when do we think about that kind of helping translate over to kind of improvement in the long-term revenue as that kind of continues to lag overall total revenue growth?

Mike Cotoia (CEO and Director)

Yeah, that's a great question, Bhavin. So the investments we're making now, and again, IntentMail being one of them, and I'll get into some of our roadmap around Priority Engine, which will help support the question you just asked. Look, it's really important for us on two fronts: getting our customers to continue to use and be engaged in the platform, as well as the integration story. And those are big investments that we've talked about, and we're making some really, when we look at it, some good progress against both of those areas. So on the IntentMail, that's one version of our, you know, personal assist product line, product family. There's other avenues that we're looking to do in terms of, you know, expanding those features to work with, as I mentioned, multi-email sequences and integrations with sales engagement platforms.

So think like Salesloft and Outreach and organizations like that, that wanna have access to prospect-level intelligence as part of their SDR or BDR cadence of outreach into customers. So again, integrations, personalized data, prospect-level data creates stickiness, more engagement, and more, more usage. On the integration strategy, I explained what we're doing on that end. And in terms of the Priority Engine roadmap, we have a very large initiative that we're evolving the platform to incorporate other TechTarget offerings into a more, into a common user experience. So that'll be driven by a unified visualization of program impact, action intent-based insights to support program decision-making, and the ability to identify and take action with active buying teams.

So if you look at this, it's more about getting the end-to-end solution offerings from content to demand, to brand, all inside a unified platform, so customers can have access and insights and visibility to the updated visualizations of how their overall programs are doing versus being siloed into an intent offering only. So that, you know, those are the investments that we're making. We're seeing good traction on that, and you'll be seeing some announcements at the end of the second half of 2024 about the roadmap and the overall Priority Engine platform and capability strategy.

Bhavin Shah (Director of Software Equity Research)

Got it. That's helpful there. And just one follow-up, a little bit more macro-related, but it looks like your top 10 largest kind of legacy customer base, that their revenue grew in the quarter, which is great to see for the first time in a while, but the remainder continues to decline year-over-year. Anything to call out macro-wise, SMB, or large enterprise that you can notice a difference?

Mike Cotoia (CEO and Director)

Yeah, you know what? I'll say on the enterprise accounts, we talked about over the last several quarters, some of the key acquisitions and investments we made with Enterprise Strategy Group, BrightTALK, and Xtelligent to create this end-to-end go-to-market strategy and product offering to help our customers. So in terms of enterprise accounts, you know, we have more entry points now with our product portfolio position and our capability set to get in there from, you know, research, intelligence, and advisory, to creating strategic content, to putting the programs, and then, you know, activate against the right accounts. And so we're actually seeing a great momentum in terms of penetrating different budget stakeholders across the entire go-to-market strategy.

And that's, you know, that makes a lot of sense in terms of, you know, the larger the account, the more pockets and the more end-to-end that we can get involved in. In terms of the smaller accounts, I think this market is absolutely putting some headwinds against the smaller accounts. But again, I go back to our product offerings that we have today versus that we had two years ago, where we have different area points and different entry points to drive value for our customers. And what I mean by that, if a customer in an SMB or, you know, smaller account isn't ready to do intent or leverage a Priority Engine subscription, they might have a need for lower end of the funnel confirmed projects.

They might need some help with their positioning, so we leverage the ESG capabilities with our BrightTALK Studios and our content creation. They might want to do demand over a quarter versus a year as they navigate through this environment. Again, it's only been 14 months since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. A lot of these smaller accounts are looking to rightsize their budgets, make sure they're managing expenses, and they're looking for true value propositions to meet their whether it's content, whether it's their brand, brand position, demand, or intent. So we feel we're in a pretty good position in terms of engaging and providing value for those SMB customers as well.

Bhavin Shah (Director of Software Equity Research)

Thanks so much, and appreciate taking my question.

Moderator (participant)

The next question is from the line of Joshua Reilly with Needham. You may proceed.

Joshua Reilly (Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah, thanks for taking my question. So as we're looking at the June quarter guidance here, I believe typically, historically, you guys have talked about how some new product releases by your customers can drive the, you know, the typical seasonality with a sequential increase in revenues. Just wanted to understand, is that what you... the normal seasonality, is that what's, what is driving the improved revenues, or is there some other maybe factor at play there that we should be aware of?

Mike Cotoia (CEO and Director)

I think it's a couple things, Josh. I think it's first of all, it's the breadth of the product offerings that we have that can really, you know, when you work, when you work with customers who might not be ready to do annual or multi-year deals, they still need to help support their sales targets, you know, pipeline, revenue forecast. And as we've said before, even in a down market, when that market recovers, there's gonna be a flight back to quality, and that quality is gonna be driven by first-party purchase intent data and permission-based audiences.

But our conversations with those customers that started in the middle of last year, when we said we're starting to see some normalization or some, you know, things starting to stabilize, is really understanding how we can serve their needs based on what our customers are really focused on today. That's paying off right now. So as we came into 2024, the portfolio was well architected, well-positioned, and being able to, like, accommodate what our customers needs, again, whether it's around content strategy or brand to demand, to intent, to, yeah, bottom of the funnel, confirmed projects and qualified sales opportunities, the quality of our data, and the quality of our investments are paying off. Now, we just launched and announced, and we're running a multiple beta/early adopter program around our Account Insights Feed.

So it's a new Priority Engine offering that was announced. That really won't have any revenue impact in Q2, but it's a different use case from our prospect-level Priority Engine offerings. This new offering is Account Insights only. It will be used for our customers against their programmatic ABM initiatives and propensity scoring. So again, I go back and say, first-party data is where the gold is, and, not only at the prospect level, but also at the account level. And we believe with the future of Google announcing that they are deprecating third-party cookies, and they're looking to sunset that now in 2025, we're creating another revenue stream that's gonna be very impactful for our customers with new buyers and new case studies that we weren't able to get into the mix before. So that's what we were focused on.

But in terms of the June revenue, I mean, we got into this, projected this, two quarters ago, and said we expect, you know, Q1 to be down around 10%, Q1, we're gonna be... Q2, we're gonna be closing the gap. Q3 will be relatively up, and then Q4, you know, we see an increase in the revenue year-over-year. So we're on track of what we've laid out, and, we're pleased with the performance of the business.

Joshua Reilly (Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. That's very helpful. And then, how should we think about the growth margin leverage moving into Q2? As we know, your margins are sensitive to the overall levels of revenue, but then you also have a lot of other investments you're making here. Are there any other considerations that we should be thinking about as we kind of model our Q2 growth margin and going forward? Thanks, guys.

Mike Cotoia (CEO and Director)

Yeah, thanks, Josh. So again, we plan to make the right investments to help the business scale and to drive margin expansion. So, you know, some areas that we've done this year is we're currently implementing a workflow management solution, so it provides end-to-end visibility from our, you know, contracts to execution, to close, to billing. And we feel that this is the right investment so we can streamline the visibility and the information across all of our, you know, product fulfillment sets, our sales operations teams, and our customer success teams. So we're in the middle of implementing a workflow solution on that.

We expanded the scope a little bit, but at the end, what that will do for us is provide better visibility and be able to create a more efficient cost of sales as we head into Q4 of 2024. So we're in the middle of doing that right now. It's something that we, we knew we needed to get done. We made the right investments on that. So you see, you know, a little bit of cost on that, but at the end, that'll make a cost of sales and be still more efficient and continue to help expand margins.

Joshua Reilly (Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. Thanks, guys.

Moderator (participant)

The next question is from the line of Bruce Goldfarb with Lake Street Capital Markets. You may proceed.

Bruce Goldfarb (Head of Product Strategy)

Thank you for taking my cal. Greg, Michael, Dan, congrats on the results. Just a question, on long-term revenue, where do you expect long-term revenue as a % of total revenue to be at the end of 2024?

Mike Cotoia (CEO and Director)

Bruce, yeah, we expect that to be in the low-to-mid-30s. You know, when we talk about 2024, you know, with the pullback and the continued macro environment, that's why, like, when we look at this combination that we're doing, we just feel like this is the absolute right time to be doing this. And when you take a look at what we evaluate when we either acquire or do, you know, evaluate different answers, we look at a few things. We look at audience, and we look at permission-based audiences. We look at first-party insights, and as we predicted, you know, the last couple of years and going into 2025, first-party purchase intent insights are gonna be a premium. We look at content and content capabilities.

They're gonna drive more revenue on the long-term contracts and look for penetration into new tech-enabled vertical markets. So we take a look at the assets and the quality assets that we are merging with, with Informa Tech's digital business around Industry Dive and around Omdia, and the 70 special digital media brands in that line. The Omdia business, which is around the intelligence, research, and advisory, combined with our Enterprise Strategy Group business, if you take a look at the Omdia business, about 65% of their revenue is on the long-term contracts. So really important now, the timing is right now to get all these assets, quality assets together, combined, integrated, and be ready for the recovery.

So yeah, we might be in the low to mid-30s this year, but our three to five-year plan is to have revenue over 50% on long-term revenue contracts.

Bruce Goldfarb (Head of Product Strategy)

Thank you. And then, in terms of the merger with Informa Tech, are you getting any inbound inquiries from Informa Tech customers regarding working with TechTarget?

Mike Cotoia (CEO and Director)

No, we haven't really got any inbound Informa Tech customers, inbounds to us on this. I mean, we're working right now, as we mentioned in the shareholder letter, and I think Greg's introduction, we're really happy with the progress that we've made. We have really strong conviction on the timing of this. We're focused on our business as usual, but also making sure that we're ready for the combination. So, you know, which we are still scheduled to have complete in the second half of 2024, but we haven't heard directly from, you know, Informa Tech customers reaching out to us.

Bruce Goldfarb (Head of Product Strategy)

Thank you. And then I saw, like, you weren't active on buyback during the quarter. Are you likely quiet until after the Informa Tech transaction closes?

Mike Cotoia (CEO and Director)

Yeah, I think we're going to be fairly quiet. Yeah, we're gonna be pretty quiet on that. I think that expires the end, the end of November 2024 anyway.

Bruce Goldfarb (Head of Product Strategy)

Great. So it's coming up anyway.

Mike Cotoia (CEO and Director)

Yep.

Bruce Goldfarb (Head of Product Strategy)

Thank you. Thanks for taking my questions, and congrats on the results.

Mike Cotoia (CEO and Director)

Thank you.

Moderator (participant)

There are no additional questions waiting at this time. I would like to pass the conference back over to the management team for closing remarks.

Mike Cotoia (CEO and Director)

No other questions, no closing remarks. We appreciate everybody joining, and talk to you next quarter.

Greg Strakosch (Co-Founder & Executive Chairman)

Thank you, everyone.

Moderator (participant)

That concludes the TechTarget Report's first quarter 2024 conference call and webcast. Thank you for your participation, and enjoy the rest of your day.