Good afternoon, and thank you for joining the Marchex Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. My name is Kate, and I will be the moderator for today's call. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call, with the question-and-answer session at the end. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Trevor Caldwell, Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Investor Relations. You may proceed.

Thank you, Kate. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Marchex's Business Update and Third Quarter 2023 Conference Call. Joining us today are Edwin Miller, our CEO, and Holly Aglio, our Chief Financial Officer; Michael Arends, our Vice Chairman. Before we get started, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that our remarks today will include forward-looking statements, including references to our financial and operational performance, and actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties that could cause these results to differ materially are set forth in today's earnings press release and in our most recent annual and quarterly report filed with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements for subsequent events. During this call, we will present more GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release. The earnings press release is available in the Investor Relations section of our website. At this time, I want to turn the call over to Edwin.

Thank you, Trevor, and good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to thank you all for joining us today for our quarterly earnings conference call. I'm pleased to share our progress with you during this period of transformation. I've been on the job for 275 days and we are well on our way to positioning Marchex for long-term success. We're building a culture that's highly committed and fosters innovation and collaboration. We continue to advance our technology in order to deliver new and powerful value creation for customers and prospects, and we are building out a world-class team to tackle the robust market opportunities in front of us. We are moving fast as a company. Furthermore, I’m pleased to share that our progress has enabled us to achieve profitability sooner than expected. We are seizing on this momentum and the big opportunity in front of us, and that is to increase our leadership in the conversational intelligence market. Today, I'd like to highlight three key initiatives that we believe will thrust us towards being a nine-figure business in this space. These initiatives revolve around creating a world-class team, streamlining and enhancing our technology, and the formation of excellence in our go-to-market motion by vertical market. Let's look at our first initiative, which is building a world-class team with a world-class culture. When I arrived, we had high-quality teams in our vertical markets with many years of experience. We organized towards shared services to empower our vertical market talent. This has worked well with client engagement. Furthermore, given how quickly the AI landscape has evolved, we have been adding to our talent pool in order to build towards the future and support our growth opportunities. We're investing in additional leadership and building out our data sciences and AI teams to leverage our vertical market understanding and depth. We know we need to move fast to advance our products and offerings. And that is our people who make the difference. Thus, we are prioritizing and investing in our talent to ensure we capitalize on our significant market opportunity and can harvest the revenue opportunities that will drive growth over time. Our second initiative focuses on continuing to optimize our technology stack to create a unified data pipeline and move up the technology stack. Marchex possesses a wealth of conversational data across multiple channels and vertical markets. This asset is a powerful differentiator, and it holds incredible value for businesses, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to individual service providers. Our future is to continue toward one data pipe, one step, one Marchex culture, advanced AI math models tailored to our vertical market clients, advanced data analytics and creating more AI signals that will allow our clients to derive an end-to-end view of a lead to the client as well as improving the overall client experience. We are in the flow of over 1 billion minutes of conversational data. And the potential for mission-critical insights for businesses is boundless. Moving to one data pipeline and one technology stack continues to be a significant focus for the business, and we believe it is one that will accelerate our product pipeline and see innovation in the new world of generative AI. Given the increased efficiency, we also see these moves as leading to the potential for significant margin improvement in the business over time. Our third initiative focuses on strengthening our vertical go-to-market approach. We need to leverage all that we have accomplished in the past in building strong relationships with some of the largest companies in the world. This will help us create new relationships in the coming quarters within our selected vertical markets as well as accelerate sales growth through our go-to-market motions and product marketing strategy. All of this should be done in tandem with and on the back of our move to a clean one stack of software which enables us to innovate with new automation tools or increasingly efficient onboarding appliances. These efforts will enable our clients to deliver great customer experiences while allowing us to expand our API capabilities, which we are continually working to improve as part of our integration initiatives. Every day I'm in this role, I'm reminded of one thing, we are at a pivotal moment in history. The rapid evolution of AI is changing the game. It is poised to usher in a significant change at every level of human interaction, but we're ready. Marchex lives in vertical markets with unique and rich data versus a thin horizontal approach to the market. We strongly believe that the vertical position is the best place to be within the AI market. Creating a stable, efficient data pipeline will arm us with the power to unleash deeper and more meaningful insights at a scale we've never seen before. Our customers will up-level their abilities to understand and engage their customers in ways they too have never seen before. On that note, I want to share that we recently launched new AI features to our expanding conversational intelligence software suite. AI Calls Summaries and AI Sentiment Suite are the first of outstanding generative AI-driven capabilities. There will be more to come. AI Calls Summaries leverage the power of generative AI to transform the way businesses capture and utilize critical insights from customer interactions. This technology gives concise natural language descriptions of what occurred on the call between a consumer and a business. Sentiment Suite combines structured and unstructured data to provide a holistic view of customer emotions during conversations. The possibilities in helping businesses to understand and meet the emotions of the customers they engage with will help sales close rates and we believe will drastically improve the customer experience. These can be powerful insights for businesses to understand and engage consumers. Our commitment to AI is a driving force and can unlock the potential for our business on a vast scale. They can help our customers foster better relationships with their consumers and drive meaningful revenue growth. That's why right now, we are laser-focused on the one data pipeline and one stack initiatives. In fact, we expect this effort to accelerate our ability to deliver new features and products to our customers, and enable Marchex to process in ways that in the past were not possible. We believe this to be an essential step towards accelerating growth and building a nine-figure revenue business in the future. Conversational intelligence is a multibillion dollar market. Marchex has a significant advantage in several verticals as we have industry-leading customers with multiyear contracts who are asking us for more. The initiatives I've outlined will enable us to grow at rates that meet this demand over time and deliver a compelling margin profile to the business. I'm excited about where we are and also where we're headed. We have a clear vision, and we are moving quickly and thoughtfully in all areas of our business. While some of these efforts will take time, I am mindful that we still expect to deliver a compelling financial profile as we go while keeping an open mind to all potential strategic initiatives that can help us unlock the value of Marchex. I look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter. With that, I am so excited to welcome the newest member of our team, Holly Aglio. She will walk you through our financials.

Thank you, Edwin. I am thrilled to have joined Marchex at this time. For the third quarter, revenue was $12.8 million versus $12.5 million in the second quarter and $13.2 million for the same quarter last year. From a revenue perspective, on a year-over-year basis, we saw expansion in some key verticals, with the auto vertical continuing to see growth while we saw continued pressure on conversation volumes on a year-over-year basis with our small business listings and solution providers that mostly sell marketing services to local businesses. In the auto vertical, we continue to see expansion of our dealer channel and of our OEM relationships as a key driver of growth. Our ability to win new relationships and extend others into multiyear terms has contributed to Marchex's expanding footprint in this vertical. In addition, we see significant potential to expand some of our products into verticals that have similar characteristics and where we already have relationships with many of the vertical market leaders. For example, in the home services vertical, we see expansion of key relationships being helpful to our overall profile. Turning to the P&L for the third quarter. Excluding stock-based compensation, amortization of intangible assets and acquisition and disposition-related costs, total operating costs for the third quarter were $13.2 million compared to $13.6 million for the third quarter of 2022. During the quarter, we incurred certain costs associated with reorganizing and modifying operating activities totaling approximately $300,000. Service costs were $5.1 million for the third quarter, which decreased as a percentage of revenue from the second quarter of 2023. Over time, we expect our service costs as a percentage of revenue may decrease as a result of our current technology infrastructure initiatives. That should enable an overall improvement with our service cost margin as we sell through our new conversational intelligence products and advance our vertical market initiatives. Sales and marketing costs were approximately $2.2 million for the third quarter. This was down from the prior comparative period, in large part as a result of the reorganizing initiatives. Product development costs were $4 million for the third quarter as we continue to invest in our products and in building AI to expand our conversational intelligence capabilities. Moving to profitability measures. Adjusted operating loss before amortization for the third quarter was $400,000. Corresponding adjusted EBITDA was a gain of approximately $370,000. These amounts include approximately $300,000 for certain costs associated with reorganizing and modifying operating activities. Excluding those amounts, adjusted EBITDA would have been approximately $670,000. GAAP net loss was $1.5 million for the third quarter or $0.04 per diluted share. This compares to a loss of $1.6 million or $0.04 per diluted share for the third quarter of 2022. Adjusted non-GAAP loss was $0.01 per share for the third quarter compared to a loss of $0.01 per share for the third quarter of 2022. Additionally, we ended the third quarter with approximately $13.7 million in cash on hand. Now turning to our outlook. We believe revenue in the fourth quarter of 2023 should be at or near our third quarter levels. While the fourth quarter has a historical seasonal downward volume trend and there are some headwinds in certain verticals previously mentioned, we believe those factors should be offset by the growth driven by new customer adoption and the onboarding of previously won relationships over the course of the year. In addition, we continue to believe that our traction within the automotive vertical can lead to double-digit growth on an annualized run rate year-over-year basis by the end of 2023 within that vertical. With that progress in mind, we believe that we will continue to be above breakeven on an adjusted EBITDA basis in the fourth quarter. As we look to 2024, based on current progress with current and new customers, we anticipate revenue growth on a year-over-year basis with sequential progress throughout the year. Furthermore, our current initiative to move to one data pipe and other cost savings initiatives, in tandem with expected future revenue growth initiatives should enable greater operating leverage in the business. And consequently, we could see improvements in profitability measures in the future. For 2024, we anticipate adjusted EBITDA to be above breakeven throughout the year.

Thank you, Holly. Since I've joined Marchex, we've accomplished a lot over a short period of time. We've achieved profitability earlier than planned and put in place a series of initiatives that will enhance the profitability profile of the business well into the future. In addition, we're supplementing the team with world-class talent that will be the driving force for growth as we launch our go-to-market initiatives in the coming quarters. I've been a part of a lot of technology companies, and I'm excited about what I see here at Marchex. We have an incredible group of world-class customers who are asking us to do more. We have a world-class team that we are continuing to build out. Just as importantly, we have an underlying data asset that makes the company truly unique with lots of value to unlock in many ways to do so. AI is here. Its possibilities to continue transforming the conversational intelligence market represent a significant and growing opportunity as AI continues to evolve. In the meantime, we have a clear view of what unlocks the potential of Marchex. Further, we have a path to growing a sustainable and increasingly profitable business. We will continue investing in industry-leading AI capabilities. I want to thank the team for their hard work. I look forward to accomplishing great things together. Thank you for your time today. With that said, operator, let's move to questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. The first question will be from Mike Latimore with Northland Securities. Your line is now open.

Hi. This is Logan on for Mike. Could you guys talk about how call volumes trended in October versus what you saw in Q3?

Hey, Logan. This is Mike here. So just for reference, call volumes from a seasonal perspective are consistent with what we've seen in prior years. Usually, the downward trend is primarily in the November, December time frame, around the holidays, starting more heavily in the holiday time frame. There is a seasonal adjustment that does start in the latter part of September, but the heavier part of the downward trend in the fourth quarter is generally around that holiday time frame. So we've seen consistency in general across that. But we also have a number of new customers and relationship items that are expanding as well as some of the new onboardings, and those are helping us offset some of the total revenue sequential movement where we think we're still going to be at or very near the levels that we were in the third quarter.

Perfect. Thank you and one more question. Can you talk about the electric vehicle category and how important that is to the growth driver going forward?

So this is Mike again. Automotive is performing well for us and is a crucial part of our future direction. I want to echo some of Edwin's and Holly's earlier comments. We have a lot of new product developments, particularly related to generative AI, which can significantly benefit our customers, especially in the context of the electric vehicle movement. The EV sector is complex and diverse, presenting challenges for both auto dealers and OEMs. This is providing us with momentum as it drives necessary changes in the industry to tackle the critical challenges of an electric vehicle environment. Given the intricacies and differences involved, there is a strong demand for data intelligence, sentiment analysis, signals and insights, and importantly, the quick identification of trends and movements in real time. Our powerful solution allows us to assist with all types of interactions, including voice, text, chat, and other engagement methods with prospects and customers. Furthermore, this isn't limited to the automotive sector. We have established robust relationships with OEMs in the auto vertical and have also expanded these partnerships with multiyear extensions, while onboarding new clients as well. Additionally, we have significant relationships in other sectors and believe there is potential for replication of our product's applicability in upcoming periods across home services, auto services, and healthcare, as we already have strong ties with major firms that correlate with our work in the automotive sector.

Thank you. I'll add to that. It's a good question and very relevant regarding timing. We have a team out in the automotive sector this week, and the discussions around electric vehicles are gaining momentum. Everyone is eager to jump into it. When considering our recent launches of AI features like AI Call Summaries and AI Sentiment, picture this: you walk into a dealership where salespeople are accustomed to selling gasoline or diesel vehicles, and now they need to learn how to engage with customers regarding EVs, which requires a different set of questions. Understanding call summaries and the sentiment behind them enables us to facilitate meaningful conversations at the dealership level and for our major OEMs, which is powerful. However, I want to emphasize, as Mike mentioned, that this need extends beyond just the automotive sector. Since I joined nearly 275 days ago, I've noticed the demand for our technology spanning various B2C ecosystems, from data analysis to chatbots, even accommodating situations where there's no numerical data available. This necessity creates rich, vertical market data that enables us to develop new mathematical models more rapidly than our competitors and assists us in anticipating future needs by comprehending these conversations. Our goal is to become a predictive analytics platform rather than just prescriptive. Many companies operate in a prescriptive mode, simply reporting past events. We aspire to inform you about what’s upcoming. We're enthusiastic about electric vehicles and equally excited about the opportunities across all other verticals and the shared needs among them.

Yeah. That was very helpful. Congrats on the quarter, guys.

Thank you. At this time, there are no further questions registered in the queue, so I will turn the call back over to the management team for final closing remarks.

Okay. Well, I would like to thank everyone who joined. We thank you for your time, interest in our business and we look forward to updating you in the future, and we're here to grow the business. So thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.

That concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for your participation, and you may now disconnect your lines.