Inuvo, Inc.
Q1 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 13 May 2021

[Operator:]

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Inuvo 2021 First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Please note today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Valter Pinto, Managing Director of KCSA Strategic Communications. Please go ahead, sir.

[Valter Pinto:]

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today for the Inuvo First Quarter 2021 Shareholder Update Conference Call. Today, Inuvo's Chief Executive Officer, Richard Howe; and Chief Financial Officer, Wally Ruiz, will be your presenters on the call. I would also like to remind our shareholders that we anticipate filing our 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission this evening.

[Richard Howe:]

Thanks, Valter, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We have a lot of great information to share. For the three months ended March 31, 2021, we delivered roughly $10.6 million in revenue. Now advertisers do tend to delay their media budget allocations until the start of the second quarter, at which time they tend to accelerate their spending into the second half of the year. And as a result, the first quarter of the year for our business is typically seasonally our softest quarter. Revenue in Q1 of this year was down 18% sequentially as a result of this seasonality, which is very much in line with our historical experience for Q1 revenue coming out of Q4 in a prior year. Of this $10.6 million that was delivered, our ValidClick platform contributed $8.5 million, which remains down as a result of COVID year-over-year by 35%. However, the gap between ValidClick's pre-pandemic and post-pandemic performance is closing quite rapidly. The platform has had a 9% monthly compounded growth rate through March of 2021 off of its low, which was in May of 2020. As we have guided previously, we do expect ValidClick to return to its 2019 pre-pandemic average monthly revenue run rate of approximately $4.4 million within 2021. And then we expect it to grow thereafter. More on ValidClick later in the conference. The IntentKey platform contributed $2.1 million of revenue in the quarter, growing 15% year-over-year. And we would expect this product line to continue its double-digit growth rates year-over-year for this foreseeable future.

[Wally Ruiz:]

Thank you, Rich. Good afternoon, everyone. I will recap the financial results of our first quarter of 2021. As Rich mentioned, Inuvo reported revenue of $10.6 million for the quarter that ended March 31, 2021. This compares to $14.9 million reported in the first quarter of last year. The decrease in this year's revenue is due to lower ValidClick revenue, which in the first quarter this year was $8.5 million compared to $13.1 million in the same quarter last year. This lower ValidClick revenue was due to the pullback in advertising budgets at the onset of the pandemic which had not fully recovered by this year's first quarter. In spite of reporting lower year-over-year revenue, ValidClick's recovery began in June following May's low. And by March 31st of this year, was up over 140% of that low, of that May low. IntentKey revenue was 15% higher in the first quarter this year compared with last year. The IntentKey represented 20% of the overall first quarter revenue this year, and that compares to 12% of all the revenue in the first quarter of last year. As the IntentKey platform revenue has become a greater percentage of overall revenue, the components of the cost of revenue have shifted. Cost of revenue in the 2021 period is primarily generated by payments to add exchanges that provide access to a supply of advertising inventory where we serve advertisements using information predicted by the IntentKey. And to a lesser extent, payments to website publishers and web developers that host advertisements we serve through ValidClick. The cost of revenue last year in 2020 was primarily generated by payments to website publishers and app developers that host advertisements have served this ValidClick, so there was a shift in the components of the cost of revenue.

[Richard Howe:]

Thanks, Wally. Now in spite of our seasonally soft first quarter, the ValidClick platform for the month ending in March 2021 was up 140% from its pandemic-induced low point in May of 2020. And as I mentioned in my original call notes, our largest partner within the ValidClick platform was renewed in the quarter for an additional two-year term. The IntentKey continues to produce remarkable performance for our clients. And of course, it grew 15% year-over-year. It has an expanding client base, a strong pipeline and really could not be better positioned for the disruption coming in 2022 when cookies go away. I simply cannot emphasize enough how well positioned we are for winning market share, leading into and after this industry transition. We expect the IntentKey platform to be up roughly 45% year-over-year in the second quarter. For Inuvo, we expect our second quarter to be strong with year-over-year growth of over 50%. We expect to be back to EBITDA -- adjusted EBITDA positive contributions within the second half of the year. And as Wally pointed out, our balance sheet remains strong with $17.8 million of cash, which we anticipate putting in part to work through an acquisition within the 2021 calendar year as we continue to explore suitable candidates. With that, I will now turn the call back over to the operator.

[Operator:]

[Richard Howe:]

Thanks, Holly. And I'd just like to thank everyone who joined us today, and we appreciate your continued support in our company.

[Operator:]

Thank you so much. And that does conclude our conference for today. We thank you for your participation.