AdTheorent Holding Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADTH) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

So, it might seem disjointed, but it’s all really part of the same story, which is replacing outdated assumptions-driven ID-based methods, with machine learning-based methods tied back to primary source data so that you can drive outcomes for advertisers. No better example than in health. The health opportunity, the reason why we lean heavily into health is because the regulatory and legal landscape and privacy landscape and health is especially well suited for the benefits that we provide in this marketplace. By using statistics and the probability that an impression is associated with a given condition, a health condition as opposed to an ID in a list of — in a segment list of individuals that have a health condition based on a user ID, it’s foundationally different.

So, I think all of the investments that we are making, the products that we are making are designed to drive our core Mission Forward, which is an ML focused, privacy focused, ID independent, programmatic demand-side platform. And on the Direct Access side, that is a different vehicle to get those values in front of customers. So that’s just another way that the marketplace can tap into our capabilities. So again, very consistent CTV, Direct Access, our audience builder capabilities and our health focus and verticalization. That’s where we see the biggest opportunity for us, and we think that the investments there are going to pay off in a very good way.

Laura Martin: Thank you very much. That’s it from me. Thank you.

James Lawson: Thank you, Laura.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from Maria Ripps with Canaccord.

Maria Ripps: Great. Thanks so much for taking my questions. Patrick, congrats on your new role. First, I just want to ask you about – first, I just wanted to ask you about some of the factors that may be contributed to outperformance in Q4 relative to your guidance. And then as we look at your sort of full year outlook, would you expect some of the sort of outperformance factors to continue here in Q1 and maybe first half of the year? And perhaps any color you can share on when during the year you would expect to return to growth.

Patrick Elliott: Yes. No, thanks for the kind words, Maria and the questions. Yes. I mean looking back on Q4, we’re thrilled to came in above our high end of our range on all metrics. One of the things I’ll point out is active customers were up meaningfully. So even though macro conditions definitely impacts us in Q4, our active customer growth was strong. We saw momentum in a variety of our key segments, including health. CTV, as we pointed out, was a strong driver of our growth in Q4. And we’ve got an encouraging growth in customer response to our self-service offering the Direct Access platform. And looking forward, we believe this goodness will continue. Right now, looking at Q1, we’re basing our guidance on the best available information we have through the first 2 months of the year.

Q1 is our smallest quarter and our toughest comp, and we still are in a tough macro environment. And we’ve built in conservatism due to this macro environment and will act to visibility into longer-term and budgets. Q4 is our biggest quarter. And at this point, we have limited visibility. But that being said, we are confident we can grow due to the factors that I mentioned when we had some in health, CTV and Direct Access.

James Lawson: And I would add to that, and Patrick, these are all great points. I think in the fourth quarter, we beat our guidance on EBITDA by 53%. There are a number of factors that went into that. One of them is that we’ve had AGP margins that have been strong for many years, and that trend continues. And that comes down to, again, the investments we’re making in our platform, so that we can optimize campaigns in the most efficient way. So, we can drive performance in the most efficient way possible. The investments that we’ve made in data, the investments that we’ve made in fraud prevention, they all make us more efficient. And I think our AGP will continue to be strong as we continue to make those types of investments.