DocuSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:DOCU) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Bradley Sills: Great. Thank you so much. I wanted to ask about a comment Allan you made earlier in the call that I think you’re seeing increased conversion in the top of funnel business. Would love to get some more color on there. Do you feel like there’s some learning there? I know this has been a priority for you since joining the company and building that top of funnel. So any color on that end of the business and the conversion uptick that you mentioned?

Allan Thygesen: Yes. Well, so I think you all know, we acquire a tremendous number of new customers every quarter. And most of those, vast majority of those come in via our website and onboard themselves. And then over time, we grow them. And as they show potential and opportunity, then we engage them with our sales teams and our support to customer success teams. I would say that our digital motion has made significant improvements during the course of this year. So for customers that are in essence natively digital, we have improved that part of the funnel, not only you can buy more things, you can upgrade your existing plans. All of that stuff is working much better now. We’re adding more international currencies every quarter.

So all of those things are helping improve the performance of our digital business. In addition to that, we are in the process of building out ability for customers who are currently serviced through our sales teams to handle a number of activities themselves without human assistance. And that is very — has very high leverage both in terms of providing a better offering to our customers and in terms of freeing up our sales teams to work on higher-value work. But I think we still have some quarters to go on implementing that and seeing the full benefit of that. So the benefits of this self-serve PLG project continue to accrue and will accrue into next year. But we’re seeing really good progress in that business is growing faster than our direct business.

And it’s improving on most performance metrics. So that’s, yes, very happy with the progress there.

Bradley Sills: Great to hear. Thanks, Allan. And then one, if I may, the net revenue retention, dollar-based net revenue retention coming down next quarter, could you just help unpack that for us a little bit on gross versus expansion? Is gross kind of holding and this is mostly expansion related? I know it’s a backward-looking metric. But if you could just help us unpack that a little bit on the growth side? Thank you.

Allan Thygesen: Yes, there’s not much more, I would say, a level of detail that we’re going to disclose publicly about it. I think it’s just for us that it’s a metric that we know if we can deliver on the product innovation and the road map and the self-service and the PLG motions that we have in front of us, we really believe we’ve got a chance to stabilize that metric and then reverse that trend. Now for us, that’s top of mind. Obviously, it is a lagging metric, so there’s time that you’re going to — it’s going to take to see that occur. But I would say there was nothing that spoke out about Q3 that stood out that I would call it different than the prior quarter or two.

Bradley Sills: All right. Thanks so much.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Michael Turrin with Wells Fargo Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Michael Turrin: Hey, great. Thanks. I appreciate you taking the questions. Blake, I wanted to spend some more time on the consumption commentary that you provided. Certainly helpful. I’m just wondering if there’s anything else you can tell us in terms of the shape of those improvements. How that compares to prior periods? And when you’re talking about consumption for DocuSign, is that mainly signature volumes or Are there other attributes of customer profiles we should be considering as part of that commentary?

Blake Grayson: Sure. And it’s a good question. Thanks for asking. So when we talk about consumption today, it’s primarily around the e-signature space, primarily around, if you will, the envelopes that are used. So what is the usage by our customers on a year-over-year basis. So those verticals that I highlighted at some of the stronger year-over-year growth in consumption that we’ve seen over the past quarter or two. So I think we’re, again, cautiously optimistic about it. And just to be clear, too, there’s still verticals that are more challenged, right? I highlighted financial services is one, and I also highlight real estate as the other one, which probably comes as no surprise to folks who are living in this interest rate environment.

I think the thing that makes me — I don’t want to say happier, but you can see a little bit of light there is that real estate has improved on a year-over-year basis over the past three quarters. So that’s good, but it’s not anywhere back to near where it was I would say prior to the whole interest rate challenges that we’ve kind of entered into the past year or so. But so excited about that, but again, that’s also, I think, in the prepared remarks, I made a comment about the significant remaining opportunity. And so a lot of it, I think, you’re probably seeing is that as the macro environment returns to more normalcy in certain verticals, then we believe we’re a beneficiary of that. And I think that’s relevant because we have such a broad-based set of verticals in such a diverse customer base as well.

So it’s something that when things improve, we think we’re a beneficiary of that. And your guess is probably as good or better than mine on when that happens.

Allan Thygesen: I don’t know if any of us —

Blake Grayson: Go ahead.