GoDaddy Inc. (NYSE:GDDY) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

So, we have a lot of, I would say, moving parts that are all pointing in the same direction that make us feel good about expanding our margins while expanding our growth rate as well through applications of coverage.

Vikram Kesavabhotla : Great. Thank you.

Christie Masoner : Our next question comes from the line of Trevor Young from Barclays. Trevor please go ahead.

Trevor Young: Great. First, on core platform now expecting around 1% growth for the full year within the main lines there, aftermarket domains ex aftermarket and security and hosting, which linear line are kind of underperforming relative to your prior expectations. And then second one on that AI-powered digital guide, do you view that as kind of complementary to the higher-touch customer care organization? Or do you see that functionality eventually kind of helping alleviate some of the cost or headcount within the care organization?

Mark McCaffrey: Thanks, Trevor. I’ll start with the aftermarket and the core platform. We really saw underperformed this quarter. We’ve grown a $400 million business there over a number of years. We saw a lot of growth back half of ’21 coming into ’22. So, no doubt we have compares. But as we’ve talked previously, the larger transactions and the valuations on them have abated. We’re seeing the volumes slowing growth as well coming on Q2. And to put it in perspective, we’re seeing great demand and gross ads within our funnel, but it seems the valuations on the aftermarket still are connecting with the buyers. So, we’re seeing them lean towards the domain growth. And we think this is a normalization for now. I think we — we’ve taken it out of our back half of the year expectations, and we think this is going to be a low to mid-single-digit growth business going forward. So, I would really point to the aftermarket on this as being part.

Aman Bhutani: And Trevor, on the digital guide, we couldn’t be more excited about bearing a guide with every domain purchase and letting that digital guide the customer just like we do in care. We’ve done a phenomenal job in care over the last few years by sort of creating leverage on the Care line item as revenue grew, we get costs pretty flat. And it’s a little early to be talking about the impacts of AI. But overall, we do see leading to efficiencies in our business overall. And frankly, we’ve already showed that in Marketing, where by implementing machine learning, we’re able to make our spend more and more efficient. And we’ve been seeing the results of that over the last year already.

Trevor Young: Great. Thank you, both.

Christie Masoner : Our next question comes from the line of Naved Khan from B. Riley. Naved please go ahead.

Naved Khan : Thanks. Just a question on the outlook. So, 28% EBITDA margin by Q4. If I have to think about next year, 2024, and I know you’re not guiding to that, but is there any reason why 28% shouldn’t be the base? To start with, I mean, the cost savings will still be layering in because this is not a full year for cost savings, right? So, am I thinking about it the right way? Just any comment there would be helpful. And then I have a follow-up.

Mark McCaffrey: Yes. Naved, thanks. We’re excited on our Investor Day coming up in the first quarter, and we’ll get more into the details of what we’ll look like. We’re really excited about our margin expansion going into Q4, the 28%, if we look back to the Q4 in 2021, we’ve increased our margins by 300 basis points. Even year-over-year, we get to the same 300 basis points. So, it’s something we continue to work on. We continue to find efficiencies in our operation, and we’ll continue to push margin growth going into 2024. At the same time, we’re accelerating revenue and hitting our cash flow objectives well. So, I don’t want to give you too much of a leading what 2024 is going to look like, but we’re really excited about our progress, the work we’ve done in the first half of the year and how that’s going to benefit us in the back half of the year and then ultimately into 2024.