And a third vertical, and I’m just giving these three as examples would be the publisher space. Earlier Jared asked me about CTV. And there we’re seeing such interesting innovation from those CTV providers. They can build unique segments from their data. They can create multi-screen packages and they can collaborate with advertisers to really deliver full purchase funnel measurement from the moment in that is seen to how much engagement to an actual purchase in store at a dealership or online. So I think the whole concept of retail media networks that term is yesterday collaborative networks or collaborative data partnerships. I think the world is wide open every sector. And the good news is we sit right in the middle of that.
Mark Zgutowicz: Interesting stuff. Thanks Scott. Very helpful.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jason Kreyer of Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Your line is open.
Cal Bartyzal : Great. Thank you. This is Cal Bartyzal on for Jason. So I guess first just to start you’ve seen some good improvements in the results in the last couple of quarters. So just wanted to get some color on the bookings trajectory. If you go back to some of the issues that started back in 2022, I mean, do you think that all of those have kind of been put behind you now and the start of a migration higher? And I guess how is that kind of manifested in the strength for first year salaries?
Lauren Dillard : Yes I’m happy to take the first part and Scott can weigh in on the strength of our first year reps. So with respect to our bookings momentum as we mentioned in our prepared remarks I think we’re very encouraged by our recent sales momentum. And I said this in my prepared remarks, I believe our growth metrics are turning a quarter. I use the word turning rather than turned because we do need to see continued strong execution in the second half both with respect to bookings as well as contraction really to begin to see our key growth metrics accelerate in Q4 and exiting this year. So feel pretty good about the few strong quarters of bookings we’ve posted. But as we both mentioned now we need to see that trend continue in the back half.
Scott Howe : Yes. And in terms of our selling efficacy in the prepared remarks I talked a little bit about the bookings efficacy of our new reps relative to our seasoned reps and they’re roughly the same. And it’s interesting. If I think back to LiveRamp’s early days we invented a category. And so we had a lot of young sellers who knew more about technology and our products than anybody else in the planet. So they were the unquestioned experts in all areas of data onboarding. Now many of them are still with us and they’ve grown and they’ve become spectacular sales representatives. But more recently, the clients that we’re serving tend to be larger, bigger contracts, brands that are very recognizable. And our profile of the new people that we’re hiring has probably shifted a little bit more towards industry vertical experts.
And I think one of the reasons that our new hires have been so effective is they can go in and they can talk the language of retail, the language of automotive, the language of travel. And they’re very effective in a slightly different way than perhaps our original sellers what they brought. The combination of all those people together and the sharing of best practices I’m really happy with because I think we have great technical knowledge, coupled with great industry knowledge. So when a situation arises there’s always multiple people across the organization that you can say — you can tap into and say, what would you do here. So I feel like we’re showing up with really smart ideas to clients and those clients are receptive to it.
Cal Bartyzal: Perfect. And then just quickly just circling back to the comments on marketplace. The conservatism in the guide, I mean, did you guys see anything around that October time frame that you would call out? Or is this just more just general uncertainty? Thanks.
Lauren Dillard: Great question, Cal. So we did see a bit of a pullback in early October, which we would at least partially attribute to the conflict in the Middle East. Since then growth has been healthy. But we are taking a conservative view for the balance of the quarter, just given the macro uncertainty as well as our lack of visibility into this area of the business. As a reminder, it was this quarter last year where we saw growth swing from positive to negative year-on-year in a matter of a month. So we just think it’s prudent to be conservative with our guide. And to put some numbers against that we’re assuming marketplace growth in Q3 is low single digits and roughly flat in Q4.
Cal Bartyzal: Thank you.
Drew Borst: Operator, we have time for one more question please.
Operator: Understood. Your last question comes from the line of Brian Fitzgerald of Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Brian Fitzgerald: Thanks. Scott, I don’t know if you have a role here but we wanted to ask about an announcement at Amazon unBoxed of the Amazon Publisher Cloud. It sounds to us like even when publishers are doing premium direct deals going forward there there’s going to be significant utilization of clean rooms. And presumably some underlying identity resolution technology. Just wondering if you could give us some thoughts on trends there and what you’re seeing and how you think LiveRamp factors into that?
Scott Howe: Yes, so interesting. If I go back five years ago, one of the questions that I often got from shareholders or potential shareholders were things like hey, will Amazon, Google and Facebook eventually put you out of business? And I say no, like absolutely not but they’re competing with one another. We are complementing them. We are partnering with them. Well you see it today because it’s not just Amazon but it’s the fact that we are the beta launch partner for Google PAIR. And you see it with the relationship that we have with Meta. You see it with the relationships that we have with virtually every CTV provider. It is just the case that in the world we live in people are rightfully very protective of their data. And so the world needs someone like LiveRamp to ensure that collaboration can happen but either side is protected.
And if one side says trust us, give us all your data, you should naturally be suspicious. And so I think it is a really good sign that on both the advertiser side and the publisher side big companies are recommending that LiveRamp be utilized to facilitate the collaboration. The other thing that I would say that’s a little bit part and parcel of this is – I get a lot of questions about the ID space because it seems like every week someone is unveiling a new identifier. Well we work with hundreds of them now. And again, it goes back to our positioning as neutral and interoperable. We’re the Rosetta Stone. So whether it’s Acxiom’s new identifier, Facebook’s identifier, Fabric’s identifier, Google’s identifier, doesn’t matter to us. UID, there needs to be that Rosetta Stone that can tie it all together.
And that’s the role that LiveRamp plays.
Brian Fitzgerald: Awesome. Really appreciate it. Thanks Scott.
Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Lauren Dillard.
Lauren Dillard: Thanks very much. And let me just close with a few final thoughts. First, Q2 is strong. We’re pleased with our execution in the quarter. And importantly, we think our revenue growth metrics are turning the corner. Next, given the uncertain macro environment, we remain appropriately cautious with our revenue guidance for the balance of this fiscal year. And finally, we continue to make nice progress against our Rule of 40 aspirations and believe we still have several levers to pull to improve both our growth rate and margin profile moving forward. So with that thanks again, everyone for joining us and we look forward to speaking with many of you in the days and weeks ahead.
Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.
