Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

And on the Self-serve side, you continue to make improvements in terms of what we’re giving our local advertisers in terms of customer insights and improved message center and really matching the most important leads with our advertisers. So, from a mix shift perspective, we’re going to continue to lean into both of those channels and believe they both have had room to run.

Eric Sheridan: Thanks so much.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Cory Carpenter with JP Morgan. Your line is now open.

Cory Carpenter: Hey, thank you. I have two. A question, I want to more on macro. Just maybe more specifically, have you seen improvement in the Multi-location advertiser base coming out of the holiday season? Or would you characterize it as kind of staying steady perhaps at those lower levels? And then secondly, on the consumer demand, I think, Jeremy, you mentioned that it remains a little below pre-pandemic levels. Curious what you attribute that to? And then you called out unique devices are lower, but what about engagement per user and how that’s trending? Thank you.

Jed Nachman: I can take another shot at the macro in terms of Multi-location trends. Obviously, we saw that muted spend in the fourth quarter, but we were really pleased with the way we were able to kind of continued conversations with all those Multi-location advertisers and we feel like we’re really well positioned going into 2023. Ultimately, in this type of environment, we have a really down funnel lead and are strong from — in times of macro uncertainty, folks want to spend their money in a place where they think they’re yielding ROI and based — and we have attribution solutions as an example that are able to really, really prove that out. And whether it’s our YSP which is our first party data derived from Yelp and/or third parties that we use in order to kind of showcase that attribution.

That’s in a really good spot right now. Of course, there are macro uncertainties that are out of our control, but we feel well-positioned relative to the competition as we head into 2023 there. And so that’s what I would say on the Multi-location side.

Jeremy Stoppelman: Hi, Cory. Jeremy, again. Talking about consumer engagement and looking at the app, it got flat year-over-year, I think a contributing factor, obviously macro and how much consumers are getting out there and transacting. But we’re not just kind of sitting around. We have pivoted a lot of resources towards consumer. We did see contributions rise 3% year-over-year. So, I think that’s early signs of success from the efforts there. We have a deep roadmap that we’ll be executing on in 2023 that’s focused on some of these things you mentioned, improving the Android experience, like improving engagement. We’ve got a new home fee that we’re going to keep iterating on. You may have also noticed there’s new technology out there.

Large language models in regards to book their first win within search from leveraging LOM. So, I think, there’s a lot of opportunity. We’re just gearing up. Last year was kind of our first effort starting to stack wins. And so, I think we’ll see that continue. Also worth noting, mobile web was up as well. And so, with the product and engineering investment that is now quite significant, I think we feel confident. And then also return to marketing spend, one of the things we pulled back on, especially during the early pandemic timeframe, was installs and driving installs from a pay perspective. And so that’s something that we’ve returned to and so that provides some audience upside as well.

Cory Carpenter: And maybe one more, if I can just for Jed. If I was interesting you call out local sales projects, new customer acquisition is the best you’ve seen in two years. Curious what you attribute that to if there’s something maybe specifically that you’ve changed or that you’re doing that you would call out working well. Thank you.