MediaAlpha, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Brent and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Media Alpha Q4 and full year 2021 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question at that time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, again, press star 1. Thank you. It is now my pleasure to turn today's call over to Denise Garcia, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Brent. After the market closed today, MediaAlpha issued a press release and shareholder letter announcing results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2021. These documents are available in the Investors section of our website, and we will be referring to them on this call. Our discussion today will include forward-looking statements about our business and our outlook for future financial results, including our financial guidance for the first quarter of 2022, which are based on assumptions, forecasts, expectations, and information currently available to management. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause future results or events to differ materially from those reflected in those statements. Please refer to the company's SEC filings, including its annual report on Form 10-K and its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, for a fuller explanation of those risks and uncertainties and the limits applicable to forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions as of today, February 24, 2022, and the company undertakes no obligation to revise or update them. In addition, on today's call, we will be referring to certain actual and projected financial metrics of media alphas that are non-GAAP financial metrics. These metrics include adjusted EBITDA, contribution, and contribution margin, and we present them in order to supplement your understanding and assessment of our financial performance. Non-GAAP measures should not be considered a substitute for or superior to financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are available in our press release and shareholder letter issued today. Finally, I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded and will be made available for replay via a link on the Investors section of the company's website at investors.medialpha.com. Now I'll turn the call over to Steve and Pat for a few introductory remarks before opening the call to your questions.

Hey, thanks, Denise. Hi, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. I'd like to kick things off with a few key takeaways from our shareholder letter. First, we reached a new and exciting milestone in 2021 by exceeding $1 billion in transaction value, an increase of 25% year over year. I'm particularly proud of this achievement given the current challenges in the property and casualty insurance vertical. Second, we had our strongest quarter ever in our health insurance vertical, driven by record carrier spend in both our under 65 and Medicare insurance segments. Lastly, Despite the challenges in the P&C insurance vertical, we firmly believe that the industry is continuing its powerful secular shift towards direct online customer acquisition. As a leader in our industry, we're continuing to invest to be ready to accelerate our growth when the market recovers. Now, I have the great pleasure to introduce Pat Thompson, who joined us as our new CFO back in December. His breadth of experience across FP&A, corporate development, strategy, and analytics made him a standout candidate. And I can't think of a better, more complimentary partner to help lead us through the next phase of our growth. So with that, I'll pass it to Pat to say a few words before we open the call to your questions. Great.