System1, Inc.

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the fourth quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call for System 1. Joining me today to discuss System 1's business and financial results are our Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Michael Blend and Chief Financial Officer Trithavesh Kanabi. A recording of this conference call will be available on our Investor Relations website shortly after this call has ended. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that during the call, we will be making certain forward-looking statements. This includes statements relating to the operating performance of our business, future financial results and guidance, strategy, long-term growth, and overall future prospects. We may also make statements regarding regulatory or compliance matters. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied during this call. In particular, those described in our risk factors included in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year 2024, filed on March 10th, as well as the current uncertainty and unpredictability in our business, the markets, and the global economy generally. You should not rely on our forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. All forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on management's assumptions and beliefs as of the date hereof, and System 1 disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. Our discussion today will include non-GAAP financial measures including adjusted EBITDA and adjusted gross profit. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or in isolation from our GAAP results. Historical performance and future estimates provided during this call exclude results from total security. Information regarding our non-GAAP financial measures including a reconciliation of our non-GAAP financial measures to our most comparable historical gap financial measures may be found on our investor relations website. I would now like to turn the conference call over to System 1's co-founder and chief executive officer, Michael Blund.

Thanks, Kyle. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining System 1 on our Q4 2024 earnings call. We wrapped up the year with solid execution across the business. For the fourth quarter, System 1 delivered $76 million in revenue and $45 million in gross profit. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $17.9 million, which was a 79% year-over-year increase. It is good to see our financial performance starting to reflect all the hard work and progress by our team over the past year. Although we performed well overall, our strong results were primarily driven by our owned and operated products. with revenue increasing 30% sequentially from Q3 and 60% compared to Q4 last year. Our products like Startpage, MapQuest, and Coupon Follows show higher engagement, benefiting from improvements in SEO, user experience, and product expansion. In contrast, our marketing-driven businesses continue to be negatively affected by fluctuations in our Google-related business. As I discussed during my remarks last quarter, we continue to see ongoing volatility due to changes enacted by Google in their search partner network. These changes have the longer term goal of improving advertiser conversions and traffic quality to the Google partner network. However, in the short term, they continue to cause significant volatility and lower payments by Google to Google partners like System One. As Google pays out less for traffic, System 1 makes corresponding adjustments to the amount we pay for traffic in order to ensure our marketing businesses remain profitable. Consequently, lower monetization from Google caused our advertising spend to decline 26% sequentially. Now, Google has been implementing rapid-fire changes to its search partner network products over the last 18 to 24 months, and frankly, Keeping up with these changes has been a challenging process for our team. That said, we remain steadfast in our Google partnership. We've continued to invest heavily in our Ramp platform, and we have strategically positioned ourselves for when the Google network ultimately rebounds. On the technology front, our investment in AI-powered automation within Ramp has yielded very promising results. It's been increasing efficiency and scale across all of our marketing operations. In 2025, we are strengthening our focus on AI integrations across all facets of RAMP and our overall organization, and we expect to see continued improved efficiency. Now, let's go into more detail on our owned and operated segment, which includes both our marketing-driven businesses and our owned and operated properties. Total owned and operated revenue reached $65 million, reflecting a 19% year-over-year decline and a 9% sequential decrease. This decline was driven by a 40% year-over-year revenue decline in our marketing businesses, offset by a 60% increase in our owned and operated products. While revenue decline, adjusted gross profit was up at $32 million. This marks a 20% year-over-year increase and a 21% sequential rise from the third quarter. The gross profit expansion, despite a revenue decline, highlights our ability to drive efficiency and margin growth within this segment, as well as the higher gross profit margins of our owned and operated products. Possessions across our owned and operated properties totaled $1.9 billion, down 8% from Q3 due to reduced ad spend, but up 79% year-over-year. Our year-over-year growth reflects the increased scale of campaigns being run on RAMP, as well as growth in our owned and operated products. International markets remain a key driver, with international revenue representing 36% of total owned and operated revenue, up from 26% in Q4 2023. In Q4, we launched over 22,000 marketing campaigns, a five times year-over-year increase. This huge increase in marketing campaigns simply would not have been possible prior to our embrace of AI. Our median term goal for scaling marketing campaign launches is $130,000 per quarter for launching a new marketing campaign every minute of every day around the clock. As I mentioned, while we are confident in RAM's ability to scale, we are being limited by fluctuations in the Google SPM performance. One recent change made by Google is worth highlighting as it helps explain how Google changes directly impact our business. A few weeks ago, System 1 was informed by Google that they plan to automatically opt out advertisers on a rolling basis from participating in their AdSense for Domains product known as AFD beginning later this month. The practical effect of Google's pending change is that AFD monetization is likely to material decline, making it significantly more difficult to profitably send acquired traffic to AFD-powered websites. This AFD change will be both a short-term negative and median-term positive for System 1. In the short term, both our owned and operated and partner network lines do substantial AFD-related business. And we expect that business to decline as Google rolls out this change on its AFD product. On the flip side, Google is making this change to AFD to encourage adoption of its newer related search on content product, which is known in the industry as RSOC. Our company is well positioned to navigate this transition to RSOC as System 1 has been allocating significant resources into our RSOC efforts for both owned and operated and network partners over the last 24 months. System 1 is a leading partner with Google on this new and exciting product. So, while we believe System 1 is among the best positioned in the market to navigate this change from AFD to RSOC, Google's decision to opt out advertisers from AFD will likely cause significant business and product disruption. We are rapidly shifting our remaining owned and operated and partner network AFD businesses over to the newer RSOC product, while also keeping pace with rapid changes Google is making to RSOC as it continues to roll out this product offering. Now, ultimately, we welcome this disruption to the Google Search Partner Network. It is aimed at weeding out bad actors from the ecosystem and ultimately is going to benefit the technology-driven companies who are focused on high-quality consumer and advertiser experiences. While we expect the stormy weather will continue for a bit longer, we're looking forward to the sunny days ahead where we can return our focus on scaling our Google business back up. With that, let's move on to some highlights from our products group. which, as I mentioned, is on a stellar run. First, let's go ahead and start with Coupon Follow, our leading couponing and promo code service. Coupon Follow had a very strong holiday shopping season and a great fourth quarter, with the site continuing to perform well following Google's search algorithm updates in 2024. Our focus on a high-quality user experience and delivering verified, real-time promotional codes continues to pay off. Organic sessions rose more than 20% sequentially from Q3, and sessions were up 129% year over year. In addition to our growth in site traffic, our browser extension users have more than doubled year over year. We have a very nice flywheel going with Coupon Follow. As our usage increases, we get better signals on which promo codes are currently working for users. That enables a higher quality experience for users because the promo codes that the users try actually work. This in turn brings in more users and more data and so on. And as coupon follow continues to scale, we're able to land more direct deals with brands, which in turn improves the accuracy in deals found on coupon follow. In 2025, we're going to aggressively capitalize on these great trends and with a continued focus on providing a better experience for both consumers and merchants. Now I'm going to move on to Startpage, our privacy-focused search engine. Startpage continues to gain traction as global concerns around online privacy and data security show no signs of letting up. As regulations like GDP in Europe and evolving US privacy laws place greater emphasis on consumer data protection, StartPage is very well positioned to provide an alternative to mainstream search engines. StartPage user sessions grew over 20% year over year as more users seek private search. And in addition, the StartPage private browser apps we launched last year already have more than 200,000 downloads across both Android and iOS. As usage and revenues grow on StartPage as more mainstream users seek private search engines, our 2025 is going to be about continuing to add the bells and whistles these users expect when they switch from Google or Bing or DuckDuckGo over to StartPage. We also intend to make AI integration a major focus of StartPage in 2025. And lastly, let's talk about MapQuest, everybody's favorite, oh, that still exists, internet service. Well, I'm happy to let you know that MapQuest is back. MapQuest continues to experience strong engagement with user sessions growing more than 45% year-over-year. The demand for alternative mapping and navigation solutions remains strong, especially as users seek more privacy-conscious and feature-rich alternatives to dominant platforms. Our team has revitalized MapQuest by introducing new functionality, enhancing our mobile experience, and optimizing local mapping capabilities. Recently, we launched private maps, offering users enhanced control over their location data. And all these efforts are paying off, and the renewed MapQuest recently went viral all over social media, and MapQuest was called out in segments on CNN and Stephen Colbert. Now, I'll move on to our partner network performance. Partner network revenue was $11 million and adjusted gross profit was $14 million, up 10% both year over year and sequentially. Our partner network results included an accounting revenue adjustment, which lowered both revenue and COGS and had no impact on gross profit. We will be excluding the adjustment as we make comparisons to prior periods and report business metrics. Without the adjustment, revenue was $18 million, which represents an 8% year over year increase. In Q4, average revenue per partner decreased 6% versus the third quarter, while active and scaled partners increased. Total active partners increased 6% from Q3 to over 300 partners. At the end of Q4, we had 65 scaled partners, a 12% increase from the third quarter. As a reminder, we consider a platform customer to be a scaled partner when they are generating at least $50,000 of revenue per quarter on-ramp. Now, similar to our owned and operated business, our partner network team has had to navigate the rapidly changing Google landscape. The team has done a great job handling the volatility, and we are very well positioned as we ship business over to the new Google RSOC product. Looking forward to the rest of 2025, we remain cautiously optimistic. Our owned and operated products continue to demonstrate strong fundamentals And I'm excited to see us expand on our core platforms in couponing, private search, and mapping. And on the marketing side, our investments in AI-driven optimizations are positioning us well for future growth. And I'm very glad we made the early decision to invest heavily in the new Google RSOC product. To close, I want to reiterate, as I always do, System 1's leadership team remains fully aligned with our shareholders, And as a group, we remain one of the company's largest shareholder bases. As we continue our transition back to growth mode, we very much appreciate your continued support, and we look forward to delivering long-term value. With that, I'll hand it over to Treaty to go over our financials and provide Q1 guidance. Take it away, Treaty.

Overall, we are pleased with our fourth quarter financial results, with the highlight being our $17.9 million of adjusted EBITDA. representing year-over-year growth of 79%, quarter-over-quarter growth of 73%. For the year, we generated $38.6 million of adjusted EBITDA, representing year-over-year growth of 32%, and demonstrating our ability to grow through a challenged marketplace. Now, let's dive into our operating results. Q4 revenue was $75.6 million, representing a 21% year-over-year decrease and sequential decline of 15%. Owned and operated advertising revenue was $64.7 million, down 19% year-over-year and 9% sequentially. The decrease in revenue is directly related to an $11.6 million sequential decline in advertising spend. Within the owned and operated advertising segment, our O&O products business generated $27.1 million in revenue, up 60% year-over-year and 30% sequentially, as to be expected in a seasonally strong Q4. Our fourth quarter RPS was $0.03 and in line with the third quarter, and CPS was $0.17, down 20% from $0.02 in the third quarter. As we lowered our advertising spend, we were able to shift towards lower CPS traffic sources. Overall, RPS and CPS were both down significantly year over year, as throughout the year we have culled certain acquisition channels that had both higher RPS and higher CPS. RPS was down 55% year over year, and CPS was down 65% year over year. The spread between RPS and CPS in Q4 was 1.7 cents, or 98% margin, compared to 1.3 cents, or 59% in Q3. Network revenue was 10.9 million, but adjusted for our net revenue adjustment was 18 million, which was up 8% year-over-year and in line with Q3. Total sessions were 1.9 billion, up 46% year-over-year, and down 20% substantially. Partner Network RPS, after adjusting for the out-of-grade revenue adjustment, decreased 26% year-over-year, but increased 24% quarter-over-quarter. Adjusted gross profit was $44.7 million, up 19% year-over-year and sequentially. Revenue-less advertising spend for our O&O advertising segment increased 21% sequentially to $32 million. Revenue-less advertising spend for our O&O products was $25.6 million, up 62% year-over-year and 27% sequentially. Network revenue less agency fees was $14.4 million, up 10% year-over-year and sequentially. Total sessions processed by RAMP in the most recent quarter was $3.8 billion, up 61% year-over-year and down 14% sequentially. On to operating expenses and EBITDA. In Q4, operating expenses net of ADVAX was $26.8 million, down half a million dollars quarter-over-quarter and down $700,000 year-over-year. We continue to focus on reducing OPEX to create operating leverage. Adjusted EBITDA was $17.9 million in Q4 versus $10 million in the same quarter last year, representing a 79% year-over-year increase. With respect to liquidity, we ended the quarter with $63.6 million of unrestricted cash on our balance sheet and an outstanding balance of $280 million of term loan debt under our credit agreement. Our net consolidated leverage at quarter end was approximately 5.6 times. Now on to Q1 guidance. We are estimating Q1 revenue to come in between $69 million and $71 million, down 18% year-over-year at the midpoint. Despite the revenue decline guidance, we are estimating adjusted gross profit to grow 25% year-over-year at the midpoint and come in between $38 and $40 million. We estimate Q1 adjusted EBITDA to come in between $9 and $11 million, up over $9.5 million year-over-year at the midpoint. The adjusted EBITDA guidance also assumes a benefit from the reversal of the majority of the prior period partner payment balances related to fraudulent traffic on our network from Q2 of last year. For the reasons outlined by Michael during his remarks, specifically around Google volatility, we will not be providing full-year guidance at this time. As we mentioned during our last earnings call, we have continued to see significant volatility in our marketing-driven businesses due to ongoing sell-side product and policy updates. However, our core product utilities, such as private search, mapping, and couponing, provide a strong foundation that allow us to navigate these challenges effectively. Looking ahead, 2025 presents an opportunity to further scale these products, driving consistent user acquisition and engagement By continuing to attract and retain users through differentiated, high-value services, we not only mitigate market fluctuations, but also create sustained monetization opportunities. Additionally, our ramp platform remains instrumental in generating gross profit and EBITDA. As we refine our AI-driven strategies to optimize traffic quality and advertising yield, AI-driven advancements to our platform and processes will also allow us to continue to optimize our operating expenses throughout the year. Our ability to balance growth in owned and operated with a disciplined approach to our marketing businesses will be a key focus in the year ahead. Thank you for joining us today.