Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for GoDaddy's Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. I'm Christie Masoner, Senior Director of Investor Relations. And with me today are Aman Bhutani, Chief Executive Officer; and Mark McCaffrey, Chief Financial Officer. Mark's voice may sound a bit scratchy today as he is currently under the weather. Following prepared remarks, we will open up the call for your questions. [Operator Instructions] On today's call, we'll be referencing both GAAP and non-GAAP financial results and operating metrics such as total bookings, unlevered free cash flow, normalized EBITDA, annualized recurring revenue or ARR, gross merchandise volume or GMV and net debt. Growth rates presented represent year-over-year comparisons unless otherwise noted. A discussion of why we use non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations of our non-GAAP financial measures to their GAAP equivalents may be found in the presentation posted to our Investor Relations site at investors.godaddy.net or in today's earnings release on our Form 8-K furnished with the SEC. The matters we'll be discussing today include forward-looking statements, which include those related to our future financial results, our strategies or objectives with respect to future operations, including our approach to capital allocation, new product introductions and innovations, and our ability to integrate acquisitions and achieve desired synergies. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that are discussed in detail in our documents filed with the SEC. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today November rd3, 2022 and except to the extent required by law, we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. With that, here's Aman.

Thank you Christie, and thank you all for joining us today. At GoDaddy, our mission is to make opportunity more inclusive for all, championing micro and small business customers. One of our customers, Tyron Harper, co-owner of Harp Vision, was recently asked, what happens if Harp Vision doesn’t succeed? His response was I never thought about it. I only thought about it succeeding. Every day we are inspired by our customers. I know we make a difference in their lives and in uncertain times our mission becomes even more important. None of us have a crystal ball to perfectly predict the future, but I can tell you that our customers are creative and resilient. In a recent survey, while more of our customers expressed a negative near-term outlook they generally remained a positive group with two-thirds of them reporting optimism about their business. Today, we are pleased to announce our Q3 results with 7% revenue growth, 15% growth in normalized EBITDA, and continued strong customer retention of more than 85%. These achievements are noteworthy given the continued negative foreign currency impact, uneven demand patterns, and lower consumer confidence. Our core competitive advantages of high global brand awareness to attract customers, sage guidance through Care to help retain customers, and seamlessly intuitive experiences to deliver mission-critical products and services to our customers uniquely position GoDaddy to weather economic challenges from a position of strength. While we are not immune to economic turbulence, we are committed to action and attention on what we can control. As in previous quarters, we will be prudent with our cost structure. Day to day, that comes down to focusing on success-based marketing, monitoring headcount and directing investments on the most important growth initiatives, including simplification and automation. This formula helps us deliver a great service efficiently.…

Thanks Aman and thank you everyone for joining us today. In Q3, GoDaddy delivered solid results despite increasing currency and macroeconomic headwinds. Revenue was $1.03 billion, growing 7% on a reported basis and 9% on a constant currency basis. Within total revenue, international revenue grew 4% on a reported basis, and 9% on a constant currency basis. Applications and Commerce revenue grew 13%, within the guided range of 13 to 15% on the strength of our Create + Grow and our Commerce products as well as email attach. The ARR for Applications and Commerce grew 10% to more than $1.2 billion and within that, the ARR from our Create and Grow products grew 7% to nearly $430 million. Additionally, annualized GMV across the GoDaddy ecosystem grew 10% to approximately $29 billion. Core Platform revenue grew 5%, within the target range of 4% to 6%, primarily due to growth in the Aftermarket and increased pricing in domains, offset by a modest decrease in our hosting business. As Aman noted above, the hosting business has concentration and exposure to uneven demand in Europe as well as FX pressure. ARR for Core Platform grew 2% to $2.3 billion. Q3 Bookings totaled $1.09 billion, growing 5% on a reported basis and 7% on a constant currency basis. Applications and Commerce bookings grew 10% and Core Platform bookings grew 3% on similar growth factors noted for revenue. Normalized EBITDA grew 15% to $263 million, a margin rate of 25%, representing a 180 basis point expansion, year-over-year. Continued discipline in spending allowed us to increase our margins at a rate higher than our bookings. Unlevered Free Cash Flow for the quarter totaled $297 million, growing 18% driven by strong profitability. Additionally, year-to-date we completed $1.15 billion of share buybacks, repurchasing 14.8 million shares, and reducing our…

Thanks Mark. Taking a step back, we are incredibly proud of the work our teams are doing as we are making progress against our stated priorities. GoDaddy has a proven, focused strategy, executed by an experienced team that will act proactively and decisively through a fluid macro-economic environment to create long-term value for shareholders. Despite these headwinds and the tough compare in Q4, the full year is on track to deliver 7% growth or 9% on a constant currency basis. Coupled with the momentum we are driving in commerce, we are excited about what’s to come in 2023 and beyond. With that, we will have Christie Masoner from our Investor Relations team to open up the call for questions.

Thanks Aman. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Elizabeth Porter from Morgan Stanley. Elizabeth please go ahead.

Hi, thank you so much. Obviously, macro is definitely softening. But I was hoping you could provide some color on just how the top of the funnel has changed from Q2 to Q3, and this far into Q4. And last quarter, you did speak about Europe as being a particular area of weakness? And has that trend extended more broadly to the US and any other geographies? Thank you.

Thanks, Elizabeth, this is Aman. I'm happy to take that question. When we talk about the unevenness of demand or the broader macro, if we take a step back, it's been kind of uneven for two plus years, Mark mentioned, sort of some of the September/October data as well. But I, when I look back, I see us navigating the last two years really well, our cohorts have continued to be consistent at about 85% retention or higher, and here we are without sort of, we came into 2022 with uncertainty. And it has been there has been quite a lot of uncertainty where we're sitting at 9%, constant currency revenue growth and expanding margins. We're taking all of that momentum with us into 2023. Are there regions of an unevenness by geography, like you said, or by month or by customer segment? Yes, that's absolutely there. And just to touch on Europe a bit, as we did last quarter, it's broadly similar, as we talked about last quarter, in the UK, in Germany are big markets for us there. So, clearly, we feel a bigger impact there. But we're watching the US very, very carefully. And we're watching our cohorts very, very quick, carefully. But we're taking all this momentum into 2023 and we're excited, we got a lot of new product on the table, a lot of new capabilities that in commerce and payments, WordPress improvements payable domains registry, like there's so much for us to look forward to that. I think we're just going to watch the numbers very carefully and make good decisions. And I'll turn it to Mark, I don't know, Mark, if you'd like to add something?

No, I think that's a good response. Aman, and just kind of bringing it home. I think it's more pronounced in Europe, no doubt, in UK, and Germany, like Amman mentioned, but then overall, looking at Q4 and the outperformance of aftermarket last year versus this year, we're not seeing the same demand around the larger deals, we see a lot of supply and demand. But these things are short to come and quick to close. And we've taken that out of our guide for Q4, because we just don't see it in front of us right now. So, I think that when you talk about demand overall, that's something you have to call out.

Got it. That's helpful. And then just as a follow-up, you guys have always focused on attracting customers that could attach more product and have that higher LTV. And just in the current environment, what sort of changes are you seeing in the willingness to attach additional products or buy bundled solutions? One point -- one hand budgets might be tighter, but then the other hand there is an opportunity just to do more with a single platform versus any sort of smaller point solutions you might have looked at in the past. Thanks.

Yes, I'm happy to quickly touch on that. First, overall, our cohorts are performing consistently, ARPU is rising and continues to do well obviously we'll talk about it more at the end of the year. But our focus is to attract the customers with the right intent that want to use activate the products that we have. So that we continue to maintain that high customer retention rate. And as long as those cohorts form and customers are retained, we know that in any short to mid-term cycles may push customer demand up or down a bit. But over the long-term customers need the products we have. We deliver critical products to them at amazing prices and we know these products are core to their needs. So, short-term up and down is okay. But overall, I think ARPU -- the ARPU, numbers are showing that we're attracting the right customer.

And Aman, I'll add. I think the one-stop shop, the area is really coming to play. And I know we've talked about commerce and the attach we're seeing at the front of the funnel. But we're also seeing the competitive pricing in our existing customer base start to take hold. And I think Elizabeth going to your to your question, it really shows that in this market, dealing with a one-stop shop is a competitive advantage, and we're seeing customers really be attracted to that, not only new customers, but existing customers as well.

Great. Thank you so much.

Our next question comes from the line of Trevor Young from Barclays. Trevor, please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. First, just more of a housekeeping one to start since investors have been asking. Just where did we finish the quarter in terms of domains under management relative to the $83.8 million reported last quarter. And then second one on aftermarket, Mark, maybe could you give us any sort of data points in terms of like percentage of total revenue or growth rate in the quarter or even contribution to overall core platform growth to just kind of help us size where we're at with that business?

Yes. For the doms, Trevor, it will be in our Q tomorrow, so you'll see it. And I referenced a bit in my prepared remarks, about some of the pull forward and what we're seeing with gross adds. So there will be some change in terms of the arc of doms. We will see the details in the Q. And Mark, I'll turn it to you for the second part of the question.

Yes. When you look at the Q4, it's about 2% of the aftermarket contribution that we had last year that we haven't built into this year. Trevor, hopefully, that allows you to size it a bit.

Okay. Great. And then a bigger picture one, Aman. Just on like the Managed WordPress, WooCommerce stores, you mentioned going after some of the larger customers and maybe a few million of revs or high single-digit revs. Is that -- those conversions, are they typically coming from a modern competitive solution? Or are they legacy GoDaddy customers that were maybe like a domains and Managed WordPress customer, but had their own payments or commerce integration. And now to your earlier remarks kind of bringing it all into one house, one-stop shop?

Yes. It's still very early, Trevor, in terms of us reaching into our base and attracting customers that sell multiple single-digit millions of dollars -- multiple single million dollars in sales. What I would say we're seeing a bit of everything right now, but the offering we're taking to them is the one-stop shop from their in-store capabilities to their online. They can go to one screen. They can see Amazon, Etsy, Walmart.com, their physical store and all the inventory things and they have it at an amazing price point for our GoDaddy payments just 2.3% plus $0.30 online. We're really got a great package to approach them with. And what we're seeing is interest and good conversion with our new capabilities. And we'll talk much more about our Managed WooCommerce stores product. That's really targeting these larger sellers. And again, it's still early, but you'll see it in general release very, very quickly, and the pilot continues to go well, sort of -- and we're encouraged by the green shoots there.

Great. Thank you both.

Thanks, Trevor. I think maybe we will ask Christie, I think the next question is from Matt. Matt, do you want to go ahead?

Yes. Great. Thanks. Thank you. I wanted to ask on the presence market. How do you think you're growing relative to the market? Are you seeing share up flat or down? And then some of your competitors in that area have made some material changes to how they're thinking about spending? Has that had any impact on your business?

Yes. Overall, we look at our create and grow products and are quite encouraged with the continued progress there. As we've shared in the past, websites plus marketing, particularly has continued to grow well and really fits a need for our type of customer. The micro business that wants to get up and running faster and website so marketing just produces a really, really good, high performing website for them very, very quickly. So I think we're really encouraged by that. In terms of directional changes from competitors, I think it's still pretty early. We haven't seen a ton of change overall. But our prices for those products are very, very competitive. So we're definitely keeping an eye on it.

Great. And just on the -- Mark, you called out some areas that you've heard some things you've done to drive some cost savings. If the macro continues to worsen into next year, how do you think about making other cost adjustments? And where would those cost adjustments be?

Yes. Thanks. And we don't have a crystal ball into next year. And obviously, we don't know if FX is going to be a tailwind or a headwind and continue to watch the depth and the breadth of the recession, especially in Europe. So, a lot of moving parts there. We look quarter-to-quarter. We look at the leverage in our operating expenses. I think we've talked about that before about how we can obtain leverage. We feel really good about the actions we've taken or are taking in Q4 to manage some of that risk. For example, we talked about the energy contract, the AWS contract. But we continue to look at what's in front of us, what we can do, what's within our control. We can find leverage in G&A and care. Obviously, we continue to get more efficient with marketing. I think even in this year, when you take a step back and you look at where we started to where we finished on our normalized EBITDA margin expansion, it's obviously something we are very focused on and continuing to manage as we go through this environment.

Perfect. Thanks for taking my questions.

Our next question comes from the line of Mark Zgutowicz from Benchmark. Mark, please go ahead.

Hey, Mark.

Hey, Christie, Aman and Mark, will question on payable domains. Curious -- I know it's really early here, but I'm curious what sort of are the KPIs that you're looking at initially here? And how long before you will know whether or not there's a payments activation or a potential payments activation to be made? You've got obviously lots of data that you look at in your marketing is always very focused on high-intent attached users. So I'm sort of curious on what data points you're looking for initially? And then just on Apple Pay, maybe very high level, but I'm just curious how you think about how that will contribute to GMV over time? And maybe specifically, if you look at Apple Pay itself as a driver of cart conversion. But just any high-level thoughts there would be helpful. Thank you.

Yes, happy to take that, Mark. Just to bring it up a level, if you remember how we introduced GoDaddy payments into websites plus marketing, the first set of metrics we talked about is what percentage of customers were attaching GoDaddy payments to websites plus marketing. It's very similar for payable domains or other services where we're bringing in payments, where the first step we're looking at is when we put this capability in front of new customers, what percentage of those customers sign up for it, take it on. And then, of course, we want to see what percentage of those customers activated and then what GPV they'll transact. What we're doing a little bit differently for payable domains is that at the same time, we've started to expose it to cohorts of customers that are already in our base. So that's one of the examples that I used in my prepared remarks where you can imagine customers that have domain plus e-mail with us, they don't have a website with us. They have domain plus e-mail and they come in to make whatever changes on the website or to their account. And what we're doing is we're catching them at that moment. And we're saying, hey, here's a new thing that's available to you, would you like to try it out? And we saw an attractive percentage of those customers sign up for that and say, yes, I'd like to use it. So in terms of exact time line, I can't tell you how many weeks or months it might take to sort of get an idea. But what we're looking for is those customers and just like new customers in the existing base starting to activate the payable capability, use the failing and then see over time what GPV flows through it. But obviously, we have a large base, and we now have this available for 50% of our domains in the US, which is where we have payments. So it's quite a large opportunity we're going after. And in terms of Apple Pay, I think it's just too early to talk about what changes we might see. We're learning more about that relationship and executing towards it, but it's too early to talk about that.

Okay. Thanks, Mark. Appreciate it.

Our next question comes from the line of Mark Mahaney from Evercore ISI. Mark, please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for question. This is Jian Li from Mark Mahaney. Maybe a couple of questions. One is just to circle back on the macro environment. Can you just kind of talk about the demand trends in terms of like the larger users the Pros versus the SMBs? Are the Pros holding up better or is it kind of equal impact across the board? And another question on operating perhaps like on the flip side, I've just kind of noticed a pretty impressive marketing leverage that you guys have had over the past few quarters. I think this is another record low. So if you can kind of talk about, just given the visibility of GoDaddy's core business, given your cash flow position, it almost seems that perhaps there's an opportunity to lean in to marketing if the pricing CPMs are favorable. So if you can talk about the marketing environment you're seeing right now? And kind of how do you think about the spend trajectory? Are you expecting to hold it at this level or be opportunistic?

I guess, I'll start to handle some of that. Okay. Sorry, all right.

Yes. Sorry, Mark, I was already talking on mute, but if I could jump in.

Go ahead. Go ahead, Aman.

I think I've got three separate questions there, and maybe, Mark, you can grab a bit of the last one. But just very quickly, Jian, thanks for the questions. On Pros and SMBs, keep in mind, we -- a lot of the Pros that work with GoDaddy tend to be in our hosting business, and that's disproportionately sort of impacted by FX and European exposure. So what we see there has been significant. Mark talked about our international revenue growing 4% and the five points impact of FX there, would have been 9% constant currency. So we definitely see those shifts. But overall, the broader macro, I would say, it's is impacting all kinds of customers in a similar way. But the most important thing for us is that the customers that we bring in continue to have the right intent because what we're really watching is every quarter customer that would bring in, every channel that they come from, are we getting the right renewal rates for those customers because that's what really creates lifetime value for the company. It's not the fast customer that we can just get for a low price that is going to churn very, very quickly. And in terms of marketing leverage, we've talked about it a little bit in the past of how we have pushed all of our marketing channels into sort of the success-based thinking. And it comes in many flavors. It comes in incrementality testing. It comes in sort of AB testing even based on geos. It comes in AB testing in terms of bidding and search, which I've talked about before. And by being very focused on gathering the data, and executing to what the test show, we have been able to trim our marketing spend and focusing on areas that bring us the best returns with the best intent customers. And in terms of leaning into marketing and doing more there, absolutely, I always say I would love to spend more in marketing every time. I just want it to continue to deliver the returns that we're asking for. So as long as it's within our guidelines, we definitely look for new channels, new areas where we can spend up more and attract more customers. And Mark, I'll turn it to you. I'm not sure, if what I interrupt you.

Yes. No, no. I think you covered a lot of it, Aman, and I think you hit the high points, but I'll add. We continue to look at marketing as a tool based on the ROI we see in front of us. And we're always balancing our decisions today and how we invest while keeping an eye on the long term and our stated objectives. So we're trying to be disciplined in our approach, but yet look for the ROI and the opportunity to take advantage of it when it comes.

Our next question comes from the line of Mili Das on behalf of Deepak Mathivanan from Wolfe Research. Mili, please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for taking the question. I was wondering, if you could provide more color on fiscal year 2023. I know you guys are still in the planning process, but are there any key priorities we should be thinking about into next year? And can we expect any large investment initiatives? Thank you.

So we're looking forward to talking to everybody early next year about our 2023 outlook, but I'll give it a step back here in talk about kind of 2022 and where we're going and the momentum we have going into 2023. When we talk about – our first meeting this year on Investor Day, we had a lot of momentum going into the year, but we couldn't predict the macroeconomic environment that was out there. As we sit here today, we're looking at, targeting 7% growth for the year, 9% on constant currency, and we really like the momentum going into 2023 as it stands. Even in Q4, we always knew Q4 was going to be a tough comparable for us but you take the growth rate, you added a couple of points for FX. You add a couple of points for the aftermarket over performance that we've taken out, and we really have a lot of momentum going in around our products and some of the stuff Aman has talked about. So, looking forward to talking a little bit more as we get into 2023, and what we're seeing out there. But right now, we are really happy with how we're performing in 2022 and the momentum we have. And just to add to that, being able to expand our normalized EBITDA margins during this period and at the same time hit our cash flow targets and cash flow per share targets, we like the long-term outlook out there.

Great. Thank you so much.

Our next question comes from the line of Alex Bolton on behalf of Aaron Kessler from Raymond James. Alex, please go ahead.

I think, it actually Aaron. Hey, guys.

Hey, Aaron.

Can you just talk about maybe the – talk a little bit about the shift to cloud and kind of what's your progress in terms of that shift to cloud services and the impact on OpEx that we should be thinking about over the next year or so?

Yes. I'm happy to share, Aaron that we've continued to shift more of our applications into the cloud. It gives us a much stronger ability to – and greater velocity to put more products out there much, much faster and manage scale much, much better. I'll let Mark talk about sort of some of the OpEx CapEx type sort of change there. But overall, we're very happy with the relationship we have. We've just renegotiated a contract. Our teams work very well together, and almost all of our teams are using the cloud in some way, shape or form. Mark, I'll turn to you for OpEx.

All right. Thanks. Hi, Aaron, how are you doing? Listen, early on, and we'll get more clarity as we talk to you in early 2023, but the way I would look at it right now is, we have pressure around increased energy costs, especially coming out of Europe right now. We talked about the contract we signed to secure our cost for next year. But the AWS contract really allows us to negate any future impacts around energy costs. And I think from an operating expense point of view, we're looking at it to kind of cover us as we go into 2023, if that makes any sense.

Yes, it does. Great. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Naved Khan from Truist. Naved, please go ahead. Hi, Naved. I think you are on mute.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you now.

Great. Yes. So two questions. One, are any of the costs associated with your European business kind of based out of the US or in US dollars that might be hurting the margin somewhat. And the other question is just around the price testing you guys have been doing, any – are you seeing any stickiness in that any kind of pushback? Any color would be great? Thanks.

Yes, nothing to really call out in the data centers and the US dollars or the EMEA part of it. A lot of our European customers are based on European data centers. So obviously, there is some FX impact, but nothing really to call out too significant on the margins.

And then on price testing, Naved, we've continued to test price. And you'll continue to see us do it where we continue to be nuanced in our approach on pricing looking to balance both what's happening sort of macro-economically or within a geo versus also our ability to take share and push in versus take price. So we'll continue to make -- do that approach and we'll continue to guide to the plans that we have, for example, for 2023, you'll hear about them. They'll be within the – as we talk about 2023 in February.

Okay. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of John Van [ph] on behalf of Brent Thill from Jefferies. John, please go ahead. Hi, John, I think you are un-mute.

A -couple of questions, one more on the macro. It does seem like the tone get a little bit more cautious and just wondering, how they've progressed maybe over time in October? And where are you seeing some of the more incremental caution? And then the second question, on the payable domains, I know it's early, but wondering how the behavior is the first time they turn it on and it just trying it out? Or is it like follow-on usage? Any sort of anecdotal that would be great.

Yes. Thanks, John. Maybe taking the second part first. On payable domains, it's super early. What I talked about in my prepared remarks is that in the US, we have now technically enabled half the domains under management as payable. We still have to put that in merchandise that to customers and activate them. But I give an example or 2 of how we're doing that both in the new path and in the existing customers, engaging them. So we're very excited about getting this capability to customer, very excited about some of the attach rates we're seeing. But in terms of customers actually starting to use it and GPV flowing, it will take a little bit of time for us to truly understand what that usage is going to look like. And to take a step back to talk about the overall macro, I think the word that describes it well is that it's been an uneven macro environment for two-plus years now, right? And I'm really proud of what the GoDaddy team has achieved and what we've been able to do. I feel we've navigated that environment very, very well. We've attracted great customers. We continue to have greater than 85% retention rates for customers. We're sitting – we came into 2022 with a lot of uncertainty as well. And we're sitting here with 9% constant currency revenue growth and lots of new products coming into the market in commerce and payments, we word press with websites plus marketing having plan down to even the free plan with payable domains with the registry business. So it's just a lot of good for us to look forward to. And we're taking all of that momentum with us into 2023. And we've highlighted the areas where we see some risks, and we always call it like we see it. right? But at the core, GoDaddy is a market leader. We have a durable business. Our customers are resilient, which leads to us having a resilient business. Our core competitive advantages around our unmatched scale Sage guidance we gave in customer care, that customer care is great for us to attach products, and we'll give you examples of that. And we're building technology that works for our customer for the micro and small business, which is seamless, which is intuitive which helps saves them time, help save them money. And we have pricing like example payments that -- or even in websites marketing, that is very, very competitive in the market. And ultimately, we put the customer at the center of what we're doing. We're staying close to the customer. We're pruning stewards of the P&L. We're investing in areas that are the biggest growth initiatives for us as a company. And we're running the business for long-term profitable and sustainable growth. That's sort of our view, and that's how we see it.

Thank you for the color.

Thank you.

I will now turn the call over to Aman for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Christie. Thank you all for your questions. Thank you to all GoDaddy employees for all the hard work for another good quarter, and I look forward to talking to you next time. Thank you.