Q4 2022 Amplitude Inc Earnings Presentation
The increasing demand for digital optimization and the need for companies to use product data to drive growth revenue and competitive advantage companies of every size and digital maturity are relying on amplitude to help drive the product strategy and answer the strategic question, how do our products drive our business amplitude.
This vision is to help every company create better products through data. We are pioneering a new category of software called digital optimization, which connects product data directly to the business today digital products don't just support the business they are of the business.
Companies have spent the last decade undergoing digital transformation now they have to optimize the massive investments they've made which is where digital optimization comes in digital optimization accelerates innovation and growth through digital products. It transforms product strategy from an intuition based process.
So a data driven one by using event data to understand every behavior in action taken in the product and discover which behaviors drive better business outcomes.
As digital products have become a core business driver the revenue center within companies is shifting from the sales and marketing functions to the product organization.
This C change is resulting in the growing trend of product organizations and the rise of the chief product officer within the C. Suite organizations are realizing that to connect with their customers operationalize all of our own product event data and make better strategic decisions they need a digital optimization system like amplitude Sim.
To how salesforce became the system of record for sales organizations and Adobe became the system of record for marketing, we believe that amplitude can become the system of record for the product organization, representing a $37 billion market opportunity.
There is growing evidence that the digital optimization market is gaining traction and we believe amplitude is the clear leader fresh off the press last week <unk> 2022, Best Software Awards ranked amplitude as number three best software product overall, and the number five best enterprise product across all software products and markets that they were.
The G to winter 2020 to report also ranked amplitude as the number one product analytics solution for the sixth quarter in a row and number one in mobile analytics.
Amplitude was also recently included in three Forrester now Tech reports focused on data analytics customer journey management and real time interaction management together. These three product segments make up the foundation for digital optimization as companies transition beyond digital transformation, they're realizing it is.
Essential to have actionable data and insight into how their customers are using their products, whether that's understanding user journeys managing interactions or analyzing behaviors and outcomes amplitudes digital optimization system is critical to accelerating digital business growth. We're pleased to see this early third party credibility with Forrester.
As digital optimization becomes an imperative for the enterprise.
Yeah.
A key differentiator for amplitude and our product suite as the open approach, we take to help customers move data to our digital optimization system today, we announced new and enhanced integrations across the technology stack to help customers better unify analyze and act on customer data.
The new set of integration allows customers to seamlessly ingest data into amplitude reduce time to implement and create more customized marketing campaigns amplitude now has new integrations with Adobe launch, Google Big query AWS redshift, Google Tag manager and more than 60 other technologies in order to unlock actionable.
Customer insights that fuel faster product innovation.
With new integrations into Adobe and Google Tag manager businesses can now easily move away from traditional web and marketing analytics solutions and adopt amplitude drastically reducing time to implement from weeks to minutes the easier we make it for customers to unify and act on their data and more powerful amplitude becomes for our customers.
Amplitudes leadership is further demonstrated by our customer momentum our paying customer base has expanded 54% driven by strong demand for our products from organizations across a variety of sizes verticals in digital maturity.
Several notable new wins in the quarter included Toyota U S. Taco Bell Twilio wealth front UBS chat books and hacker. One we also had several customer expansions with A&E networks, HBO notion Tampa Ali public benefit core and clear score in the quarter and we continue to.
Encouraging progress with the adoption of our new products experiment and recommend.
Ill expand upon a few customer stories from the fourth quarter to provide additional context of what drove some of these wins and our increasing value to customers.
One of our exciting plans in Q4 as Toyota the world's largest automotive manufacturer and number nine on the 2021 Fortune Global 500, Toyota purchased amplitude analytics in Q4 to increase speed to insight dry product strategy and understand how users engage with the Toyota and Lexus apps.
And Lexus apps were developed to provide a convenient way to stay connected and informed about your vehicle such as easy access to your owners manual on warranty guides locating a dealer scheduling service getting roadside assistance and other connected services. The Toyota team once their app in their decisions about new features to be data driven.
Now with amplitude they can move quickly and use data to support strategic product decisions. Their goal is to drive growth by increasing service purchases and in App subscriptions and better tie the in App experience together with their vehicles.
As consumers demand more digital connectivity from their vehicles to euro will use the amplitude digital optimization system to manage their latest their largest digital bets.
The chief product owner at Toyota and Lexus Mobile App set at best It is critical that we take a data driven approach to develop new features instead of guessing what our customer we want I want to have analytics in my fingertips. So that I can focus on problem solving rather than waiting days or weeks to get someone to generate reports.
Another big Q4 win was wealth front, a leading automated wealth management provider that recently agreed to be acquired by UBS with over $27 billion in assets under management and more than 475000 clients in the U S. Wealth fronts award winning platform helps clients easily manage their wealth with aggressive growth goals for 2020.
Two they knew they needed to scale the analytics efforts in Q4 wealth front shows amplitude as a strategic partner to drive velocity visibility and growth.
Another great Q4 expansion as A&E networks, a global media company comprised of some of the most popular and culturally relevant brands, including <unk> E. The history channel lifetime, LMA and FYI <unk> TV and biography, it's premium content spans linear and digital platforms and is in seven out of 10 Americans.
Homes, cumulatively, reaching 335 million people worldwide with $500 million plus digital users.
Any networks partnered with amplitude for two of their main categories of products TV everywhere TV AD supported streaming and subscription video on demand or streaming.
A key objective was to increase their customer base across TV and subscription video on demand with retention a significant focus as well.
Beginning in 2017 amplitude has helped A&D enhance their visibility into insights across their organization and we've continued to bolster their customer engagement efforts. They saw the amplitude digital optimization system as a powerful way to create self sufficiency across their marketing strategy digital video analytics and product teams.
This quarter any expanded their adoption of amplitudes newest product experiment to bet big on the customer experience to optimize how customers interact with digital experiences and to be able to test current and future features.
Okay.
Now looking ahead to 2022.
Making our customer successful is deeply embedded in our culture and Youll continue to see us to prioritize ease of adoption and world class customer success capabilities in support of winning the enterprise, we have been making significant investments in our product development and engineering teams over the past year, which resulted in the introduction of our recommend an experiment <unk>.
<unk> in 2022, we will be accelerating these investments to help customers bring on the full suite of our capabilities will also expand the amplitude digital optimization system to address more use cases building out the most comprehensive product suite available in the market.
The digital optimization category is still early and relatively unknown and we will continue to evangelize the success and transformative business impact our customers are seeing which is key to our mission of helping companies to build better products.
Finally, supporting all of these initiatives I'm really excited to announce that we're holding amplify the number one product in growth conference from May 24th to May 26, as a hybrid in person online event will be welcoming customers and users in person in Las Vegas, as well as streaming the event live.
So that everyone can benefit from the experiences of global product leaders and learn about our exciting upcoming product announcements.
In closing, we're pleased with our results and full year 2021, and I am proud of our team's continued execution. We believe that we're at the beginning of a significant market opportunity and we're investing aggressively in our pursuit of capturing that.
And for your interest in amplitude and now I'd like to turn it over to <unk> to walk through the financial results.
Thanks, Spencer and thanks again to everyone. Joining us today, we had a solid fourth quarter with strong revenue growth customer count and net retention rate.
Q4 revenue came in at $49 4 million, representing 64% annual growth.
For the year revenue was $167 3 million, an increase of 63% compared to full year 2020.
We ended the quarter with 1597 paying customers an increase of 54% year over year. Because it is also at the end of our fiscal year. We will we will provide a more detailed breakdown. We ended with 385 customers with a commitment of over 100000, which was up 47% year over year.
<unk> represented approximately 73% until they are in a 2021.
Of these customers 29 were above the 1 million Mark and increased <unk>.
We're excited that the customer embraced our digital offerings.
Mcmahon to use <unk>.
And are excited to announce that we now have over 100 customers using our product.
Experiment and recommend.
Yeah.
This expanding use of our platform is also reflected in our improving dollar based net retention rate.
R&R, which increased 400 basis point year over year to 123%.
As a reminder, this metric is calculated on a trailing 12 months.
We are excited to see our land and expand strategy.
From a geographic standpoint, Q4 revenue in the U S.
Increased 66% year over year to $31 3 million and international revenue increased 62% to $18 1 million.
The U S with 53% and international was 37% revenue consistent with the prior year.
Turning to remaining performance obligations or RVO in.
In Q4, <unk> increased to $170 1 million.
78% year over year.
Current RPI increased to $137 3 million up 60% year over year and represents about 81% of total RPM.
Before turning to gross margin expenses and profitability. Please note that I'll be discussing non-GAAP results going forward as.
As a reminder, our GAAP financial results along with reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results can be found on our earnings press release and supplemental financial on our IR website.
Gross margins improved to 72% compared to 71% in Q4 2020, as we continue to scale the business move.
Moving to operating.
For Q4 sales and marketing expenses were $21 9 million compared to $12 6 million last year.
This is up 73% year over year and represented 44% of revenue compared to 42% of revenue in Q4 2020.
We expect this line to increase as a percentage of revenue in fiscal year 'twenty two as we build our sales capacity and drive awareness, including our in person amplify them.
<unk> in Q2.
R&D expense in Q4, with $9 8 million compared to $5 3 million last year.
This represented approximately 20% of revenue compared to 18% of revenue in Q4.
We continue to increase our investments in product development as we focus on extending our leadership in Arctic analytics and building additional solutions to service the chief product officer role.
G&A expense was $8 9 million for the fourth quarter compared to $3 6 million in the fourth quarter of last year.
G&A was 18% of revenue versus 12% of revenue last year.
This is an incremental cost of operating in public company, but we expect this to improve as a percent of revenue as we continue to scale.
As a result loss from operations in the fourth quarter was $5 million compared to a loss of $2 million last year.
Operating margins of negative 10% compared to negative 1% in the same period as we accelerated growth investment for growth.
Net loss was $5 4 million compared to <unk> 5 million in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Net loss per share with <unk> based on $107 9 million shares compared to <unk> in the fourth quarter of 2020 based on 26 million shares.
Turning to free cash flow.
Free cash flow was negative $4 2 million or negative <unk>, 25% of revenue compared to negative $3 8 million or negative 13% revenue.
In the fourth quarter of 2020 for the full year 2021 free cash flow was negative $4 9 million or negative <unk>, 21% of revenue.
Note that Q4 and full year 'twenty, one free cash flow was approximately $6 5 million and $18 2 million in direct lithium we expect.
Adjusting for this our free cash flow margin would have been negative 4% in Q4.
10% for the year.
Turning to our balance sheet cash equivalents were $307 4 million at year end down from $317 8 million in the prior quarter.
We're 2021 complete let's now shift our attention and discussion to our outlook for the first quarter and full year 2022.
Detailed in today's press release, our initial revenue guidance for 2002 is 226 to 234 million, which represented a 37% at the midpoint and approximately 40% from the high end.
Before going further into guidance I would like to provide you with some additional impact into our thinking on this range.
We believe we're still in the early days of visual optimization and until we've seen customers like Alaska arent NBC and under armour. It can take a few years for new customers completely embraced the full capabilities of our digital optimization system drive larger expansion.
As we shared these can be quite meaningful for a result, as we saw in Q2, we won.
We cite timing of these can fluctuate and that timing uncertainty is reflected in our <unk> guidance.
We believe our new customer growth new product adoption rising net retention rates a great signal that we are well positioned strong sustained top line growth.
With that said, let me review the rest of our 2022 items.
We expect our non-GAAP operating margins to be negative 22 to negative 20%, given our planned investments and build awareness and extend our product leadership.
We expect non-GAAP net loss per share to be between 44 and <unk> 42.
And assuming shares outstanding of approximately $111 9 million.
For the first quarter of 2022 weeks ago to be between 50% and $51 million, representing an annual cooperate a 53% at the midpoint.
No I like most others cloud software companies, we recognize revenue ratably on a daily basis.
There are two less days in the first quarter than in the fourth this represents a headwind of approximately two percentage points of growth sequentially.
We expect non-GAAP operating margin to represent them.
<unk> negative 20% to 20%.
We expect non-GAAP net loss per share it would be between 10 and 19.
Assuming shares outstanding of approximately $109 5 million.
In summary, we believe we are well positioned to drive attractive revenue growth and we hope companies build better products with our digital optimization.
We're looking forward to continuing our discussions with investment and now we're excited about <unk> market opportunity.
With that said I'll turn it back over to Jason to moderate Q&A.
Thanks, Tom we will now begin the Q&A portion of our webcast sell side analysts.
And our first question will come from Michael <unk> from Keybanc.
And a follow up will be from Rob Oliver of Baird.
Might take a second here.
Hey, guys compound unit there. Thank you so.
Kwang and Spencer last last quarter, you spoke about.
Not seeing the expansion that you had seen earlier in the year in <unk> as you just referred to now.
What do you what did you expect to turn around that.
Didn't obviously, how do you how do you rectify that and at the same time, how does that square with what looks like.
Pretty good.
Spansion and you're in your <unk>.
In addition to <unk> growth on a sequential basis.
Yeah, Michael Thanks for the question.
First of all obviously whenever we give guidance, we're obviously looking forward and what kind of make sure whatever guidance. We provide we feel comfortable in delivering and so the guidance is more about like I would say the future expansion I think we we kind of into Q4 and that will be executed exactly kind of what we wanted to do but when we look at the opportunities for expansion.
<unk> put out there or just more kind of like fluctuation that we've seen in terms of.
Obviously expansion that happened in one customer that had accelerated growth in their.
Business due to Covid, we already expected that growth rate.
Slowdown or decline, they're still growing but let's say slower.
What's not clear is those companies that are not impacted by COVID-19 onto actually would benefit from that they return back to normal.
You kind of have dealt ending have AUM upon an olympics that timing of that we also like I said, we're excited the fact that we have many new customer and we're also excited that.
Our new product recommending permanent seeing traction within the over 100 customers that are on it now, but it's just not clear.
Right now in terms of the exact timing of these expansion, but we're very confident in the long term that companies will adopt and expand their usage of amplitude that like we've seen in the past with other customers.
That's the best visibility we have at the moment.
And I guess, whether it's August maybe mid dispenser.
I can take the question, maybe I guess as a go to market is it a go to market issue or a product approach that you take to try to rectify this I mean to be as specific as you can see where is it that people who are really not expanding where you expected do you feel like you've got to rectify that from a product perspective or as I said in.
In terms of the different go to market motions absorbed I think to be clear I mean, so 2021 phenomenal year real breakout year for us, 63% revenue growth, 54% customer growth.
What's key to understand is to <unk> point the precise timing. This is an evangelical sale and so the precise timing of these expansions can fluctuate and so great example that is called Venmo and.
Paypal, So venmo has been a customer with us for a really long time and then when they got acquired by Paypal. It took a few years for Paypal to adopt the religion of digital optimization of data driven product of Hey, we're going to track metrics in our product and understand and use those metrics in order to figure out how to drive revenue throughout our products and so.
So it's not a rip and replace where it's like okay. Here's a clear thing and you swap it out it's more of an adoption of a new type of religion, and so to that point I think the I have a lot of confidence that that's the right way to run your product business and there's no question that that religion is happening we're seeing I mean, if you had asked me a few years ago Haywood Toyota to be a customer.
Like I will probably take a while.
We're seeing that happen in both tech and non tech companies.
A question I think is just what's the precise timing of that adoption of this new way of building product.
Michael you're on mute.
Thanks, very much Jason Yeah. Thanks, Michael Our next question will come from Rob Oliver and a follow up question will come from Elizabeth <unk> Morgan Stanley .
Great. Thanks, Jason Thanks, everybody.
Hi, Juan.
So just I think I've got a follow up on Michael's question, and maybe ask just a little different way.
It seemed like you guys had.
A certain cadence of.
Deal evolution with say, the atlassian and into carts.
And was there an expectation around.
Was that cadence relative to recommend an experiment, that's maybe taking a little bit longer clearly you guys are getting some nice early traction there, but I'd be curious to hear say for example would like at the Fortune 100, where you guys have a really nice presence, but it's not a multi product presence yet what are you seeing there and has there been a lengthening.
Some of those sales cycles, and then I had a quick follow up.
Yes.
Yes, I think this is something we've seen since the start of amplitude.
Where exactly how fast and how quick someone.
Adopt digital optimization can vary and so obviously, we saw last year really great breakout year for US Amazing I think if you look at the examples you just talked about in the cart atlassian into it was the same way where it really can take it's not just a one quarter or one year things can take many years even in these <unk>.
Is that a very tech forward because they are adopting a new way of building their product and so as we put out guidance for this coming year, we want to make sure to be clear on what it is that we feel absolutely great about hitting and Thats. What you saw that's what we went through with with longs remarks in terms of the new products I think I want to separate that out new products are still a very.
Very small percentage of the revenue base now we're really proud of.
To get to in the space at six months 100 companies on new products like that as a real proof point to me as a CEO , saying hey, what we're doing here is working let's invest behind this now relative to your overall customer base of 1600 customers still relatively small.
But.
That's giving me a lot of confidence in order to say hey, let's continue to invest behind these products, let's launch more products. This year, we expect to continue to want launch one or two products a year from.
2022 and years forward.
And so I think we're.
We're excited about that as potential future upside.
And we also want to be clear about what we think.
What we think where we think 2022 is going to land.
The only I would add Rob fees that we publicly you mentioned if you look at new <unk>.
And stuff like that.
Their timelines expansion for us.
We're not seeing that I'm going to let it get longer.
<unk>.
Our hope was that actually the timeline may get a little bit shorter, but attachment thing lovely the same.
So it's taking time for those to happen I think the other.
Is that.
When you have the full.
That we would not like hey, they may actually grow and benefit from pinpoint and back to normal back out a portion of those moves because again, we actually have a pretty diversified customer.
And those customer maybe the snapback.
Coming back from those isn't as fast as we initially with kind of looking and thinking they may can be made would be and so that those both of those factors are things that we're trying to make sure that when we look out further we're making sure we're doing the right prudent things in providing the guidance.
Great.
Helpful. I just had a.
A quick follow up if I may Jason just on the.
Just on the sort of the two.
Recent developments around to the Adobe extension into the Snowflake integration, yes, very nice very nice customer additions this quarter. So I'd love to hear if the Adobe extension had played any role there and then at the level of the it Department I know, it's still very early and Spencer, we talked about it last call, but just would love.
Here, if that sounds like integration is sort of easing that barrier to adoption at all thank you guys. Yes, yes. So that's a great question, Rob I looked at those that USA I think so what makes the Theres 60, Theres 60 different integrations, we have in total in terms of different ways to bring in data and amplitude what makes.
The Adobe and Google integration is particularly exciting as those are massive companies, even totally different levels and snowflake and so that opens up a whole new set of customers that previously it would take quite a lot of engineering resources to transition and get on and get set up with amplitude that now its like you do a few clicks and an interface and youre up and running.
And so those are really huge proof us now to be clear, we just launched them. So it's not like we have tons of customers on them. We've obviously beta with a bunch of customers and we're just really excited to get it out there because now it's like I think going forward the market on that on those has really opened up for us.
I think the other part of it is that.
I think with what you see there.
There is an expectation and latest in the current generation of SaaS tooling that things are just very open and youre going to be able to move data in and out from wherever you want and so that's the number one walker to customers getting set up an amplitude today and so the more we can reduce that the better and you've talked about adobe and Google in particular again massive.
<unk>.
Massive huge opportunities for us now.
Early we just launched those.
Obviously, you've done a few customers in the beta side on them.
And we'll continue to do more theres a whole ecosystem of these things where customers may have their data.
Awesome. Thanks, Rob Thanks again guys.
Our next question will come from Elizabeth Elliot and after that it'll be Tyler Radke with Citi.
Hi, Thank you so much for the question.
He had asked about calculated billings it looks like it was down quarter over quarter.
I just want to get at some of what's driving that was there any pull forward that you had in Q3.
We're working through this quarter, what was the rationale for down quarter over quarter on billings.
Thanks for the question.
Calculated billing obviously with vaccines.
The amount of work in Boise and you also saw that decline in revenue for the quarter is this the payment.
Typical of our renewal base and the timing of invoicing in Q.
Q4, invoicing that we do typically we kind of call. It the end of September renewal base, and where the deals are coming in December and the movies that are demanding that.
In summary, we usually build in Q1 and so if you look at past trends Youll see than we typically have one of our stronger billing appeared in Q1, and we're going to see that youll kind of see a flip flop. There in terms of billings per revenue down in Q4, because that's kind of pulling out of the Q3 wheel base and Q4 renewal base will actually get invoice in January so that's just a little bit of a timing.
Delta between 2.1.
Yes, it will be helpful. As we start building out the historical database.
And there was also obviously did the other point to make sure. It would be in Q3 was also particularly a little bit stronger. It gets through two expansion was so strong and when you get built out in Q3, you obviously have the Q3 number being a little bit higher.
That's helpful and then.
On IRR, how much is it expanding with kind of really the analytics product.
Through the new products, starting to get to drive that number hiring I know, it's a trailing 12 month figure Shanghai <unk>.
You called out in terms of low quarters rolling off in any sort of color that you can give on the in quarter in our on premise, yes sure. So on the net retention rate. Obviously it is a trailing 12 quarters youre starting to obviously.
For the.
Quarter.
Get into the Covid year than it is to kind of go through it.
That's kind of it will fall off and you'll have the impact obviously.
The momentum that we had in Q2, but I think the other thing that's really positive greater that you look at it gross retention longer things also to improve overtime as we've gotten better both from our product and our activation and how we engage with customers. So this is mainly a combination of us doing a better job on growth retention and kind of really.
Ending on quite a analytic the new parts are so new and unique that came in and to really lock in Q2, because there is not going to have some impact in Q3 and Q4, but it's still pretty small in this evening.
Thank you.
Okay, we'll head over to Tyler next and following Tyler will be Mbabane Suri William Blair.
Hey, Thanks for taking my question and good afternoon everybody.
I wanted to drill in a little bit more on your comments around some of the weaker expansions that you've seen thus far in Q1.
About your expansions I think of it as multiple dimensions to it you have.
Kind of the product usage and increased App usage and then you also have kind of your upsell motion with with newer use cases so.
I guess was it did I hear you right that it was just kind of that first example, kind of the weaker app usage that kind of drove the sweeper expansion and I'm just curious if you're making any changes internally, whether it's customer success are.
Deploying more resources to kind of help improve that metric.
Hi, I just want make sure.
We're not saying that we've actually seen what kind of floor expansion I think it's more like looking forward and looking at like what the pipeline isn't making sure that we're doing the right level of guidance, given where you are in the guidance.
And so to.
Two questions. One is there a different type of expansion I would say that we're not really seeing in different from hydro one as kind of more usage of product changes and the impact of our volume because they are both kind of come into play as well as company news, you've kind of add additional product or move on to other privately <unk> box, you really kind of adopted.
This optimization of our product end of life as a way of doing it until that timeline why.
It feels like it's not like getting shorter and so we probably do need to do we will continue to help raise awareness do more education and as that becomes more standardized and standard in the market I do think that that timeline won't it.
Waller, but if we haven't seen that.
As far as volume increases are concerned that typically is more indicative of where they may have already adopted as late as a function of how well are they doing growth and so again, obviously, you've got you have the companies have done really well last year.
Like I said before we're not expecting those companies that haven't seen kind of a growth rate. There is still growing I think the unknown for US is like the company that you would expect to let's say do better back whether it be travel or entertainment or hospitality.
Okay.
When does that actually come back I think we're just trying to again make sure that we're doing more food and decision on tax we don't really know and so what are the metrics. We look at in terms of the product usage and weaken the learning users as we mentioned before in terms of how many people are using our product asking questions. Those are looking really good and so that's why we have a lot.
Confidence in Nevada, we believe that the expansion will happen. If the question is when and because the timing of those expansion impact revenue.
Quite significantly like we've seen before just want to make sure. We're doing the right thing from a guidance standpoint the.
The only comment I would add is just on the new products again those are super early so in terms of they are not making up a large portion of any of the numbers. We're talking about are sharing now where at some really exciting things. We're seeing some really exciting things there and its really its hard for SaaS companies to go from one product to multi product and so as a CEO that gives me a lot of confidence that.
That will continue we'll continue to find success there we want to invest behind those we want it.
Launch new products and going forward, but they don't make up even if their growth rate numbers are off the charts as a percentage relative to the rest of the business is still quite small.
Okay.
Yes.
Maybe just a follow up.
You talked about some pretty impressive wins this quarter like Toyota not necessarily known traditionally as a tech company, but I'm curious just kind of how you see the pipeline.
All of them for maybe the more traditional industries financial services automotive just kind of your your non traditional type things that are hoping to evolve to be a tech company. Yes, I think we've really seen a market change from a few years ago I think.
If you were to go back to 2019 or even early 2020 most of the large expansions were from these tech companies.
<unk>.
And the Atlassian and the Paypal and so on.
But what we're seeing now is that non tech is adopting particularly in the last year and a really big way.
So automotive is one Toyota was Q4, but we've also had done a lot of business was for this year, which has been really cold C. On the media side A&E networks HBO NBC.
All really big customers on amplitude and so I think youre seeing this transformation happening across cross a lot of non tech industries, and so as I think about how we manage the business. It's like okay, let's make sure to make investments in going after those guys in a big way as well.
Okay.
Great. Thanks, Tyler Okay, we will go to a bottle necks and he'll be followed by a <unk> with bank of America.
Great. Thanks can you guys hear me okay.
Great.
So let me just follow up that sort of question a little bit more here.
There is a sort of contemplate if I look at Atlassian.
So invested in what you guys do that if they launch a new product. It feels like you guys are embedded in that no question or it will be and that.
Why will for some of the Tech guys. As you said was leading edge.
Starting to see it with some of these other guys. So I guess my first question is how do you go to market differently. There. The tech guys don't forget it but is it a vertical sales force.
<unk> approach to say, hey, here's how we think about it and then it looks talk to you a little bit about how you are offsetting that with conservatism because youre, saying, we don't know when the expense is going to happen, but you've seen the flywheel pick an attack and you seem to be seeing that fly will kick in and help me balance those two things as well as sort of the go to market.
Yes, so first.
It's early so it's not like we've decided to Verticalizing that's still are.
Many year thing away.
With those sort of customers Thats when you do need more robust support they're more like Hey, teach me about this religion versus being embraces themselves now the crazy thing from my standpoint, as CEO is that there are actually some very sophisticated digital people in this company.
In conversations with Ford I mean, they get it they get this religion. They understand it. It's just a question of how do they actually do the change management to adopt it same with NBC, they're kind of all in on understanding their digital like they have been an all in for a number of years I understand the digital platform and now we're seeing that across more and more and more companies now so I think.
Part of it for US is like how do we continue to increase our sophistication and ability to serve them, whether that's with more customized and substantial services. We've already done a lot on the implementation and to help them. Both on the product side that I talked to earlier those integrations as well as we actually do charter regularly for implementation services now and that wasn't a thing.
In the past and we want to continue maturing and building a more robust muscle there.
So that we're really well positioned to go after the opportunity.
As to the timing comment I think this is something frankly I've seen a CEO .
Since the very beginning of amplitude like you've come in you'll land with a team and you don't get start to get some wins and then that religion will grow and get adopted by the rest of the company, but that process.
Can take a few years, it's not just like a one quarter thing, where it's like alright, let's roll. This whole thing out from day, one and so we're not seeing any inconsistency and thats actually the same thing happening at Ford and NBC that we see happening at the Atlassian and Intuit.
And and the tech guys and so we want to make sure that the numbers that we're putting out for this year reflect that in the right way.
Yes, so sorry to beat that.
So just wanted to make clear about that but then my second question is just on the competitive environment any changes in landscape and are you still sort of battling in some of the newer wins. This idea that I can just take product data and maybe take <unk> or Google or whatever it's called now I'm, putting the data warehouse how is that because that's coming up more or less how do we think about that.
At a broader set of prototypes competitors. How are you seeing that environment put out yes, it's still very greenfield and that's why we're talking so much about the adoption of the religion versus hey, how are we competing against someone now I think what normally will happen is as sub one starts to adopt this religion they'll start to kind of duct tape a few different things together and maybe they have a data warehouse.
Maybe they have a bi tool on top.
They have a bunch of data engineers building out our pipeline and what we can what is really exciting for me is we can come to them and say hey look all of this stuff. All these customized engineering resources. All of this is really customer stack, we can do or we can do it for you and what's really interesting to see is that non.
Non tech companies, they get that they love it but even within tech like a lot of tech folks you might think Oh build in house.
Twitter I might want to build in house or intuit, but they've actually come around to it.
In the same way and so from a competitive standpoint, it's more about getting people to adopt their religion and embraced amplitude as part of that than it is.
And not use a bunch of duct tape things than it is about any one.
Any other player in the market.
Gotcha Gotcha. Thank you thanks, taking my questions I appreciate it.
Okay. We'll go next next question will come from Koji and then we'll finish up with Taylor Mcginnis at UBS.
Yeah, Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question.
Had a question on sales productivity just quick back of the envelope math here from the 22 revenue guide it looks about the add net add for 'twenty. Two is about about the same as 2021.
You guys have been clearly investing heavily in sales capacity branding and all of that sorts of stuff. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how how sales capacity has been ramping is it going to plan.
How do we triangulate all of the investments that you've done with the revenue guidance, yes for sure Koji.
A great question I think there's two really important parts of that first is if you look at either 2020 or 2021, we were very conservative in how we how we invested in the business whether from a sales or go to market or what have you perspective, because out of abundance of caution with the uncertainty in the environment with coronavirus and everything else that was.
Impacted by the pandemic and so.
A lot of what we're doing now is kind of just catching up to the place that we should have been a year or two ago in terms of making the investments commensurate with the growth numbers that we're seeing and so that's kind of first and foremost the second part of that is that 2020 investment is not just about this exact here and what we're looking at it is about the.
Long term in the years ahead, we want to make sure to set ourselves up for 'twenty three 'twenty four and so on and so we closely track all the numbers that youre talking about sales capacity sales ramp.
The whole thing, we feel great about where those are at with the team.
We want to make sure to make the investments that will set us up to own the massive market in the long term versus <unk>.
<unk> anything else got it. Thanks, Spencer and then just one follow up for Bob I wanted to go back to a previous question on the billing seasonality I just wanted to make sure I understood that correctly. So could you dig in I'll, just a little bit why would Q1 be the strong seasonal renewal quarter, if I heard that correctly.
What is it different about the customer uses that shifted over to Q1 versus you know what we're more use of the traditional Q4 strength and then as the business scales do you foresee an eventual shifts to a more Q4 weighted billing seasonality.
Yes, so I actually think we're very similar to most of the companies in that Q4.
<unk> has always historically been our stronger quarter just at the.
The invoicing for those December renewal ends up they don't actually happen until January .
Right until it happens to be that when we look at it from an invoicing and when it hits deferred revenue, you'll actually show up on the Q1.
It's only simulators that we don't build it out in the vaccine months that that we know actually happen it depends on those at the bottom.
Eight months maybe.
If you follow.
Okay. Just one quick follow up thinking about the invoicing timing is it like a renewal than a 30 day delay or how do we think about that.
How can we incorporate that into our models. So I guess, the best way to think of it in the past.
The salesperson signs and deal that deal would typically start the day of the following month.
And so when the data volume on starting to kind of have a lot of January 1st start date, right and then when that game with restart date, and then that would be the data is actually built.
Got it got it. Thanks, Thanks, guys. Thanks for taking my questions.
Hey, Scott.
Okay and our final question comes from Taylor.
Yeah, hi, thanks, so much on for taking the question. So maybe I'm going off of the last question that was just asked.
You think about the billings and invoicing being stronger in <unk> versus <unk> can you maybe talk about that in the context of I guess, what we saw this past year. So if I look at 2021, it seems that <unk> and <unk> were similar in size is in terms of sequential growth.
And it was really QQ, then I think you saw the strength in the quarter. So I guess, how might this coming year be.
Similar or not like what we saw this past year and anything that you could add just in terms of like Dr being down sequentially. This quarter. If there was anything anomalous in there too.
Sure. Yeah. So Q2 was obviously a stronger quarter than normal because we did have some early expansion where when they early expanded in Q2. The apathy also build some in Q2 right, but then because some folks.
Still kind of have those expansion at <unk>.
Also on the Q3 billing right. So Q2 and Q3 billings will have a mix of some of the expansion that happened actually that's why you saw the <unk> increased in Q2, but the invoicing kind of spread out between the two quarters right.
And so typically in the past that we didn't have that that kind of a onetime Q1 billings typically are baked quarter over quarter growth because your Q3.
Bookings tend to be.
Smaller wondering influence indirectly your Q4 billings is slightly lower because of that one month delay.
Okay got it and then just my last one for me.
A lot of people have already comment that net customer adds really strong in the quarter, I guess, where we have less visibility.
In the context of what you guys are talking a lot of it is just in the.
In quarter dollar based net expansion rate. So can you maybe talk about what that might have looked at looked like this quarter relative to past quarters and then.
You can talk about just in terms of average lands' end as we look ahead I know in the past you've talked about continuing to see improvement on the Andhra 20% plus dollar based net expansion rate, but in the context of today's call is how do we think about that as we look forward yeah.
First of all we're still committed to maintain our net retention rate over 120, and the long term because I think obviously as the base gets bigger that gets more challenging but we also believe we have.
Adding so many new customers and they are still in the early days of their expansion and then obviously you also have the new products. So I think that that's really important.
We went back to growth I.
I think that when you think about our expansion how we performed for the answer to your question on that we didn't really well I think again, it's more of a limited guidance looking out multiple quarters and we're trying to give out guidance per year, we're trying to figure out with expansions in or out.
For the quarter.
Our net dollar retention, even as trailing 12 months.
All really positive there from when the Q4 performance is it was more of just kind of looking at visibility like hey, windows and counts and where most of our new cover at with both of them are still actually in our commercial and SMB right and so they are still smaller account, we're super excited to have them right and sometimes with mark out they'll become big and sometimes also get acquired by other larger companies.
It's something we're learning about the innovative way to do the best practice of.
Using data to build better product right and bill.
We will continue to go after that as far as like Asp's concerns put out we haven't seen enrolled material changes there's like in some market slightly up the market slightly down but net net it's been pretty consistent.
Haven't seen any.
<unk>.
Great. Thanks for taking the time thank you.
And with that we'll conclude today's discussion thanks for your interest in amplitude and joining today's webcast.
Thanks, everyone appreciate it.