Q4 2025 QuinStreet Inc Earnings Call

Speaker #1: Good day and welcome to the QUINSTREET's fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results. Today's conference is being recorded. Following the prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

Speaker #1: To ask a question, press the star followed by the one on your touchstone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised.

Speaker #1: At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to the Vice President of Investor Relations and Finance, Robert Amparo. Mr. Amparo, you may begin.

Speaker #3: Thank you, operator. And thank you, everyone, for joining us as we report QUINSTREET's fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results. Joining me on the call today are Chief Executive Officer Doug Valenti, and Chief Financial Officer Gregory Wong.

Speaker #3: Before we begin, I would like to remind you that the following discussion will contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected by such statements and are not guarantees of future performance.

Speaker #3: Factors that may cause results to differ from our forward-looking statements are discussed in our recent SEC filings, including our most recent 8K filing made today, and our most recent 10Q filing.

Speaker #3: Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions as of today and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements. Today, we will be discussing both GAAP and non-GAAP measures.

Speaker #3: A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures is included in today's earnings press release, which is available on our Investor Relations website at investor.quinstreet.com.

Speaker #3: With that, I will turn the call over to Doug Valenti. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker #4: Thank you, Rob. Welcome, everyone. Fiscal Q4 was another quarter of strong revenue growth and continued margin expansion. We grew total revenue 32% year over year.

Speaker #4: And adjusted EBITDA 101%. Auto insurance revenue grew 62% year over year in the quarter. Home services revenue grew 21%. Q4 capped a successful full fiscal year 2025 in which we grew revenue 78% to 1.1 billion dollars.

Speaker #4: And adjusted EBITDA 299% to 81 million dollars. Delivering strong operating leverage and margin expansion at scale. Margins expanded even as we accelerated ongoing investments and initiatives to drive further revenue growth and margin expansion in coming quarters and years.

Speaker #4: Our pipeline of growth and margin expansion initiatives is, in my view, the best, most innovative, and most impactful in the history of the company.

Speaker #4: Our balance sheet also continued to in Q4. Again, despite heavy ongoing investments, and growth and margin expansion initiatives, we ended the quarter with over $100 million in cash.

Speaker #4: And we have no bank debt. We have the competitive advantages and financial strength to continue to successfully invest in and pursue our enormous and growing long-term market opportunity.

Speaker #4: Renewed demand from auto insurance clients was a key component of fiscal 2025 success. Even as carrier spending growth moderated in the second half of the fiscal year, due in large part to tariff uncertainties.

Speaker #4: Some clients have recently begun to re-accelerate spending. And we expect strong sequential auto insurance revenue growth in the current quarter, our fiscal Q1. Even with the recent increases in auto insurance client spending continues to be generally guarded versus its potential, given carrier financial strength and results.

Speaker #4: And is likely remain so until the tariff fog fully clears. So we believe that there continues to be significant pent-up demand in auto insurance.

Speaker #4: And that there will likely be another significant leg up in client spending as the full level and impact of tariffs become more clear. And as the industry continues to adapt.

Speaker #4: We do not expect a significant gap down in carrier spending from current levels. Given one, current carrier financial strength and results, two, the fact that carriers have had time to anticipate and prepare for the impact of tariffs, and three, the levels of most applicable tariff agreements announced thus far have been relatively moderate.

Speaker #4: And as I mentioned earlier, a number of our auto insurance clients have just recently begun to re-accelerate spending. Given that outlook, we QUINSTREET are going to continue to invest aggressively in media capacity and products to be positioned to prosper from the pent-up and growing demand we expect in auto insurance.

Speaker #4: In coming quarters, and years. Just as we have done so successfully in past cycles. Turning to our outlook, we expect revenue in fiscal Q1 to be about $280 million dollars.

Speaker #4: And adjusted EBITDA to be about $20 million dollars. Our initial view of full fiscal year 2026 is that revenue will grow about 10%. And adjusted EBITDA will grow about 20%.

Speaker #4: As we work to further expand margins. With that, I'll turn the call over to Greg.

Speaker #5: Thank you, Doug. Hello, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. Q4 was a ong finish to a record year for QUINSTREET. As we delivered yet another quarter of strong double-digit revenue growth and expanded adjusted EBITDA margins.

Speaker #5: For the June quarter, total revenue grew 32% year over year, and was $262.1 million dollars. Adjusted net income was $14.7 million dollars or $0.25 per share.

Speaker #5: Adjusted EBITDA grew $101% and was $22.1 million dollars. Looking at revenue by client vertical, our financial services client vertical, represented 71% of Q4 revenue and grew 36% year over year, to $186.6 million dollars.

Speaker #5: Our home services client vertical represented 27% of Q4 revenue. And grew 21% year over year, to $71.7 million dollars. Another record revenue quarter for that business.

Speaker #5: Other revenue was a remaining $3.8 million dollars of Q4 revenue. Turning to our full fiscal year performance, 2025 was a record year as revenue grew 78% year over year, and surpassed $1 billion dollars for the first time.

Speaker #5: Our financial services client vertical represented 75% of full fiscal year revenue, and grew $108% year over year, to $807.2 million dollars. Our home services client vertical represented 24% of full fiscal year revenue.

Speaker #5: And grew 24% year over year, to $261.8 million dollars. Other revenue represented the remaining $14.8 million dollars of full fiscal year revenue. Adjusted EBITDA for full fiscal year 2025 grew about 300%.

Speaker #5: And was $81.3 million dollars. Turning to the balance sheet, we closed the year with $101 million dollars of cash in equivalence, and no bank debt.

Speaker #5: Turning to our outlook, as Doug mentioned, we expect revenue in fiscal Q1 to be about $280 million dollars. And adjusted EBITDA to be about $20 million dollars.

Speaker #5: And we expect full fiscal year 2026 revenue will grow about 10%. And adjusted EBITDA will grow faster at about 20%. This is our initial view on fiscal 2026 and we will, of course, provide updates to our expectations as the progresses.

Speaker #5: In closing, fiscal 2025 was a record year for QUINSTREET. We grew revenue almost 80%, and surpassed $1 billion dollars for first time. We also quadrupled our justed EBITDA year over year, and doubled our cash position.

Speaker #5: We believe that our market opportunities are still in their early innings. And have never been bigger. And we will continue to invest against those opportunities in fiscal 2026 and beyond.

Speaker #5: With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for Q&A.

Speaker #1: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touchstone phone.

Speaker #1: You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should ou wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the two.

Speaker #1: If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for our query's question. Your first question comes from the line of Jason Pryor from Craig Hollow Capital Group.

Speaker #1: Please go head.

Speaker #6: Great. Thank ou. This is Cal for Jason. So maybe to start, can you just kind walk through what you saw as far as carrier spend trends across Q4 and what ou're hearing from carriers amid some of this re-acceleration into Q1?

Speaker #4: Sure. We initially saw in Q4 pretty consistent spending levels with what we had seen in our Q3. Which was, of course, moderated from the heavy period of the kind of July to December last year was the heaviest period, and then moderated January through June just to put it in calendar.

Speaker #4: Metrics for folks since we're in such a weird fiscal. Those spending levels were steady, stable. And then we began to see those spending levels begin to increase as we got deeper into the quarter.

Speaker #4: And we got indications that carriers expected to continue to increase those spend levels into the current quarter. And have had recent indications from carriers that they also expect to increase spend further in the December quarter.

Speaker #4: So general gradual increases in spend as carriers do, as I indicated, they have exceptionally strong economics right now. Very attractive combined ratios and we're getting a lot more clarity than optimal clarity on the level of tariffs.

Speaker #4: And they've had plenty of time to anticipate and prepare those. But a lot of activity, a lot of demand, not all of that demand yet in the market as they continue to hold back.

Speaker #4: To be sure that they're ready to absorb some continued uncertainties with tariffs. But I would say, yeah, if our characterize it, I'd say a growing momentum on growing confidence.

Speaker #4: And growing commitments as we indicated the current quarter. Sequentially, will grow pretty significantly in auto insurance over the quarter. With the demand that we've now gotten demand increases we've now gotten from carriers.

Speaker #6: Great. Thank you. And then just to follow up, can you just kind of touch on some of the assumptions in the initial 2026 guidance and you know just following up on some of our comments there?

Speaker #6: Just curious your thoughts on you ow the potential for a you know budget flush dynamic that we kind of saw at the back half of last calendar year, maybe happening again this year with carriers running so strong on profitability.

Speaker #4: Yeah. 2026 you know it's early. We're giving you our early view. We're trying to be I would say relatively conservative versus what we might believe our full plans could represent and versus what we anticipate could happen in auto insurance.

Speaker #4: So it's the early look certainly doesn't would skew to the conservative end of what we think could happen this coming year both in terms of the macro and like the auto insurance market as well as the progress we can make across the business.

Speaker #4: So that's how I would generally characterize it. I think that your question about Q4 calendar Q4 is a great one. Listen, the carriers are entering the second half of the calendar year again with very strong economics.

Speaker #4: One of our sophisticated investors has done some pretty detailed analysis. And I ink he indicated that the large carriers that report publicly could have the worst month of every month in the remainder of the calendar year that they've ever had the past 10 years.

Speaker #4: And still make their annual combined ratio target. That's a lot of surplus. And of course, what's not included is what the impact of tariffs might be that might you know add into that.

Speaker #4: But the further we go, into the next few months going towards the end of the year, and the longer those strong ratios continue, you could we, as I indicated, we've already heard some had some carriers tell us that they do expect already to increase spend pretty meaningfully in the calendar Q4.

Speaker #4: And we certainly could see more of that. You know it's again, it's going to be somewhat dependent on tariffs and how they flow through the system.

Speaker #4: And of course, weather events, although those are typically pretty well reserved for at this point in the year.

Speaker #6: Great. Thanks for all the color.

Speaker #4: Yeah. You bet.

Speaker #1: Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Zach Cummins from BU Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker #7: Yep. Hi. Good afternoon. I'm doing my estions. Doug, I wanted to ask you just about general trends with some of your carrier base. I mean, a lot of the recovery has been driven by call it the top two or three carriers over the past 12 to 18 months.

Speaker #7: So just curious of maybe the spending levels or potential intent to spend across your entire carrier base, versus maybe some of the trends that we saw over the past 12 months.

Speaker #4: Yeah. No. It's a super good question. We have actually seen very strong activity broadly across our carrier base. I think, this is good data, actually.

Speaker #4: We had more carriers spending over $1 million per month with us this past quarter than we have ever had in the history of the company.

Speaker #4: And I think it was like eight or nine carriers. Spending at those levels. So we're seeing so it's broad-based. I think also if you look the numbers that Progressive actually represented a lower percentage of our overall revenue last quarter than it has over the past couple of quarters.

Speaker #4: So again, I only say that because we have to report that publicly. And because it's another indication of pretty broad-based participation and growth. Underlying that, I would say something you can't see, but we're iencing is very, very strong engagement with our carrier partners and clients in terms of interest in the channel.

Speaker #4: Interest in performance marketing. And interest in our marketplaces and performance marketing in particular. And a lot of work going on across a very wide range of carriers to get better and better at digital performance marketing.

Speaker #4: So that they can participate at much greater stronger rates than they currently do. You know there are very few carriers today who spend nearly as much as they should.

Speaker #4: And on digital performance marketing, if you look at the efficiency of the channel and if you look at kind of where the customers are, where the prospects are, where the potential you know customers are.

Speaker #4: And where they're shopping. They're shopping in digital. And when they shop in digital, you know the vast majority of them that are in market end up in a performance marketplace.

Speaker #4: Of course, ours being one of the largest. So very broad participation, very broad interest, very broad spending. Very broad activity. We're seeing strength across the board.

Speaker #5: Exactly. This is Greg. Just add a little bit more color. To that is, as Doug mentioned, as prepared remarks, our auto insurance business grew 62% year over year in the quarter.

Speaker #5: If you exclude our largest carrier in that mix, the auto insurance business still grew 60%. Six zero percent year over year. So it just shows you the broad-based carrier demand that we have.

Speaker #6: Got it. That's helpful. Thanks for that, Greg. And Greg, just my one follow-up question for you. Really around the margin side, I ink just based on your directional commentary for initial 2026 outlook, you're somewhere around 20% EBITDA margin for the full year.

Speaker #6: So can you just talk about progression with some of your margin expansion initiatives in Q4 and how you expect those to potentially translate over the next several quarters?

Speaker #6: Doug, do you want to take that ? Yeah. Go ahead.

Speaker #4: Yeah. I'm appy to. Yeah. The we have seen very strong progression of our margin expansion initiatives and expect that that momentum is only going to continue.

Speaker #4: Let me give you a sense for what we're talking . We have first of all, there's the optimization of existing media, particularly in auto insurance, where we're making great strides in more carrier participation.

Speaker #4: Better matching, better yielding for those carriers. In the marketplace so that we can get better margins there. We're growing new media capacity. To serve the demand to continue to offset what we're seeing as a big mismatch between the surge in demand versus the ability to grow media.

Speaker #4: So we're esting very aggressively in some new proprietary scale media opportunities that are also growing very rapidly. And have good performance now, but the margins on those programs are only going to expand and are going to expand very strongly in coming months and quarters as we continue to scale them and optimize them.

Speaker #4: So also, in auto insurance, we're growing new whole new footprints in and around auto insurance. And product market opportunities that are already coming at significantly higher margins than the legacy business, which of course is our core business.

Speaker #4: But these new businesses are reaching good scale. One of ose new businesses just got to about $8 million dollars per month. And has margin profile that is three times that of the core legacy click marketplace business.

Speaker #4: So and we expect and by the way, that growth is over 100% growth, I think, last year year over year. So we expect that to keep growing.

Speaker #4: And by the way, if you want to grow at over 100% last year, and we expect it to grow about 100% again this year.

Speaker #4: So it's getting to good scale. So a lot going on in insurance. That we expect to keep going on. Also, a lot going on in the other businesses.

Speaker #4: We are optimizing for margin our personal loans business in a way that is delivering dramatically faster growth in margin there than revenue growth as we optimize those marketplaces and prepare them for next stage of growth and revenue at better margins.

Speaker #4: We also by the way, to make sure that as we continue to implement and execute these margin expansion initiatives, get the most out of them, we will have our operating expenses are non-variable operating expenses.

Speaker #4: This fiscal year, we'll be flat over last year. We got to that by doing a number of internal restructurings. That streamlined the organization and by continuing to adopt new technologies that are owing us to be more and more productive.

Speaker #4: So there's just a steady stream across the business of very big, very meaningful margin improvement initiatives that we've gotten already gotten some good traction on, but have a lot further to go than we have gone.

Speaker #4: So I would say that's what gives us the confidence to talk about next year is expecting it once again to grow EBITDA faster than revenue to start to take our kind of the base level of EBITDA that we had for last year as a starting point and say fiscal Q1 and only grow from there in terms of our margins.

Speaker #6: Got it. Very helpful. Well, thanks again, Doug and Greg, for taking my questions. And best of luck with the rest of the quarter.

Speaker #4: Thank you.

Speaker #1: Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Patrick Scholl from Barrington Research. Please go ahead.

Speaker #8: Hi. Thank ou. Just wondering if you could maybe talk a ittle bit more about some of the other business items like the home services side and how that tariffs been impacting that side of the business.

Speaker #8: Going into fiscal 2026.

Speaker #4: You bet, Patrick. We have there have been grumblings amongst home services industry folks that the tariffs could have some impact. But we are not seeing any indications from any of our clients that those that that's going to impact their spend levels or their aggression in the market.

Speaker #4: And we 't see them having an effect at all. On our outlook for home services too. Once again, grow 15% to 20% is kind of where we always peg our objective to grow home services year over year.

Speaker #4: And we certainly think we can do that again this year in home services. A lot of momentum in home services. A lot of great operational excellence in that organization.

Speaker #4: We are also have expanded our product footprint pretty significantly there and are having a lot of good results with that. And we're launching the next version of our central QUINSTREET media platform, what we call QMP, the media optimization platform that's being launched in home services over the next few weeks.

Speaker #4: And we expect that to actually allow us to grow home services even faster and with a lot less friction. Because it's a pretty complicated business to grow.

Speaker #4: It's got a lot pieces to it. And that's one of the reasons I always talk about the operational excellence in that business. That's a business with an organization that has to be excellent to do the things they do in terms of growth and margin.

Speaker #4: So and we're not hearing again, we're not hearing much and we're tainly not hearing or expecting that it's going to impact our outlook for that business in the xt fiscal year.

Speaker #4: And as far as other businesses, we're not really hearing anything the place that we're hearing the you know in industry has been has been most vocal and is obviously willing to has the potential to be most impacted is in auto insurance.

Speaker #4: Now that being said, to refer to yet another study which was done by one of the other companies that are not one of our competitors, but one of the other digital insurance companies.

Speaker #4: They released a study that suggested a 15% tariff, if that's where we settle everywhere, and of course we have settled there in Japan, EU, in South Korea, which are super important countries for autos.

Speaker #4: Would represent the need to increase auto rates on average about 6%. Now averages are very, very dangerous, of course, because it's a super complicated industry.

Speaker #4: But that's nowhere near what we've been doing a couple of years ago, right, in terms of you know double-digit rate increases for, I think, two and a half two, three years running.

Speaker #4: So that's why I indicated before that the agreements would seem today are relatively moderate in terms of the tariff levels. So I think that may be why we're beginning to see a re-acceleration amongst the auto insurance clients.

Speaker #4: opefully, they're reading that through and running that through their models and coming to the views that they've they're likely in pretty good shape given the strength of their current financial models.

Speaker #8: Okay. And then kind circling back to one of your earlier answers, I think you talked opening up additional media sources. And I'm just kind of ious, if you could provide an update on you ow maybe like the mix of media sources and you know just the the contribution from some of the acquisitions that ou have done over the past couple of to expand the amount of media that you're able to source traffic through.

Speaker #4: Yeah. We don't really talk about the mix because that's pretty proprietary and pretty competitively sensitive. We get chased everywhere we go, so we'd rather not give them a head start.

Speaker #4: But I can tell you that the acquisition we made of Aquavita Media which was a company that allows us to get much more aggressive in media outside of Google if you will.

Speaker #4: Has been very successful for us. And if you need any indication, just look at how we have to keep marking up the earnout. So we love that.

Speaker #4: It's a huge new world of media. We have historically been pretty concentrated quite frankly in the search and therefore Google ecosystem. And we love that.

Speaker #4: We're going to keep driving as much as we can there. by the way, we have a lot more to go there. Because we're not as big as we should be.

Speaker #4: But Aquavita and the kind of the other media opportunity is massive. And Aquavita has given us the ability to be very successful there and we're getting pretty good scale but nowhere near where we will eventually get in those other channels.

Speaker #8: Okay. Thank you.

Speaker #4: Thank you.

Speaker #1: Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Chris Sakai from Singular Research. Please go ahead.

Speaker #9: If I for your guidance implies adjusted EBITDA margins of about 7% in Q1 versus 8.4% in Q4, what's driving this sequential margin compression? And is this reasonable or investment related?

Speaker #4: Yeah. It's it's combination of media capacity still being trying to catch up with now continuing to increase auto insurance demand, Chris. And the need to keep optimizing that media gets that demand.

Speaker #4: But as long as that gap exists, then media prices and/or competitive competition for that media is going to continue push down margins. So is that which we're working as fast as we can to address to optimization and other approaches.

Speaker #4: And the fact that we are you know ing to aggressively invest in building new capacity to close that gap. And those investments you ow are real.

Speaker #4: It takes a lot of money to build an at-scale new campaign, whether it be into Google ecosystem or outside the Google ecosystem. But we think it's essential that we do that both to have the capacity to meet the current demand, but have the capacity to meet the demand plus what we see as a coming new surge of demand.

Speaker #4: And of course to optimize margins around that. So and we think 7% you know is pretty good baseline that we've re-established. Now it was the average last fiscal year and that was a big expansion over the fiscal year before that.

Speaker #4: As we indicated in our outlook for the year, we do expect that to be a baseline, and that we will be expanding margins pretty significantly beyond that.

Speaker #4: As all these efforts and initiatives continue to come to fruition, throughout the fiscal year.

Speaker #9: Okay. Can ou break down the growth within financial services beyond auto insurance? How are other verticals like personal loans, credit cards, or other insurance products performing?

Speaker #4: They all grew year over year in the arter. And we still think we're quite early in all of those markets. And facing a lot of a lot of opportunity to continue scale them.

Speaker #4: I would say of the three the one that had the revenue least growth in revenue, was personal loans. But that's because as I indicated, 're really going through a margin optimization program there.

Speaker #4: And we're growing margin a lot faster than revenue and etting rid of a lot of bad revenue. And we're doing that because we want to get to we're establishing a new base of profitability in that business.

Speaker #4: As we look to you know scale to the the next level of scaling. So but overall, you know the three of them those three businesses credit cards, banking, and personal loans together grew year over year.

Speaker #4: And we you know, we expect that they're going to grow very nicely again this year. But like the other businesses, we expect that in all of them, we we want to grow and we expect to grow margin even faster than revenue.

Speaker #9: Okay. Great. Thanks for those answers, Doug.

Speaker #4: Thank you, Chris.

Speaker #1: Thank you, Chris. Your next question comes from the line of L Nibot. From Lake Street, Capital Market. Please go head.

Speaker #10: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. So first one, assuming a lower interest rate environment, in 2026 for calendar year 2026, how should we ink about incremental growth in the home services segment?

Speaker #4: That's a great question, L. I would say that we don't we don't really model it that way. So I would I would guess that it would probably be supportive of more growth in home services.

Speaker #4: Because you'd likely have more home home buying activity. And typically when somebody buys a home, one of the first things they is start doing a little work on it.

Speaker #4: That's been something that has been missing as has a big as big a part of that market. In the current kind of stalled home selling environment as it used to be.

Speaker #4: So it would certainly likely be a positive I can't think of any ways in which it would be a negative. But we have not modeled that into our outlook.

Speaker #10: Awesome. Thanks. And then the second one for me, in regards to product development, where are you pointing investments in your development effort?

Speaker #4: Sure. Several places. One is, of course, QRP. Continues to be a big focus of our t development efforts. And as I indicated, I have indicated in the past, that's an incredibly important strategic business for us.

Speaker #4: And for the future of digitization. Of the insurance, and ly the insurance agency channel. And proceeding renewed activity as the market has come back.

Speaker #4: And very good growth. And we have very good outlook for that business. So we're going to continue invest there. But we're also investing in our finance product and home services 360 finance.

Speaker #4: A very big market opportunity to provide a point of sale kitchen table, we call it. Financing app to contractors. And we have a big contractor network in home services.

Speaker #4: And this an add-on product of very high value to those contractors. It matches up well to our ability to run a marketplace. And then another marketplace, in this case, a lending marketplace.

Speaker #4: And we're putting a lot of our money there. And again, that business was very significant this past year. We expect it to be up almost 3x at least this year.

Speaker #4: And could be up as much as 5 to 10X this year. So that business, we are continuing to spend aggressively to scale both those businesses, I would point out, are very contiguous.

Speaker #4: To our core business. But also do not have media costs. So are also very enhancing to our margins. But we're also spending money on continued improvements in our core technologies.

Speaker #4: So I indicated before, we are launching our next version of QMP, our core media optimization platform that runs our marketplaces and media. We're launching that in home services.

Speaker #4: That's a big effort. It's a big development project. We expect it to have a big impact across the business, but in particular initially in home services.

Speaker #4: Where scaling, it's going to help us to scale with a lot less friction, a lot less effort than we've had in the past. And then we have a new call platform.

Speaker #4: Which is also a contact platform for consumers. Which we're rolling out this year. And that's a big part of our spend and a very important part of our overall economic model.

Speaker #4: And one that you know re-engagement and re-marketing to consumers that don't fully complete the process online. Is a very creative to margin thing that we do.