NerdWallet Inc (NRDS) 2025 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the NerdWallet Incorporated Q3 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in listen in mode.

您好，感謝您的耐心等待。歡迎參加 NerdWallet Incorporated 2025 年第三季財報電話會議。此時，所有參與者都處於聆聽模式。

After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please star 11 again on your phone. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded.

演講結束後，將進行問答環節。會議期間，如需提問，請按下手機上的 11 號鍵。然後你會聽到一個自動語音訊息，告知你已被舉手。如需撤回您的問題，請在手機上再次按 11。請注意，今天的電話會議將會被錄音。

I would like to hand over the conference call to our first speaker, Mr. Rob Ferris, Vice President for finance. Please go ahead.

我謹將電話會議交給我們的第一位發言人，先生。羅伯費里斯，財務副總裁。請繼續。

Thank you, operator. Welcome to the NerdWallet Q3 2025 earnings call. Joining us today are co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Tim Chen and Chief Financial Officer John Lee.

謝謝接線生。歡迎參加 NerdWallet 2025 年第三季財報電話會議。今天到場的有聯合創始人兼首席執行官陳添和首席財務官李約翰。

Our press release and shareholder letter are available on our investor relations website, and a replay of this update will also be available following the conclusion of today's call. We intend to use our investor relations website as a means of disclosing certain material information and complying with disclosure obligations under FTC regulation FD from time to time.

我們的新聞稿和致股東信已發佈在我們的投資者關係網站上，本次更新的錄音也將在今天的電話會議結束後提供。我們計劃利用我們的投資者關係網站作為披露某些重要資訊並遵守聯邦貿易委員會 FD 條例不時規定的披露義務的​​途徑。

As a reminder, today's call is being webcast live and recorded.

再次提醒，今天的電話會議將進行網路直播和錄製。

Before we begin today's remarks and question-and-answer session, I would like to remind you that certain statements made during this call may relate to future events and expectations and as such constitute forward-looking statements.

在開始今天的發言和問答環節之前，我想提醒各位，本次電話會議中某些陳述可能涉及未來事件和預期，因此構成前瞻性陳述。

Actual results and performance may differ from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements as a result of various risks and uncertainties, including the risk factors discussed in reports filed or to be filed with the SEC.

由於各種風險和不確定性，包括已向美國證券交易委員會提交或將要提交的報告中討論的風險因素，實際結果和業績可能與這些前瞻性聲明中表達或暗示的結果和業績有所不同。

We urge you to consider these risk factors and remind you that we undertake no obligation to update the information provided on this call to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

我們敦促您考慮這些風險因素，並提醒您，我們沒有義務更新本次電話會議中提供的資訊以反映後續事件或情況。

You should be aware that these statements should not be considered a guarantee of future performance.

您應該意識到，這些聲明不應被視為對未來業績的保證。

Furthermore, during this call, we will present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release, except where we are unable without reasonable efforts to calculate certain reconciling items with confidence.

此外，在本次電話會議中，我們將同時介紹 GAAP 和非 GAAP 財務指標。今天的獲利新聞稿中包含了 GAAP 與非 GAAP 指標的調整表，但某些調整項目我們無法在不付出合理努力的情況下有把握地計算出來。

With that, I will now turn it over to Tim Chen, our co-founder and CEO. Tim.

接下來，我將把麥克風交給我們的共同創辦人兼執行長提姆·陳。提姆。

Thanks, Rob. This quarter, we exceeded our guidance for revenue and non-GAAP operating income.

謝謝你，羅伯。本季度，我們的營收和非GAAP營業收入均超出預期。

In a moment, John will talk through our results in more detail and you can also find more information in the earnings release and shareholder letter posted on our investor relations website.

稍後，John 將更詳細地介紹我們的業績，您也可以在我們投資者關係網站上發布的獲利報告和股東信中找到更多資訊。

In the meantime, I want to highlight that these results are a testament to two longer-term initiatives extending our reach with consumers and improving operational efficiency.

同時，我想強調的是，這些成果證明了我們兩項長期措施的成效，這兩項措施分別是擴大消費者覆蓋範圍和提高營運效率。

The first longer-term initiative is our effort to build on our key competitive advantage, our trusted brand and distribution.

第一個長期舉措是我們努力鞏固我們的關鍵競爭優勢，即我們值得信賴的品牌和分銷管道。

While our mission has always been to provide financial guidance to all consumers, our product offerings have historically been geared toward the prime market.

雖然我們的使命一直是為所有消費者提供財務指導，但我們的產品供應歷來都面向高端市場。

Over the past 12 months, we've undertaken efforts to expand our shopping experiences by offering more products to below prime consumers, broadening our appeal. This has allowed us to scale our performance marketing capabilities, which have in turn offset headwinds in organic search.

在過去的 12 個月裡，我們努力透過向非 Prime 消費者提供更多產品來擴大我們的購物體驗，從而擴大我們的吸引力。這使我們能夠擴大效果行銷能力，從而抵消自然搜尋方面的不利因素。

Beyond performance marketing, we are seeing momentum with referrals from large language models or LLMs, where our trusted brand has made us the most cited source in our competitive set. Although our traffic from LLMs is currently small, these consumers appear to convert at a much higher rate than traditional organic traffic, so we will continue to invest in growing this channel.

除了效果行銷之外，我們還看到來自大型語言模型或LLM的推薦勢頭強勁，我們值得信賴的品牌使我們成為競爭對手中被引用最多的來源。雖然我們目前從 LLM 獲得的流量較小，但這些消費者的轉換率似乎比傳統自然流量高得多，因此我們將繼續投資發展這個管道。

The second longer-term initiative shaping our results this quarter is our focus on operational efficiency, which has allowed us to get more MPG and deliver margin expansion. We are still at an early stage in our journey and have only scratched the surface of our addressable market. The big opportunity we're pursuing is to use our trust and distribution advantages to convert our traffic into a loyal owned audience that we can reengage directly with personalized nudges when there's an opportunity to make a smart money move.

影響本季業績的第二個長期措施是我們對營運效率的關注，這使我們能夠提高燃油效率並擴大利潤率。我們仍處於起步階段，對潛在市場的探索只是冰山一角。我們正在追求的巨大機會是利用我們的信任和分銷優勢，將我們的流量轉化為忠實的自有受眾，當有機會進行明智的投資決策時，我們可以透過個人化的推播直接與他們重新互動。

We will do this by making it a no brainer to come to NerdWallet for all your money needs, enhancing our guidance through our land and expand vertical integration and registration and data-driven engagement strategies.

我們將透過以下方式實現這一目標：讓您毫不猶豫地選擇 NerdWallet 來滿足您的所有資金需求；加強我們平台上的指導；擴展垂直整合、註冊和數據驅動的互動策略。

And now I will pass it over to John to cover our financial results in more detail.

現在我將把發言權交給約翰，讓他更詳細地介紹我們的財務表現。

Thanks, Tim. As Tim mentioned, our 3rd quarter results exceeded our guidance on all metrics.

謝謝你，提姆。正如蒂姆所說，我們第三季的業績在所有指標上都超出了預期。

As we have discussed over the past couple of quarters, I believe the key drivers of long-term shareholder value creation are sustainable growth, strong free cash flow generation, and disciplined capital allocation.

正如我們在過去幾季中所討論的那樣，我認為長期股東價值創造的關鍵驅動因素是可持續成長、強勁的自由現金流產生和有紀律的資本配置。

With growth ahead of expectations, trailing 12 month adjusted free cash flow increasing, and sizable share repurchases in the quarter, our focus is beginning to pay off.

公司成長超出預期，過去 12 個月的調整後自由現金流增加，本季進行了大規模的股票回購，我們的專注開始獲得回報。

Total revenue in the third quarter was $215 million of 12% year over year, exceeding our guidance range of $189 to $197 million.

第三季總營收為 2.15 億美元，年增 12%，超過了我們先前 1.89 億美元至 1.97 億美元的預期範圍。

Revenue out performance is primarily driven by banking, up 96% year over year, and personal loans up 91% year over year.

營收成長主要得益於銀行業務年增 96%，以及個人貸款年增 91%。

Our insurance business was up 3% every year, a bit better than expected.

我們的保險業務每年成長 3%，略優於預期。

However, our SMB product and credit cards verticals declined year over year, driven by organic search headwinds.

然而，受自然搜尋不利因素的影響，我們的中小企業產品和信用卡業務較去年同期下降。

We delivered 3rd quarter non-GAAP operating income of $41 million above our $23 million to $27 million guidance range.

我們第三季非GAAP營業收入為4,100萬美元，高於我們先前2,300萬美元至2,700萬美元的預期範圍。

Notably, we underspent on brand marketing versus our target by $8 million.

值得注意的是，我們在品牌行銷方面的支出比目標少了 800 萬美元。

As we re evaluated our brand strategy during the quarter.

本季我們重新評估了我們的品牌策略。

In Q4, we expect to return to more typical levels of brand spend.

我們預計第四季度品牌支出將恢復到更正常的水平。

Excluding this one-time brand spend benefit, our NGOI performance was driven by revenue out performance, improved efficiency in performance marketing and conservative expense management.

除此一次性品牌支出收益外，我們的非政府組織投資回報率主要由收入成長、績效行銷效率提高和保守的費用管理所驅動。

GAAP operating income for the 3rd quarter was $34 million.

第三季GAAP營業收入為3,400萬美元。

Over the last four quarters, we generated over $85 million of adjusted free cash flow and ended Q3 with a cash balance of $121 million.

在過去的四個季度中，我們產生了超過 8,500 萬美元的調整後自由現金流，並在第三季末保持了 1.21 億美元的現金餘額。

Please refer to today's earnings press release for a full reconciliation of our GAAP to non-GAAP measures.

請參閱今天的獲利新聞稿，以了解我們 GAAP 與非 GAAP 指標的完整調整表。

In terms of capital allocation during the quarter, we completed $19 million of share repurchases.

本季資本配置方面，我們完成了 1,900 萬美元的股票回購。

Reflecting our confidence in NerdWallet's long-term prospects on our belief that these repurchases were an attractive use of our capital, especially at prevailing share prices.

我們認為，鑑於目前的股價，這些股票回購是對我們資本的一種有吸引力的利用，這反映了我們對 NerdWallet 長期前景的信心。

Looking ahead, we'll continue to focus on creating long-term shareholder value through disciplined capital allocation, including both opportunistic share repurchases and bolt on acquisitions to accelerate our vertical integration strategy.

展望未來，我們將繼續專注於透過嚴謹的資本配置創造長期股東價值，包括抓住機會回購股票和進行補充收購，以加速我們的垂直整​​合策略。

Going forward, we expect less margin expansion year over year due to organic search headwinds, a lower prior expense base as we fully lap our Q3 2024 reduction in force, and plan investments in the business.

展望未來，由於自然搜尋的不利因素、前期支出基數降低（因為我們已完全消化了 2024 年第三季的裁員計劃）以及對業務的投資計劃，我們預計利潤率同比擴張將有所放緩。

In Q4 we expect to deliver revenue in the range of 207 to $250 million which at the midpoint will be up 15% versus prior year.

我們預計第四季度營收將在 2.07 億美元至 2.5 億美元之間，其中數值將比上年增長 15%。

We expect continued strength in banking and personal loans offset by continued degradation in credit cards and SMB.

我們預計銀行業務和個人貸款業務將繼續保持強勁勢頭，但信用卡和中小企業貸款業務將持續下滑。

In terms of profitability, we expect Q4 non-GAAP operating income results in the range of $20 to $24 million.

就獲利能力而言，我們預計第四季非GAAP營業收入將在2,000萬美元至2,400萬美元之間。

This assumes continued benefit from the improvements we've made to our shopping funnels and operational efficiency.

這假設我們對購物流程和營運效率所做的改進能夠持續帶來益處。

And that we continue to deploy performance marketing spend to take advantage of verticals with opportunities for profitable growth.

我們將繼續加大效果行銷投入，以抓住垂直領域獲利成長的機會。

We expect to generate full year 2025 non-GAAP operating income of 91 to $95 million an increase of $18 million at the midpoint compared to our previous guidance.

我們預計 2025 年全年非 GAAP 營業收入將達到 9,100 萬至 9,500 萬美元，比我們先前預期的中位數增加 1,800 萬美元。

That will open up for questions, operator.

操作員，這樣就可以引發提問了。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作說明）

Our first question comes from the line of Justin Patterson from Key Bank. Your line is now open.

我們的第一個問題來自 Key Bank 的 Justin Patterson。您的線路已開通。

Justin, your line is now open for your question.

賈斯汀，現在可以提問了。

Just wanted to check if you're able to listen in.

我只是想確認一下你是否能收聽。

You're currently on mute.

您目前處於靜音狀態。

Oh sorry, can you hear me now?

哦，不好意思，現在能聽到我說話嗎？

Yes, we hear you very well. Please go ahead.

是的，我們聽得很清楚。請繼續。

Perfect.

完美的。

Thank you. Sorry about that. I wanted to dive into LLM traffic a little bit more, I realized it's pretty small today, but, very interesting that it's converting at stronger rates. So I'd love to hear about just some of the investments you're making to really grow that channel more and continue conversion.

謝謝。抱歉。我想更深入地了解LLM流量，我發現它目前的規模還很小，但是非常有趣的是，它的轉換率卻很高。所以我很想了解你們為了真正發展這個管道並持續提高轉換率而進行的一些投資。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Yeah, thanks for the question, Justin. I think there are a lot of, similar characteristics with, organic search, that drives LLMs some slight differences in terms of, how they pick up certain context, but. It all comes down to, the trust around the content that we provide, so I think a lot of those investments are actually quite similar to what we've been very strong in historically.

是的，謝謝你的提問，賈斯汀。我認為自然搜尋有很多相似之處，這使得LLM在獲取某些上下文方面存在一些細微的差異，但是。歸根結底，這取決於我們所提供內容的信任度，所以我認為許多投資實際上與我們歷來非常擅長的領域非常相似。

Great, thanks.

太好了，謝謝。

Our next question comes from the line of Ross Sandler from Barclay. Your line is now open, Ross.

我們的下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的羅斯·桑德勒。羅斯，你的線路已開通。

Cool, thank you. I'm just following up on that last one, has the growth in LLM traffic been a function of like the overall usage that you see out there for like chat GPT and Gemini, which is kind of like, adding hundreds of millions of users every few months, or is there like something new that's going on whereby, those products might be surfacing links or citations, just any additional, colour on like. You know what's happening today versus maybe a year ago, and then the second question is, so it looks like banking was the, strong category this quarter, can you just unpack that a little bit? Is that deposit? Is that other products, and, you know what's kind of driving that uptick in demand from banking?

好的，謝謝。我只是想跟進最後一個問題，LLM 流量的成長是否與聊天 GPT 和 Gemini 等工具的整體使用量成長有關？這些工具每隔幾個月就會新增數億用戶，還是說出現了一些新的情況，例如這些產品可能正在展示連結或引用，或其他一些額外的資訊？你知道現在的情況與一年前相比有什麼不同，那麼第二個問題是，銀行業似乎是本季表現強勁的行業，你能稍微解釋一下嗎？那是押金嗎？那是其他產品嗎？你知道是什麼推動了銀行業需求的成長嗎？

Thank you.

謝謝。

Yeah, thanks, Ross. The first, on the first question, I'd say the primary driver, to think about is actually AI overviews, within, Google Search. So, because search is becoming more useful, people are searching a lot more. And so we are seeing traffic come through from AI overviews. Chat GPT and Gemini are also, driving an increase there. So those are kind of the two, major drivers in terms of the LLM traffic.

謝謝你，羅斯。首先，關於第一個問題，我認為主要驅動因素實際上是Google搜尋中的人工智慧概述。所以，由於搜尋變得越來越有用，人們的搜尋量也大大增加了。因此，我們看到來自人工智慧概覽的流量正在增加。Chat GPT 和 Gemini 也推動了這方面的成長。所以，就LLM流量而言，這算是兩大主要驅動因素。

When people come through that way they're really high intent typically they're, really hell bent on, finding something in a marketplace, for example, so, I think that's what's driving some of the higher, transaction rates there and then on the banking one, we continue to see a lot of strength there both in terms of consumer demand as well as partner demand, even as rates have come in a little bit. So that, and we continue to work on improving our product funnels, to better match users with the right intent, so nothing beyond that.

當人們透過這種方式購物時，他們的購買意願通常非常強烈，他們真的非常渴望在市場上找到一些東西，例如，所以我認為這就是推動那裡交易率較高的原因之一。至於銀行業務，我們繼續看到消費者需求和合作夥伴需求都非常強勁，即使利率下降。所以，我們將繼續努力改進產品轉換漏斗，以便更好地將用戶與正確的意圖相匹配，僅此而已。

Thank you, Ross. Our next question.

謝謝你，羅斯。我們的下一個問題。

Comes from the line of Rob Shackrat from William Blair. Your line is now open.

出自威廉·布萊爾的羅布·沙克拉特一脈。您的線路已開通。

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. Talk briefly about re evaluating the process or, looking at brand spend. I think you maybe underspent by 8 million or so in the quarter. Sounds like you're going to probably pick that back up next quarter. But the question is, I guess why did you go through the re-evaluation process and what did you learn after going through that process?

午安.感謝您回答這個問題。簡要談談重新評估流程或檢視品牌支出。我認為你們本季可能少花了大約 800 萬美元。聽起來你下個季度可能會重新開始做這件事。但問題是，我想問的是，為什麼要重新評估？經過這個過程，你學到了什麼？

Yeah, I'll take that one, brand is our biggest asset, right? And you'll know that.

是的，我接受這個提議，品牌是我們最大的資產，對吧？你會明白的。

The brand spend was down significantly because as you mentioned we underspent by 8 million in Q3. We were really just re-evaluating our brand creative strategy during the quarter. Really excited about some things to come in Q4. I won't spoil it for you, but you know we're always trying to figure out how to make things more impactful. So in Q4 we do expect to return to more typical levels of brand spend. Last year's Q4 24 spend is a pretty good proxy.

品牌支出大幅下降，正如您所提到的，我們在第三季少花了 800 萬美元。本季我們主要在重新評估我們的品牌創意策略。非常期待第四季的一些事。我不會劇透，但你知道我們一直在努力想辦法讓事情更有影響力。因此，我們預計第四季度品牌支出將恢復到更正常的水平。去年第四季的 24 美元支出是一個很好的參考指標。

Right, and just on the the content side of the business, obviously it's been more focused on, sort of the.

對，就業務的內容方面而言，顯然更加重視…

Sort of higher end consumer, now that you're looking at, below prime, consumers, we were talking about sort of, does there have to be a major shift in content strategy. Is it pretty easy to do, and we have sort of the products, available as well in the marketplace to sort of meet those needs of the below, prime consumers. Thanks.

既然我們現在要關注的是高端消費者，那麼我們剛才討論的，低於優質消費者的消費群體，是否需要在內容策略上做出重大轉變。這很容易做到，而且我們在市場上也有相應的產品，可以滿足以下主要消費者的需求。謝謝。

Yeah, so I, the way I describe it is we've always had content and products for all consumers including low prime. It's really just historically our monetization has skewed very heavily towards, prime because of, the products that appeared in our marketplace.

是的，我的描述是，我們一直為所有消費者提供內容和產品，包括低端優質消費者。從歷史上看，我們的獲利模式確實嚴重偏向 Prime 會員，因為我們市場上出現的商品都是 Prime 會員。

So it's really not a new strategy. It's really about filling out our panel of lenders and service providers to run out that marketplace and what we're seeing is the second order impact there is it's making more competitive, making us more competitive in channels like performance marketing, and from a consumer perspective, H1stly we're just, better serving unmet needs, that we weren't serving before, so we feel good about that too.

所以這其實並不是什麼新策略。實際上，這關乎完善我們的貸款機構和服務提供者名單，從而開拓市場。我們看到，由此產生的第二層影響是，它使市場更具競爭力，使我們在效果行銷等管道更具競爭力。從消費者的角度來看，首先，我們更好地滿足了以前未滿足的需求，所以我們對此也感到滿意。

Great, thanks, Tim.

太好了，謝謝你，提姆。

Thank you.I'm not showing any further questions at this time. This concludes our Q&A. I would like to turn it back to Tim Chen, CEO and co-founder for NerdWallet.

謝謝。目前我不再回答其他問題。問答環節到此結束。現在我想把麥克風交給 NerdWallet 的執行長兼共同創辦人 Tim Chen。

All right, thanks all for your questions today. As always, I'd like to thank the nerds for their continued hard work over Q3, and I'm looking forward to sharing our Q4 results with you in a few months.

好的，感謝大家今天提出的問題。和往常一樣，我要感謝各位科技宅在第三季的辛勤付出，並期待在幾個月後與大家分享我們第四季的業績。

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

感謝您參加今天的會議。節目到此結束。您現在可以斷開連線了。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Thank you, Ethan.

謝謝你，伊森。