Trivago NV (TRVG) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the trivago Q4 Earnings Call 2023. (Operator Instructions)

美好的一天，女士們先生們。感謝您的耐心等待，歡迎參加 trivago 2023 年第四季財報電話會議。（操作說明）

I must advise you the call is being today, Wednesday, the 7th of February 2024. We are pleased to be joined on the call today by Johannes Thomas, trivago's CEO and Managing Director; and Kevin Hu, trivago's Interim CFO. The following discussion, including responses to your questions, reflects management's views as of today, Wednesday, February 7, 2024, only, trivago does not undertake any obligation to update or revise this information.

我必須告訴您，電話會議將於今天舉行，即 2024 年 2 月 7 日星期三。我們很高興今天邀請 Trivago 執行長兼董事總經理 Johannes Thomas 參加電話會議；和 Trivago 臨時財務長 Kevin Hu。以下討論（包括對您的問題的答案）僅反映截至今天（2024 年 2 月 7 日星期三）管理層的觀點，trivago 不承擔任何更新或修改此資訊的義務。

As always, some of the statements made on today's call are forward-looking, typically preceded by words such as we expect, we believe, we anticipate or similar statements. Please refer to the Q4 2023 operating and financial review and the company's other filings with the SEC for information about factors which could cause trivago's actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements.

像往常一樣，今天電話會議上發表的一些聲明具有前瞻性，通常前面有「我們期望」、「我們相信」、「我們預期」或類似的聲明。請參閱 2023 年第四季的營運和財務審查以及該公司向 SEC 提交的其他文件，以了解可能導致 trivago 的實際結果與這些前瞻性陳述存在重大差異的因素的資訊。

You'll find that reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures discussed today in trivago's operating and financial review, which is posted on the company's IR website at ir.trivago.com. You are encouraged to periodically visit trivago's Investor Relations site for important content.

您會發現今天在 trivago 的營運和財務審查中討論的非 GAAP 衡量標準與最具可比性 GAAP 衡量標準的對賬，該審查發佈在該公司的 IR 網站 ir.trivago.com 上。我們鼓勵您定期造訪 trivago 的投資者關係網站以獲取重要內容。

Finally, unless otherwise stated, all comparisons on this call will be against results for the comparable period of 2022.

最後，除非另有說明，本次電話會議的所有比較都將針對 2022 年可比較期間的結果。

With that, let me turn the call over to Johannes to begin.

接下來，讓我將電話轉給約翰內斯開始。

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our Q4 2023 earnings call. The fourth quarter has unfolded as anticipated. We saw a decline in revenue in line with the trends observed in previous quarters. This decline was primarily due to lower levels of monetization and headwinds in performance marketing. Additionally, we have felt the adverse effects of low brand marketing investments in the recent years. However, these declines were partially mitigated by volume growth in our Rest of the World segment.

大家早安，感謝您參加我們的 2023 年第四季財報電話會議。第四季的發展符合預期。我們看到收入下降，與前幾季觀察到的趨勢一致。這一下降主要是由於貨幣化程度較低和效果行銷的不利因素。此外，我們也感受到了近年來品牌行銷投資不足的不利影響。然而，我們世界其他地區業務量的成長部分緩解了這些下降。

Jasmine, Andrej and I returned to trivago about 9 months ago with Kevin providing remarkable support as the interim CFO and to Robin's arrival. As a new leadership team, we continue to believe in the potential of the business. The value proposition of trivago remains highly relevant as consumers continue to be price conscious. In the trivago brand (technical difficulty) for us. We remain confident that maintaining the business at a full year breakeven adjusted EBITDA will enable us to rebuild our branded visitor baseline and achieve a double-digit growth in the medium term. We are committed to executing our strategy to revitalize our brand and enhance our products in every aspect. Let me now give you an update on our strategic priorities.

大約 9 個月前，Jasmine、Andrej 和我回到了 trivago，Kevin 作為臨時財務長提供了出色的支持，並為 Robin 的到來提供了大力支持。作為新的領導團隊，我們仍然相信業務的潛力。隨著消費者繼續對價格敏感，Trivago 的價值主張仍然具有高度相關性。在trivago品牌（技術難度）對我們來說。我們仍然相信，將業務維持在全年損益平衡調整後 EBITDA 水準將使我們能夠重建品牌訪客基線，並在中期實現兩位數成長。我們致力於執行我們的策略，以振興我們的品牌並在各個方面增強我們的產品。現在讓我向您介紹我們策略重點的最新情況。

Our first strategic priority is branded growth. Within just a few months, we have assembled a highly skilled media buying team that effectively optimizes our global brand marketing investments. We have undertaken a brand refresh to enhance trivago's memorability and appeal. By the end of Q4, we launched TV campaigns in over 20 markets and introduced new AI-powered Mr. trivago spots. We are thrilled by the progress on our team's rapid execution. While it's too early to fully assess the brand campaigns impact, initial results are promising, particularly in developed Europe and the Rest of the World. The response in Americas has been mixed with North America performing better than later. We are continuously optimizing our brand budget allocation as well as our TV creative. Over time, we anticipate the efforts will enhance the efficiency of our marketing investments and expect to see the compounding effect to materialize over time.

我們的首要策略重點是品牌成長。在短短幾個月內，我們組建了一支技術精湛的媒體購買團隊，有效優化了我們的全球品牌行銷投資。我們進行了品牌更新，以增強 trivago 的記憶力和吸引力。到第四季末，我們在 20 多個市場推出了電視廣告活動，並推出了新的人工智慧驅動的 Mr. trivago 廣告。我們對我們團隊的快速執行所取得的進展感到非常興奮。雖然現在全面評估品牌活動的影響還為時過早，但初步結果是有希望的，特別是在發達的歐洲和世界其他地區。美洲的反應好壞參半，北美的表現比後來好。我們不斷優化我們的品牌預算分配以及電視創意。隨著時間的推移，我們預計這些努力將提高我們行銷投資的效率，並期望看到複合效應隨著時間的推移而實現。

Our second strategic priority is to enhance our hotel search experience. We have travelers find the ideal hotel. Our ongoing website test has been focused on improving the visual experience of hotels and exposing more relevant content to our users. Notable efforts include AI-generated hotel highlights which we qualified and launched for 60,000 hotels. The hotel highlights provide users with key aspects to know about the hotel, helping them in selecting the one that best fits their need. We have also introduced new static search results stages, targeting our users with low travel intent. This change has led to higher user engagement and improved quality of fleets we sent to our partners.

我們的第二個策略重點是增強我們的飯店搜尋體驗。我們為旅客找到了理想的飯店。我們正在進行的網站測試重點是改善酒店的視覺體驗並向用戶展示更多相關內容。值得注意的工作包括人工智慧生成的酒店亮點，我們已對 60,000 家酒店進行了鑑定並推出了這些亮點。酒店亮點為用戶提供了解酒店的關鍵方面，幫助他們選擇最適合自己需求的酒店。我們也引進了新的靜態搜尋結果階段，針對旅行意願較低的使用者。這項變更提高了用戶參與度，並提高了我們發送給合作夥伴的車隊品質。

Our third strategic priority is to offer the best deal discovery experience. We have travelers find great hotel deals and better prices. Our experiments have been aimed at refining how we display and rank deals on our search results. Furthermore, we have improved the rate accuracy on our platform by evolving our deal intelligence and rate accuracy scoring system for our partners. Continuing to improve our deal exposure and rate accuracy will be focused in the coming months as we expect these improvements to foster trust and retention among our users.

我們的第三個策略重點是提供最佳的交易發現體驗。我們為旅客找到了超值的飯店優惠和更優惠的價格。我們的實驗旨在改進我們在搜尋結果上顯示和排名交易的方式。此外，我們透過為合作夥伴改進交易智慧和費率準確性評分系統，提高了平台上的費率準確性。未來幾個月的重點將是繼續提高我們的交易曝光度和費率準確性，因為我們預計這些改進將增強用戶之間的信任和保留。

Our fourth strategic priority is our advertising partners. We empower them to realize the full potential on trivago. In Q4 2023, we began testing the second price auction in 3 key markets. This initiative aims to simplify our auction, and we anticipate that it will unlock user value by delivering more relevant search results. The initial test was successful, and we are in the process of expanding the test. As we continue to see satisfying results, we aspire to roll out the second-price auction model across all markets before summer. We don't expect this to have a material impact on our monetization in the short term, but anticipate positive long-term effects.

我們的第四個策略重點是我們的廣告合作夥伴。我們幫助他們充分發揮 trivago 的潛力。 2023 年第四季度，我們開始在 3 個主要市場測試第二次價格拍賣。這項措施旨在簡化我們的拍賣，我們預計它將透過提供更相關的搜尋結果來釋放用戶價值。初步測試很成功，我們正在擴大測試。隨著我們繼續看到令人滿意的結果，我們希望在夏季之前在所有市場推出第二價格拍賣模式。我們預計這不會在短期內對我們的貨幣化產生重大影響，但預計會產生正面的長期影響。

To sum up, we see great momentum within the organization, improvements in our products and encouraging indications from our brand investments, which sets the stage for the results in the rest of the year. We have streamlined our operations and organizational structure around our strategic priorities with the objective to drive our pace of execution and learning. As we look ahead, we are confident of showcasing our enhancements and a positive brand trajectory.

總而言之，我們看到組織內部的強勁勢頭、產品的改進以及品牌投資的令人鼓舞的跡象，這為今年剩餘時間的業績奠定了基礎。我們圍繞著策略重點簡化了營運和組織結構，旨在加快執行和學習的步伐。展望未來，我們有信心展示我們的改進和積極的品牌發展軌跡。

With that, I'd like to pass over to Kevin.

說到這裡，我想把話題轉給凱文。

Thank you, Johannes. Welcome, everyone, to our fourth quarter earnings call. I will start with a review of our fourth quarter results as well as share some early thoughts for 2024. All comparisons for 2023 are on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise stated. During the fourth quarter of 2023, we achieved revenues of EUR 91.7 million, which was a 13% decline compared to prior year fourth quarter. The year-over-year decline was at a similar rate to what was observed in the second and third quarters of this year and with a seasonality trend, which was the same as prior year. Lower levels of monetization combined with foreign exchange headwinds negatively impacted our financials in the fourth quarter. Higher levels of competition in performance marketing channels continue to impact our traffic volumes. We also continue to observe ad format tests and changes made in our performance marketing channels with the compliance state set forth for the identified gatekeepers in the European Union's Digital Markets Act, or DMA approaching.

謝謝你，約翰內斯。歡迎大家參加我們的第四季財報電話會議。我將首先回顧我們第四季度的業績，並分享對 2024 年的一些早期想法。除非另有說明，2023 年的所有比較均以同比為基礎。 2023 年第四季度，我們營收 9,170 萬歐元，比去年第四季下降 13%。同比下降速度與今年第二季和第三季觀察到的情況相似，並且具有季節性趨勢，與去年相同。貨幣化程度較低加上外匯不利因素對我們第四季的財務狀況產生了負面影響。效果行銷管道的激烈競爭持續影響我們的流量。我們也將繼續觀察我們的效果行銷管道中的廣告格式測試和變化，以及歐盟數位市場法案（DMA）中為確定的看門人規定的合規狀態。

Diving in deeper, we see different dynamics amongst our 3 reporting segments. Referral revenues declined by 20% in Americas and by 14% in our developed Europe segment, while it increased by 14% in our Rest of World segment. In discussing our year-over-year comparisons and trends, I would like to draw to your attention and remind you of the strong prior year dynamics included in our comparative financials. The declines in our Americas and Developed Europe segment were largely driven by softer bidding dynamics on our platform compared to the same period in 2022 when we had benefited from a strong auction. Higher levels of competition in certain marketing channels continue to result in performance marketing volume losses. Combined with foreign exchange headwinds from the weakening of the U.S. dollar against the euro compared to the same period in 2022, further led the decline. In our Rest of World segment, we continue to see growth driven by the recovery in markets like Japan where we see a strong increase in travel demand as many markets in our Rest of World segment recover post COVID and also respond to increased marketing investments.

深入研究後，我們發現 3 個報告部門之間有不同的動態。美洲地區的建議收入下降了 20%，歐洲已開發地區的推薦收入下降了 14%，而世界其他地區的推薦收入則增加了 14%。在討論我們的同比比較和趨勢時，我想提請您注意並提醒您我們的比較財務數據中包含的強勁的前一年動態。與 2022 年同期相比，我們受益於強勁的拍賣，美洲和歐洲已開發地區業務的下滑主要是由於我們平台上的競價動態減弱所致。某些行銷管道的競爭加劇持續導致績效行銷量損失。再加上美元兌歐元與2022年同期相比走弱帶來的外匯不利因素，進一步導致了下跌。在我們的世界其他地區，我們繼續看到日本等市場復甦推動的成長，我們看到旅遊需求強勁增長，因為我們世界其他地區的許多市場在新冠疫情後復蘇，並對行銷投資的增加做出了反應。

Moving on to our operational expenses. We maintained stable operating expenses at EUR 87.3 million in the fourth quarter. We incurred higher selling and marketing expenses compared to prior year, which was offset by lower share-based compensation costs and by lower personnel costs primarily attributed to noncore-related products that we stopped last year. Overall, we achieved a net income of EUR 2.5 million and an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 7.3 million during the fourth quarter. For the full year, net loss was EUR 164.5 million, which was largely driven by the indefinite-lived intangible asset and goodwill impairment analysis conducted in the third quarter in conjunction with our annual impairment test. For the full year, we achieved an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 54.1 million.

繼續我們的營運費用。第四季我們的營運支出維持穩定在 8,730 萬歐元。與前一年相比，我們的銷售和行銷費用有所增加，但被基於股權的薪酬成本的降低和主要歸因於我們去年停止的非核心相關產品的人員成本的降低所抵消。總體而言，第四季度我們實現了 250 萬歐元的淨利潤和 730 萬歐元的調整後 EBITDA。全年淨虧損為 1.645 億歐元，這主要是由於第三季結合年度減損測試進行的無限期無形資產和商譽減損分析所致。全年調整後 EBITDA 為 5,410 萬歐元。

During the fourth quarter, we paid out a onetime extraordinary dividend totaling EUR 184.4 million and completed a ratio change under the company's American depository share program. I'm extremely proud and would like to thank the many trivago employees that worked hard on these transactions as we successfully returned capital to our shareholders. We continue to be well capitalized for our operating needs with cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments balance at the end of the quarter in excess of EUR 125 million.

第四季度，我們支付了總額為 1.844 億歐元的一次性特別股息，並根據該公司的美國存託股票計劃完成了比率變更。我感到非常自豪，並感謝許多在這些交易中辛勤工作的 trivago 員工，幫助我們成功地將資本回饋給股東。我們的資本充足，季末的現金、現金等價物和短期投資餘額超過 1.25 億歐元，足以滿足我們的營運需求。

Looking ahead to 2024, the main travel trends remained solid in January, and we continue to see strong demand for the year ahead. While discussing trends observed in January 2024 compared to January 2023, it is important to note the differing dynamics observed during the first full quarter of 2023. We enjoyed elevated levels of average daily rates and higher monetization, which resulted in Referral revenue gains exceeding 30% when comparing January 2023 and January 2022. These gains, however, did not persist throughout the first quarter as we trended lower by the end of the first quarter of 2023. As a result, we do not believe a comparison of our early January 2024 results to prior year to be particularly meaningful.

展望 2024 年，1 月份主要旅遊趨勢保持穩定，我們繼續看到未來一年的強勁需求。在討論2024 年1 月與2023 年1 月相比觀察到的趨勢時，重要的是要注意2023 年第一個完整季度觀察到的不同動態。我們的平均每日費率水準較高，貨幣化程度較高，這導致推薦收入增長超過30%比較2023 年1 月和2022 年1 月時。然而，這些收益並沒有持續到整個第一季度，因為到2023 年第一季末我們的業績呈下降趨勢。因此，我們不認為與2024 年1 月初的業績進行比較對往年特別有意義。

As a result of our previously announced strategy shift, we kicked off our new brand marketing campaign in mid-December. While it is still too early to conclude on the financial results, we are encouraged by early signals. While investments into our brand will have a negative impact on our near-term profitability level, for the full year 2024, we continue to expect our adjusted EBITDA to be at around breakeven levels. We remain confident that our brand investments will help us increase our brand traffic over time by keeping trivago on top of travelers' minds.

由於我們先前宣布的策略轉變，我們於 12 月中旬啟動了新的品牌行銷活動。雖然現在就財務業績得出結論還為時過早，但我們對早期訊號感到鼓舞。雖然對我們品牌的投資將對我們的近期盈利水平產生負面影響，但在 2024 年全年，我們仍然預計調整後的 EBITDA 將處於盈虧平衡水平左右。我們仍然相信，我們的品牌投資將幫助我們隨著時間的推移增加我們的品牌流量，讓 trivago 留在旅客的腦海中。

Finally, I'd like to close by sharing an update on our previously announced CFO transition. We look forward to welcoming back Robin Harries who will be rejoining trivago and stepping into the leadership team and taking on the role as Chief Financial Officer on April 1. I'd like to also personally thank all our trivago team that are leaning in during this transition period.

最後，我想分享我們之前宣布的財務長過渡的最新情況。我們期待 Robin Harries 的回歸，他將於 4 月 1 日重新加入 Trivago，進入領導團隊並擔任財務長。我個人也要感謝在此期間全力支持的所有 Trivago 團隊過渡期。

With that, let's open the line for questions. Operator, we are now ready to take the first question, please.

接下來，讓我們打開提問熱線。接線員，我們現在準備好回答第一個問題。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question for today comes from [Jeremy Lu] of UBS.

（操作員指示）我們今天的第一個問題來自瑞銀集團的[Jeremy Lu]。

This is [Jeremy] on for Stephen. I have 2 questions. So first, you called out normalizing booking values for the first time since the pandemic this quarter. Is this a matter of supply finally balancing with demand? Or are there other factors you want to call out? For instance, do you think the consumer is trading down in terms of what they're choosing. And second, maybe this is tied to your normalizing booking value comment, but you're also calling out softer bidding dynamics on your platform in the Americas, specifically, I believe, for the first time. Is there anything idiosyncratic about the U.S. market that you can talk about?

這是[傑瑞米]為史蒂芬代言的。我有 2 個問題。首先，您呼籲自本季大流行以來首次實現預訂價值正常化。這是供給與需求最終平衡的問題嗎？或者您還想指出其他因素嗎？例如，您是否認為消費者在選擇商品時會降低價格？其次，也許這與您的預訂價值評論正常化有關，但您也在美洲平台上呼籲更加溫和的出價動態，特別是我認為，這是第一次。您能談談美國市場有什麼特殊之處嗎？

Jeremy, so I can take on the first question about average booking values. So overall, we continue to see hotel demand to be quite robust and at similar levels to prior year. Across the 3 segments, I can maybe walk you through a little bit more detail what we're seeing there. So in our developed Europe, we are seeing actually a higher length of stay, which is bringing up the average booking values whereas in Americas, we see a slight decrease in our average daily rate, switched together kind of net out. But these average booking values have normalized to compare to prior year levels, which was at a relatively higher level overall.

傑里米，我可以回答關於平均預訂價格的第一個問題。整體而言，我們仍然認為飯店需求相當強勁，且與去年水準相似。在這三個部分中，我也許可以向您介紹我們所看到的更多細節。因此，在我們發達的歐洲，我們實際上看到了更長的住宿時間，這提高了平均預訂價值，而在美洲，我們看到平均每日房價略有下降，這有點像淨出局。但與去年的水平相比，這些平均預訂價值已經正常化，整體上處於相對較高的水平。

Yes. I think that's important, and thank you for asking the question. It's not coming down, so it's normalizing on a high level. And then to your question on the bidding dynamics. That is nothing we particularly call out on -- in Americas. I think overall, the quarter and beginning of the year has been volatile as previous years have been as well where last end of Q4 was stronger into the year was a little bit softer, but they're trending towards expected levels.

是的。我認為這很重要，感謝您提出這個問題。它沒有下降，所以它正在高水平上正常化。然後是關於競價動態的問題。在美洲，這並不是我們特別呼籲的。我認為總體而言，本季和年初一直波動較大，就像往年一樣，第四季末的強勁表現進入今年之後有些疲軟，但它們正趨向於預期水平。

Our next question comes from Naved Khan of B. Riley Securities.

我們的下一個問題來自 B. Riley Securities 的 Naved Khan。

So maybe just a clarification on the trends you spoke about, Kevin, about January. So you called out the difficult comps in the beginning of the quarter, and you said they should normalize at the quarter end. But just give us some thoughts about how we should be modeling about for top line, whether similar declines as Q4 or less than that? And then Johannes, maybe just on the growth. So given that the payback from branded advertising comes with some kind of a lag, should we expect top line to start showing some growth as you progress into the year? Or do we expect that to be further out maybe 2025.

凱文，也許只是對你所說的一月份的趨勢進行澄清。因此，您在季度初指出了困難的比較，並表示它們應該在季度末恢復正常。但請給我們一些關於我們應該如何為營收建模的想法，是與第四季類似的下降還是比第四季更少？然後是約翰內斯，也許只是關於成長。因此，考慮到品牌廣告的回報存在一定的滯後性，我們是否應該預期隨著今年的進展，營收開始出現一些成長？或者我們預計這種情況會持續到 2025 年。

Sure. So why don't I start with the first question, which was about the average booking values. So we do see in January so far, very similar trends to what we saw in the fourth quarter already. But maybe I can also provide you a bit more guidance on the top line and how we're kind of looking at the first quarter. So on the top line, we are expecting to see some revenue declines -- to see the revenue decline decelerate during the first half of the year compared to the fourth quarter. For the first quarter, we're expecting mid-single-digit declines. And that segment would be -- that would be true for our Americas segment and also for our Developed Europe segment. While we expect for the Rest of World, we would continue to expect similar levels of growth for the first quarter.

當然。那我為什麼不從第一個問題開始，也就是關於平均預訂價值的問題。因此，到目前為止，我們在一月份確實看到了與第四季度非常相似的趨勢。但也許我還可以為您提供更多關於營收以及我們如何看待第一季的指導。因此，從總體上看，我們預計收入會出現一些下降——與第四季度相比，今年上半年的收入下降速度會放緩。我們預計第一季將出現中個位數下降。該細分市場對於我們的美洲細分市場和我們的已開發歐洲細分市場來說都是如此。雖然我們預計世界其他地區，但我們仍預計第一季將出現類似的成長水準。

And then maybe I can extend to the rest of the year. I think overall expectation for us that first half is negative and the second half turns into positive when our brand investments are paying off because there are compounding effects kicking in and the early signals that we are seeing in all segments are supporting our hypothesis on this.

然後也許我可以延續到今年剩下的時間。我認為，當我們的品牌投資獲得回報時，我們的整體預期是上半年是負面的，下半年會變成正面的，因為複合效應開始顯現，而且我們在所有細分市場看到的早期訊號都支持我們對此的假設。

Got it. That's very helpful. And then maybe a quick follow-up if I may. So it seems like you continue to see more competition in the performance -- paid performance channels. Is the trend pretty much the same as you saw in the last couple of quarters? Or has it worsened or maybe improved a little bit? Can you give us some color on that? And then as the DMA rolls out in Europe, any thoughts in terms of what we can expect in terms of impact on the business?

知道了。這非常有幫助。如果可以的話，也許我會快速跟進。因此，您似乎繼續看到表演方面的更多競爭——付費表演管道。這一趨勢與您在過去幾季看到的趨勢幾乎相同嗎？或情況是否惡化或有所改善？你能為我們提供一些資訊嗎？然後，隨著 DMA 在歐洲推出，我們對業務影響有何預期？

Yes. So there is no big change in terms of impact. We continue to have a negative impact until roughly second quarter. That is when the ad changes started when the headwind started. So until then, we expect some headwind to continue, though it's volatile. We are seeing Google to do changes as they aim to comply towards March, I think, is 8th of March. And we see bigger changes were in Europe and they are not linking to their hotel product anymore from the search results page. They instead have placed this card on the right side where they show the hotel similar to other attractions you can find on Google. And at the same time, they have increased the exposure of PPAs, at least from what we observed. And we have launched and participated in that auction across all relevant markets in order to learn and gain share if we see conversion rates improving. And that is a problem we called out in the past. We see much lower conversion rates on PPA compared to tax ads. And that is something where we are trading off where we are basically investing. And it's still unclear what changes will be present in the future. That depends on the test of Google and also what will be accepted by the commission.

是的。所以從影響力上來說，並沒有什麼大的改變。直到第二季左右，我們都會繼續產生負面影響。那是當逆風開始時廣告開始改變的時候。因此，在此之前，我們預計一些逆風將會持續，儘管它不穩定。我們看到谷歌正在做出改變，因為他們的目標是在 3 月（我認為是 3 月 8 日）之前遵守規定。我們看到歐洲發生了更大的變化，他們不再從搜尋結果頁面連結到他們的酒店產品。相反，他們將此卡放在右側，在那裡他們顯示酒店，類似於您可以在 Google 上找到的其他景點。同時，他們增加了購電協議的暴露，至少從我們觀察到的情況來看是如此。我們已經啟動並參與了所有相關市場的拍賣，以便在我們看到轉換率提高時了解並獲得份額。這是我們過去指出的一個問題。與稅務廣告相比，我們發現 PPA 的轉換率要低得多。這就是我們在基本上投資的地方進行權衡的地方。目前還不清楚未來會出現什麼變化。這取決於谷歌的測試以及委員會將接受什麼。

Our next question comes from Doug Anmuth from JPMorgan.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Doug Anmuth。

Great. This is Dae Lee for Doug. The first one is on their monetization trends for this year. And how do you think about monetization headwinds easing as we move through 2024? And then secondly, how should we think about the magnitude of your ad spend this year relative to how much you spent last year? Should we be expecting a single-digit type of growth? Or will it be more in the double-digit type of levels?

偉大的。這是道格的戴李。第一個是今年的貨幣化趨勢。隨著 2024 年的到來，您如何看待貨幣化阻力的緩解？其次，我們該如何考慮您今年的廣告支出相對於去年的支出規模？我們是否應該期待個位數的成長？或者會更多地出現在兩位數類型的關卡中嗎？

Yes. Thank you for your question. So monetization, as we said, it's trending towards expectations it's very hard to predict where this is going throughout the year. And our conversation with our partners, they signal that they are happy with our incrementality. Our brand investments deliver additional incrementality, improved quality of the leads we are sending. We do product improvements that deliver improved quality of fleets we are sending. So that is basically our general perspective on monetization that we wouldn't see big changes. In terms of spend, we certainly invest substantially more in brand marketing and less than performance marketing. And we see a shift of brand marketing, taking a bigger share of our business. And whether we will see single or double-digit growth depends on what happens in Google, how does the compounding effect kick in throughout the year. So it's a bit early to give a clear signal on that. What we are confident is that we can deliver double-digit growth in the medium term. And that is basically where we are guiding at this point.

是的。謝謝你的問題。因此，正如我們所說，貨幣化正在朝著預期的方向發展，很難預測全年的發展。在我們與合作夥伴的對話中，他們表示對我們的增量感到滿意。我們的品牌投資帶來了額外的增量，提高了我們發送的銷售線索的品質。我們進行產品改進，以提高我們發送的車隊的品質。因此，這基本上是我們對貨幣化的整體看法，我們不會看到重大變化。就支出而言，我們在品牌行銷方面的投資肯定比績效行銷方面的投資要多得多。我們看到品牌行銷的轉變，在我們的業務中佔據了更大的份額。我們是否會看到個位數或兩位數的成長取決於谷歌發生的情況以及全年的複合效應如何發揮作用。因此，現在給出明確訊號還為時過早。我們有信心在中期實現兩位數的成長。這基本上就是我們目前所指導的方向。

Our next question comes from Ron Josey of Citi.

我們的下一個問題來自花旗銀行的羅恩·喬西。

This is Robert on for Ron. First question is on ad spend for next year. How should we think about the allocation of these investments in terms of striking existing markets versus getting new markets? And which new markets are you guys leaning into the most? I mean -- maybe I'll pause and ask the second question after.

這是羅伯特替羅恩演的。第一個問題是關於明年的廣告支出。我們該如何考慮這些投資在衝擊現有市場和開拓新市場的分配？你們最傾向哪些新市場？我的意思是——也許我會停下來問第二個問題。

So we're not commenting on individual markets. And generally, we are not dogmatic about where we invest into. It's path dependent. So we have invested in more than 20 markets by end of Q4. We might try out additional markets and it's basically the relevant markets that we have -- that we are running on at the moment. And we are focusing on those where the unit economics work for us. So we are investing into brand and see the response and then understand where it's most efficient to put our dollars. And that is a gradual process that we optimize over time.

因此，我們不對個別市場發表評論。一般來說，我們對於投資方向並不教條。它是路徑依賴的。截至第四季末，我們已經投資了 20 多個市場。我們可能會嘗試其他市場，這基本上是我們目前正在經營的相關市場。我們專注於那些單位經濟學對我們有用的領域。因此，我們正在投資品牌並查看反應，然後了解將資金投入到哪裡最有效。這是一個漸進的過程，我們會隨著時間的推移而進行最佳化。

Okay. Got it. That's helpful. And then second question on the adjusted EBITDA guidance, relatively unchanged from last quarter. Can you guys maybe just walk through where you see the most opportunity for outperformance here?

好的。知道了。這很有幫助。第二個問題是關於調整後的 EBITDA 指導，與上季相比相對沒有變化。你們能不能簡單介紹一下你們認為最有機會表現出色的地方？

Sure. So for the adjusted EBITDA, with these additional investments into our brand, we will expect to have a negative impact on the near-term profitability level. So in the first half of the year, we would expect that adjusted EBITDA to be negative, but we would stay disciplined. So this would be a low single-digit number, that's negative. And then that would trend more positively towards the second half of the year, where -- when Johannes mentioned about the payoff, the dividends of the brand investments that we're making to get us to the full year breakeven. In terms of OpEx spend, I would imagine that we would keep that at a very stable level, consistent with prior year. And this is OpEx adjusted for advertising spend and share-based compensation costs.

當然。因此，對於調整後的 EBITDA 而言，隨著對我們品牌的這些額外投資，我們預計會對近期獲利水準產生負面影響。因此，今年上半年，我們預計調整後的 EBITDA 將為負值，但我們將保持紀律。所以這將是一個較低的個位數，即負數。然後，這種趨勢在下半年會更加積極，當約翰內斯提到回報時，我們為實現全年盈虧平衡而進行的品牌投​​資的股息。就營運支出而言，我認為我們會將其保持在非常穩定的水平，與去年一致。這是根據廣告支出和基於股份的補償成本調整後的營運支出。

Our next question comes from Stan Velikov of Wells Fargo.

我們的下一個問題來自富國銀行的史丹維利科夫。

I'm curious how you are looking at the progression of brand spend through the year. What cadence should we expect to see in 2024. And do you I guess -- your prepared remarks kind of implied the brand's spend would be gradually increasing.

我很好奇您如何看待這一年品牌支出的進展。我們預計 2024 年會出現什麼樣的節奏？我猜你準備好的言論有點暗示該品牌的支出將逐漸增加。

So we are not commenting on where exactly we spend. What we do in general is we spend more consistently. And the seasonality to last year's will not substantially change from our brand spend. This is maybe how we can think about it.

所以我們不會評論我們具體花在哪裡。一般來說，我們所做的就是更持續支出。我們的品牌支出與去年相比不會發生實質變化。這或許是我們可以思考的問題。

(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from Kevin Kopelman from TD Cowen.

（操作員說明）我們的下一個問題來自 TD Cowen 的 Kevin Kopelman。

Could you touch on Google's deprecation of -- planned application of cookies in Chrome? How important -- or how big of a change will that be for trivago and any impact that you might see.

您能否談談 Google 方案在 Chrome 中棄用 cookie 的情況？這對 trivago 來說有多重要——或者會有多大的變化，以及您可能看到的影響。

That is on our radar, and we are working on our broader display campaigns and so on, on finding ways to do that. It will not have a material impact on our business. Also here because brand is very strong, performance marketing is strong, and there is no big impact on those channels.

這是我們關注的範圍，我們正在進行更廣泛的展示活動等，尋找實現這一目標的方法。這不會對我們的業務產生重大影響。也是因為品牌非常強大，效果行銷也很強，對這些管道沒有太大的影響。

At this time, we currently have no further questions. So I'll hand back to Johannes for any further remarks.

目前，我們沒有進一步的問題。因此，我將把任何進一步的意見交還給約翰內斯。

Thank you for joining us today. Our mission is clear. We want to be the obvious choice for price-savvy travelers searching for a hotel. We are energized and fully committed to the journey ahead. And thank you again for your trust, and we look forward to sharing our continued progress with you.

感謝您今天加入我們。我們的使命很明確。我們希望成為注重價格的旅客尋找飯店的最佳選擇。我們充滿活力並全心致力於未來的旅程。再次感謝您的信任，我們期待與您分享我們不斷的進步。

Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your lines.

感謝您參加今天的電話會議。現在您可以斷開線路。