Leafly Holdings, Inc. (LFLH)
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Earnings Call: Q3 2022

Nov 10, 2022

Operator

Hello, and welcome to today's Leafly Q3 2022 Earnings Call. My name is Jordan, and I'll be coordinating your call today. If you'd like to register an audio question, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I'm now gonna hand over to Keenan Zopf, Investor Relations with The Blueshirt Group to begin. Keenan, please go ahead.

Keenan Zopf
Associate, The Blueshirt Group

Good afternoon, and welcome to Leafly's Q3 2022 Earnings Call. Joining me on the call today are CEO Yoko Miyashita and CFO Suresh Krishnaswamy. Today's prepared remarks have been recorded after which Yoko and Suresh will host live Q&A. A copy of our press release, along with an accompanying earnings presentation can be found on our website at investor.leafly.com. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Forward-looking statements include statements regarding the services offered by Leafly, the markets in which Leafly operates, business strategies, performance metrics, industry environment, potential growth opportunities, and Leafly's projected future results and financial outlook, and can be identified by words such as expect, anticipate, intend, plan, believe, seek, or will. These statements reflect our views as of today only, should not be relied upon as representing our views at any subsequent date, and we do not undertake any duty to update these statements. Forward-looking statements, by their nature, address matters that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations.

For a discussion of the material risks and other important factors that could affect our actual results, please refer to the risks assessed in today's press release, our annual report form 10-K filed with the SEC on March 31st, 2022, and our other periodic filings with the SEC. During the call, we will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A reconciliation of the GAAP and non-GAAP results is included in our earnings press release, which has been filed with the SEC and is also available on our website at investor.leafly.com. With that, let me turn the call over to Yoko.

Yoko Miyashita
CEO, Leafly

Thank you, Keenan, and thank you to everyone for joining us. Revenue for the quarter was $11.8 million, up 8.1% year-over-year as we continue to expand our advertising products, partnerships, and the Leafly brand. Revenue from retail was up 5.1% year-over-year, and revenue from brands was up 19.6% year-over-year. On a sequential basis, revenue reflected the ongoing challenging environment facing the retailers and brands we serve. The cannabis industry, in particular, saw anemic sequential growth, with Q3 retail sales estimates coming in at flat to 1% growth compared to Q2.

The volume of products sold has grown, but retail price points have declined. Those declines have put pressure on our retailers and brands to reduce their ad spend as their margins compress. This tells us that the macro environment is difficult, but consumer demand for cannabis has not softened and they continue to purchase, which we see reflected in our own platform activity. Although average order value has softened, the number of items ordered with each purchase has remained consistent, and retailers are placing deals on our platform at a record number. This is a strong indication that value has become extremely important as consumers are looking for the best prices and deals when they purchase.

With our investments this year to build our subscriber base and increase deals functionality on our platform, we're poised to deliver choice and value to consumers when they need it most. We're also helping brands and retailers reach more customers when building their businesses is critically important. With the market pace of growth declining and the subsequent impact to ad spend from retailers and brands, we announced a 21% headcount reduction in October, which is in addition to the significant OpEx savings initiatives we announced on our last earnings call. Suresh will give more details about these in a moment.

Both of these actions have realigned our cost structure, enabling us to preserve capital and manage for the long-term health of the company. These measures also give us greater flexibility in this dynamic market, better positioning us to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Although this was a difficult decision, we are focused on creating shareholder value, and it was the right decision given the current macro environment. Investments made over the past two years allowed us to reorganize our sales teams and bring on much-needed talent in our PD&E and G&A teams.

This early work provided insight and data to know which investments yield the greatest benefit and information on what we can do to be more efficient and what we can prioritize to drive the greatest returns. In addition, we have delivered significant product and partnership launches that we expect will present further monetization opportunities as they scale. As we look to the short to medium term, we're focused on optimizing what we've already accomplished with plenty of opportunities to generate incremental revenue across the Leafly platform.

Our teams expect to move as quickly as possible in the areas of the business that we are able to control, and we'll be ready to capitalize when the industry returns to robust growth, as we all expect. As a longtime supporter of a fair and equitable cannabis industry, we are encouraged by the industry momentum seen across the country. In October, we witnessed history when President Biden reinvigorated federal legalization discussions by announcing pardons and kicking off the process to examine descheduling. It's a historic moment and recognition from the highest levels of the executive branch of what the public overwhelmingly already supports.

With the U.S. elections this week, we'll be welcoming two more states to legal recreational cannabis, Maryland and Missouri, whose residents comprise almost 4% of the U.S. population 18 and over. The Leafly platform is firmly established in these current medical markets, with over 80% of medical dispensaries in Maryland and Missouri already engaged on Leafly as of the end of Q3. We look forward to serving the millions of recreational consumers who will now have access to licensed tested cannabis and onboarding new retail locations once those rec markets open.

In addition, delivery continues to gain momentum in local markets as well. We're very excited about the partnership with Uber Eats we announced in October. This partnership brings a seamless shopping experience to life within the Uber Eats app. The partnership is currently limited to Toronto. It's important for a number of reasons. One, it normalizes cannabis and is a recognition of the great potential of this industry and the value of the cannabis shopper. Two, we deliver tremendous value to retailers on our platform, giving them access to Uber's wide customer base.

Uber's penetration across consumers in Toronto is significantly larger than ours, and the ability to connect those consumers with retailers is critical in a competitive environment, and it's a powerful lever to help retailers grow their business. Three, this partnership lends itself to our strategy of strengthening and building more commercial partnerships through technology integration as we find more avenues to help our retailers reach a broader audience. Specifically for us, we see this partnership as a way to drive new retailer acquisitions and order volume growth in Ontario.

New retail leads from the province increased by more than 260% in the week after the announcement. We also see this as an opportunity to drive ARPA higher in this market. We are a valuable connector for consumers and retailers, and our partnership with Uber is helping to connect even more consumers with licensed, tested cannabis products in Toronto. Delivering against our mission to help more people discover cannabis on such a large platform would not have been possible without the growth and momentum from the investments we've made and our focus on technology integrations over the past two years.

Moving on to other quarterly highlights, we saw an increase in ending retail accounts of 7.4% quarter-over-quarter, or 18.2% year-over-year. We saw continued growth in monthly active users with a 4% increase over last quarter. This was driven by top-of-funnel improvements, which have continued to bring high-quality users to the site. We are disciplined in our marketing approach to drive traffic through meaningful content while establishing Leafly as the trusted go-to source for cannabis. It is not our strategy to utilize low-quality paid traffic.

Instead, we have focused on improving SEO by publishing content that consumers find valuable, which has been fruitful and is a key component of our mission to help consumers discover cannabis. As you know, one of our four key areas of focus this year has been making improvements to our ad platform to drive lower funnel performance for retailers and brands. We launched some of the largest improvements to our ad platform, including the launch of Marquee ad units, the first new ad unit for retailers released in nearly two years, across the most valued real estate on Leafly, our homepage strains and strains list pages.

We launched these products on web in October, with expansion into native coming as a fast follow. We are seeing great interest and strong selling momentum, which adds to our durable subscription revenue and reinforces that retailers are still eager to find ways to connect with engaged Leafly consumers. We've also improved our attribution on our menu merchandising product, making it easier for brands to easily understand how Leafly drives lower funnel performance through these ad units. We continue to strengthen the role Leafly plays in the success of our retail and brand clients by reducing friction for our B2B partners in key areas.

In addition to the Uber partnership, which will expand in Toronto, we completed integrations with Blaze and Onfleet, making it easier for delivery partners to scale on Leafly and improving the customer shopping experience. We believe delivery is a critical growth driver for us in existing and forthcoming markets, and with our growth and integrations and new partnerships in this area, we intend to lead in this category. Our success in California is a compelling proof point. Our delivery product is driving growth in revenue and performance in California with a 24% year-over-year increase in California revenue and nearly 2.5 times increase in orders, almost 1/3 of those orders coming from our iOS app.

Building and maintaining trust remains a focus as we continue to create an incredible consumer shopping experience. We have refocused our editorial and content efforts to make sure we are bringing the most valuable and sought-after content to consumers through our news and learn channels and premium editorial content. We also introduced effects-based filters in our shopping experience as consumers consistently tell us that is how they want to shop for cannabis. It's how we're leveraging our unique IP to help consumers in their cannabis discovery journey.

We've strengthened our thought leadership with the release of our second annual Harvest Report, the only annual holistic assessment of cannabis as a crop, a crop that is the sixth largest crop in the United States. We also released our inaugural Opt-Out Report, which highlights the inadvertent ways local municipalities are supporting the illicit market when they opt out of legal cannabis sales. These are important topics not covered extensively by anyone else. We're also excited by the anticipated opening of New York rec stores before the end of the year.

Our brand resonance across consumers in the Northeast is significant, and our penetration across existing medical retailers is strong in those markets, including 100% penetration across retailers in New Jersey and over 90% of existing dispensaries in New York on our platform at the end of Q3. On the operations front, we are focused on optimizing our teams, existing products, and offerings. We're working to create better alignment across teams, drive increased productivity in our sales organizations, and improve our go-to-market strategy.

We welcomed Carlos Pinto to Leafly in October to oversee the sales, marketing, and content teams. His expertise in developing strong cross-functional teams comes just at the right time. We've done the heavy lifting. Consumers recognize the Leafly brand as a source for trusted expertise and premium content. We've built a robust platform for retailers and brands with some amazing products and key technological integrations, and now we're focused on penetrating local markets, adding retailers on platform, and connecting them with high-value traffic.

Today, the legal cannabis market is in its infancy. Despite the current macro environment, the industry is forecasted to grow to $42 billion over the next four years. Legalization momentum only serves to further normalize cannabis, and over time, this will be a valuable CPG industry in need of technology and support services that Leafly will be here to deliver. I am optimistic about the long-term prospects of the industry and of Leafly as we build a healthy and vibrant marketplace for the future of cannabis. Now I'll turn it over to Suresh.

Suresh Krishnaswamy
CFO, Leafly

Thank you, Yoko, and welcome everyone. We are operating in a difficult environment, and Q3 was a tough quarter. We saw a continued softening in ad spend from Q2, and we responded quickly to adjust the business by implementing cost-cutting measures, including a headcount reduction. As we look ahead to Q4 and beyond, we will manage the business to take advantage of the opportunities ahead of us while staying focused on controlling costs. Q4 is typically our best quarter of the year due to higher holiday-related ad spend.

Our early read for the quarter is one of caution. In October, we've seen healthy interest from advertisers in our new Marquee ads and strain feature ads and a pickup in retail revenue. However, we're still seeing brands pull back on their spending. Now to the results in Q3. Revenue in the Q3 was $11.8 million, up 8% year-over-year. Breaking that down, revenue from retail was $9 million, up 5% year-over-year. Revenue from brands was $2.7 million, up 20% year-over-year. Ending retail accounts grew 18% year-over-year as the sales team worked to grow our market share in both newer and more established markets.

We saw continued churn in retail accounts in Oklahoma, a market that has been struggling to strike a balance between supply and demand. This churn was offset by strong account additions in Florida, California, and newer markets like New Mexico. Our retail ARPA in the Q3 was $556, a decline of 10% year-over-year and 4% quarter-over-quarter. As we have mentioned on previous calls, this number has been trending lower as we grow aggressively in newer markets and work to gain market share in more established markets. The decline in ARPA from Q2 to Q3 was primarily related to pricing promotions and discounts in British Columbia and Oklahoma and general pricing pressure in Illinois.

Strategically, we believe this approach to add retail accounts will benefit our business in the long term. It's part of our land and expand strategy. We will focus on growing accounts and deepening our market penetration. At the same time, we're also working to reduce churn and keep customers on our site. We know that customers come to Leafly looking for information and product access. The more retailers we have on our site, the more Leafly helps create a healthy, vibrant marketplace that benefits consumers and retailers alike.

Due to the subscription nature of our business, the introduction of our new Marquee ad units, and the important holiday ad period, we expect continued growth in retail revenue in Q4 on a sequential basis in the mid- to high-single digits. Turning to brands, on a sequential basis, revenue declined 8% compared to Q2 as brand accounts pulled back on digital advertising. Part of this decline is due to the fact that Q2 includes the Four Twenty holiday, which typically leads to a boost in brand advertising.

Our expectation for the near term is for brand revenue to face continued headwinds as these customers have trimmed their budgets even in light of the upcoming holidays, which are traditionally higher spend periods for brands. We expect brand revenue in Q4 will be roughly flat compared to Q3 2022. Now turning to gross margin. Total gross margin in the Q3 was 87.1%, a 130 basis point decrease from 88.4% in Q3 2021. Driven primarily by increased business platform and web infrastructure expenses and headcount costs. We expect gross margin to remain at similar levels going forward.

Moving on to operating expenses. Our Q3 total operating expenses were $16.3 million, which represents a 16% sequential decrease in OpEx from Q2 as a result of a pullback in marketing and travel and entertainment spending and reduced headcount. I want to take some time now to speak to the restructuring and cost-cutting measures that we announced on the 18th of October. The actions that we have taken will have a meaningful impact on our operating expenses going forward. These efforts are intended to position us with the appropriate operating structure and resources to deliver sustainable value to our customers and shareholders.

An additional goal of this restructure is to conserve cash and strengthen our balance sheet. As we announced on the 18th, we expect to pay approximately $0.5 million in Q4 related to salary and benefits costs for eliminated positions. The majority of the headcount reduction occurred in the sales and marketing and product development teams. As we disclosed in our press release, we expect annualized cash cost savings of approximately $16 million starting in 2023. While we're not prepared to offer guidance for the full year 2023, I did want to provide some commentary to help investors understand how we're thinking about cost structure next year and the impact of our realignment of the business.

As I said, we do expect cash cost savings of approximately $16 million in 2023 compared to 2022. We currently anticipate that our operating expense structure, excluding stock-based compensation, will be roughly split across our three categories, with sales and marketing at 40% of total OpEx, PD&E at 20% of total OpEx, and G&A at 40% of OpEx. Given the current environment, we are proceeding with a cautious posture. As Yoko mentioned, there are dramatic changes happening in the industry with respect to legalization that get us excited about the future. We have positioned our business to capture this future opportunity while being mindful of the macroeconomic headwinds.

Now turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $27.8 million in cash. We continue to be prudent in managing our cash. The cost reductions and business realignment are designed to preserve our ability to respond to opportunities in the market while also effectively managing capital. I also want to point out our Q3 ending basic share count of 40 million shares. This was after we repurchased 3.1 million shares during the quarter using restricted cash on our balance sheet.

Now to our guidance. For the full year 2022, we're refining our revenue guidance and now expect revenue to be between $47 million and $48 million. While our retail revenue is holding up, we see increased risk in brand spending in Q4. For adjusted EBITDA guidance, we expect a loss of approximately -$26 million for the year, which is at the top end of our previous range. Lastly, we're planning to give full year 2023 financial guidance on our Q4 earnings call in March 2023. We will now open up the call for questions. Operator?

Operator

As a reminder, if you'd like to register an audio question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two, and please ensure you're unmuted when speaking. Our first question comes from Harrison Vivas of Cowen. Harrison, please go ahead.

Harrison Vivas
VP of Equity Research, Cowen

Great. Thanks so much for taking my questions. First one from me. Nice pickup in ending retail accounts here. Just, you know, given we're halfway into Q4, curious if you can give us any line of sight into what you're seeing in terms of cancellations and/or new adds to the platform?

Suresh Krishnaswamy
CFO, Leafly

Yeah. Thanks, Harrison. We had a strong quarter in retail account growth, 18% year-over-year. You know, we really focused on growing retail accounts following the trend we saw in Q2, and we're pleased with what we achieved in Q3. You know, to give you a little sense, you know, California had the largest number of account adds due to introductory promotions and our focus on our new delivery product and experience. Overall, we saw growth in over 70% of our markets quarter-over-quarter, including some of our newer markets, New Mexico, Missouri, and within our MSO client base in Florida.

We're looking for some of those trends to continue. We're expecting modest account growth going forward. You know, I mean, we're not giving guidance on any retail accounts, but year-over-year, it's probably in the high single digits. We know retailers see the value of being on the Leafly platform, and we're conscious at the same time of customers tightening their budgets in the current environment. At the same time, we're optimistic about the new licenses coming online as well in a number of places.

Harrison Vivas
VP of Equity Research, Cowen

For sure. That's helpful. I know it's still early days, but are you seeing a pickup in new retail accounts as a direct result of the partnerships that you've done recently, specifically with Blaze and Onfleet in the U.S.?

Yoko Miyashita
CEO, Leafly

Yeah. You know, let me speak to that one, Harrison. Blaze and Onfleet, critical partners for our delivery experience in terms of reducing friction for our retailers and building the right consumer experience. We think that's one of the key drivers of our growth in California, and I could share some stats on the call in terms of the year-over-year performance increases we're seeing there. Very excited about that. We think we're in early days. We talked about our new delivery product that we launched in H1 of this year.

You know, we layered on delivery Platinum Placements, which are specific ad units that are really catered to that delivery audience. We'll continue to work on scaling that and excited about what lies ahead from that work. I'll also say, you know, in terms of delivery, the Uber Eats announcement, not only did we see the increase of retailer needs in the market, but that's had a general halo effect. Really, that ability to connect consumers, you know, really strong top-of-funnel traffic with retailers is highly attractive in this highly competitive space where retailers are trying to gain traction.

Harrison Vivas
VP of Equity Research, Cowen

Great. That's helpful. So just I guess following up on that, can you maybe offer more color on the economics of those partnerships and how we should think about, you know, the impact to the model? Especially 'cause, you know, you're offering these partnerships to some customers free of charge, and then I'm curious to see like, you know, how do we think about the ramp in ARPAs over time, given, you know, you're charging them or for free initially.

Yoko Miyashita
CEO, Leafly

Yeah. Great question. You know, while I can't go into the specifics of our deal with Uber, what I can say is this deal has allowed us to essentially raise the entry price points for all new retailers coming on platform in Ontario. It's made our platform that much more valuable, and that does give us a great opportunity to increase ARPA in market, both for new as well as existing as we go through renewal cycles.

Operator

Our next question comes from Jason Helfstein of Oppenheimer. Jason, please go ahead.

Jason Helfstein
Managing Director and Senior Analyst, Oppenheimer

Thanks. Two questions. The guidance for revenue is -4% to +5% year-over-year. Obviously, everyone's gonna kind of try to read forward from that. Without giving formal guidance, I mean, how are you thinking about next year? I mean, in some cases, we've thought about, you know, a weak first half and a stronger second half. You know, just how did you come up with the -3% to +5% range? Just, you know, how do we think about that? The second, you know, was there a catalyst that caused customer growth quarter-to-quarter? Thanks.

Suresh Krishnaswamy
CFO, Leafly

Jason, just to dive in on that question, could you just clarify the -3% to +5% that you're talking about for next year?

Jason Helfstein
Managing Director and Senior Analyst, Oppenheimer

I think that's the implied if you take the range over your full year. You gave full year revenue of $47-$48. Right?

Suresh Krishnaswamy
CFO, Leafly

Oh, for this year.

Jason Helfstein
Managing Director and Senior Analyst, Oppenheimer

Yeah. Same for this year. If you back into the implied Q4 revenue change off your guide, I think that's the range. If I'm math-ing this correctly.

Suresh Krishnaswamy
CFO, Leafly

Yeah. No.

Jason Helfstein
Managing Director and Senior Analyst, Oppenheimer

I guess I'm like, how did you come up with the low end versus the high end? Just broadly, how are you thinking about next year from a maybe a cadence standpoint? Because obviously, we're all gonna come up with models, and people listening on this call were gonna come up with their own estimates. Just if you can talk about maybe how you're thinking about the arc of next year perhaps a bit.

Suresh Krishnaswamy
CFO, Leafly

Yeah. Sure. Thanks for clarifying that. For this year, as we look at, you know, Q4, you know, large components of our revenue are pretty much well banked at this point, right? Especially in retail, which is largely subscription-like revenue. That's the larger portion of our business as well. We have a bit more potential variability in brands revenue. We feel our guidance of $47-$48 fully reflects that. At the midpoint, that range represents 10% year-over-year growth at the midpoint, which is above market growth for the cannabis industry, right?

We're doing everything in our power to execute on our plan and make sure that we finish the year strong. We're, you know, pretty confident in that guidance range that we've put out. In addition, especially talking about the EBITDA guidance for this year, you know, in this environment, we've made the hard decisions and the headcount reductions and the OpEx cuts that were right for the business. We feel we've got ahead of that, and we've really refocused the teams to prioritize on the most important initiatives.

As we position ourselves for next year, certainly for a situation where, you know, the current challenging macro environment continues, but at the same time we're positioned to capitalize when opportunities do come our way and growth returns. You know, as far as 2023 is concerned, I mean, we expect to provide full year 2023 guidance on our Q4 call in March. But what I can say is it's been a tough market in the second half of this year. You're quite right in backing into the implied growth in Q4. You can see that, you know, even in this tough environment, we continue to grow.

I think that's the best read for next year, given we haven't yet provided guidance. We've positioned ourselves with the cost reductions and the reprioritization for, you know, continuing to navigate through this current challenging macro environment. We expect that to continue into next year. At the same time, I can say we've been monitoring industry and local market trends, and we're seeing momentum in new products. I mean, Yoko mentioned the Marquee ads, they're off to a really strong start.

This quarter, we expect to build on that. We're also anticipating additional licenses, places like L.A. and New York, newly legalized markets. We just continue to communicate the value that Leafly brings to our retail partners. We know that they want to be on the platform. We're making it easier for them to understand the ROI. We remain optimistic about the opportunities for next year. We're gonna continue to manage the cost side of the business to conservative estimates. I hope that helps.

Jason Helfstein
Managing Director and Senior Analyst, Oppenheimer

Thank you.

Yoko Miyashita
CEO, Leafly

There is a second part to your question in terms of our retail account ads and the growth, and whether that was, you know, I mean, let me, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but essentially how do we go about doing that? I would say, [for one] thought, 'cause when we talked about our sales reorg earlier this year, really organizing into local market structure has been critical for us to go after and understand the dynamics of each market driving ads. You know, and we talk about delivery growth, that's been a critical driver for bringing new accounts on in California. I will say it's structural first and foremost in terms of internal on how we can go after the opportunity, and it's been execution on the tails of that.

Jason Helfstein
Managing Director and Senior Analyst, Oppenheimer

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Eric Des Lauriers of Craig-Hallum. Eric, the line is yours.

Eric Des Lauriers
Senior Research Analyst, Craig-Hallum

Great. Thank you for taking my questions. First one for me is just a follow-up on the Uber Eats partnership. Congrats there. Can you help us understand the ability for that partnership to expand beyond Toronto? Is there something specific with the Ontario province? You know, I'm assuming that this is, you know, obviously limited to Canada for now, but just talk about the ability to potentially expand beyond Toronto, you know, after a trial phase.

Yoko Miyashita
CEO, Leafly

Yeah. You know, as hopefully my commentary suggests, we've been super excited about how that launch has gone off and, in terms of the partnerships that we've been able to develop with Uber. There are obviously reasons as to why we started in Canada first, for both of us. We'll focus on the expansion in Toronto through the rest of the year, and we'll be excited to share more information about that. I think what we're really looking at is the engagement and activity that this drives. I can't really speak to expansion beyond Toronto at this stage, but we'll be certainly happy to share more as the partnership develops.

Eric Des Lauriers
Senior Research Analyst, Craig-Hallum

Okay. Great. Just onto the, you know, strategy of using promotional pricing to help drive ARPA gains. You know, certainly seems to make sense in this macro environment. I'm wondering, I guess just kind of, you know, maybe two questions here. Do you have any early insight into the ROI of that strategy?

Can you just help us understand, you know, maybe some of the, you know, risks or opportunities of, you know, really accelerating that strategy? I mean, you know, what, you know, sort of what's stopping you from, you know, lowering prices further to, you know, continue capturing greater share and, you know, presumably it would still be, you know, incremental to revenue and gross profit dollars. Just wondering how you think about that strategy. Thank you.

Suresh Krishnaswamy
CFO, Leafly

Yeah. Thanks, Eric. I mean, our strategy overall is to build a robust platform and marketplace, right, that delivers value to consumers and retailers. We've really been focusing on account growth over ARPA at this stage and on the value to customers, right? Through improving the consumer experience, you know, adding more deals on our site, expanding on the successful start of our delivery gateway experience. All of those things have contributed to the success we've had in really focusing on adding retailers to our platform. On the ARPA side, what we report is an average of what's playing out at the local market level.

That's also, you know, I'll draw attention to that. We're in growth mode, and we're building the business in newer markets, and at the same time, we're deepening our penetration in more established markets. This is our land and expand strategy. The ARPA number has been trending lower as we grow in newer markets, and we work to gain more market share. That's something that we're going to continue at the local market level. Yoko just mentioned that we reorganized the sales teams last quarter, and so I think, you know, we're seeing these dynamics really play out very differently across markets.

Our view is as we add retailers to the platform, they start to understand the value, and we've seen that their willingness to pay for that value increases. You know, specifically talking about some of the decline in ARPA in Q3 that was related to pricing promotions and discounts, you know, we saw that in British Columbia, Oklahoma, some pricing pressure in Illinois. At the same time, we're also seeing ARPA growth in some of the newer markets like New Mexico and Missouri. you know, when we see these early signs.

Eric Des Lauriers
Senior Research Analyst, Craig-Hallum

Yeah. That's really helpful. I think I misspoke by focusing on ARPA. I did mean the promotional pricing, you know, helping to drive retail account gains. I guess my question is ultimately sort of how much room you have to, you know, continue leaning into that strategy and, you know, how much we should expect that to accelerate versus you're sort of comfortable with the current level of promotional pricing that you're offering.

Suresh Krishnaswamy
CFO, Leafly

Yeah. I think I mean we're really tailoring our strategy to each market, right? We're not giving guidance on ARPA because, you know, we're really looking at it at a local market level. In the nearer term, I mean, we're certainly focused on adding retailers and, you know, if that means that ARPA will continue to trend lower, right? We're gonna continue to focus on retail account growth.

We feel like that's the right strategy and that from what we've seen as we continue to add retailers onto the platform at prices that make sense for them and allow them to really understand the value that we're bringing, we're seeing them participate in newer products. You know, we talked about the Marquee ads. We feel that once they're on the platform, there's healthy demand, and we expect some of the newer products to contribute to ARPA growth in some of these markets.

Yoko Miyashita
CEO, Leafly

Let me give an example there. You know, Ontario was actually a market in which we used introductory pricing earlier this year. You know, we've been able to bring sufficient numbers of retailers onto the platform. We obviously have this new offering in the form of Uber Eats, and that's allowed us to drive ARPA higher in that market. We're no longer offering promo pricing in Ontario. It's that level of granularity in which we're looking at the market dynamics to adjust these and how we approach a specific market and the right strategy for it.

Eric Des Lauriers
Senior Research Analyst, Craig-Hallum

Yeah, definitely makes sense. Yeah, it seems like a great strategy at this point. Thanks for the color.

Yoko Miyashita
CEO, Leafly

Thanks, Eric.

Operator

We have no further questions on the phone lines. With that, we'll conclude today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

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