Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to BlackLine's 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I would now like to turn the call over to Therese Tucker, Chief Executive Officer of BlackLine.
Good morning. It is a pleasure to welcome you to our Annual Meeting of Stockholders. This year, we are again holding a virtual Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Not only do virtual meetings help us maximize our stockholders' ability to meaningfully engage with us, they also allow us to maintain safe social distancing to protect the health of all participants. We are pleased that our stockholders, no matter where they are located in the world today, can safely participate in the meeting in a virtual format. Before we begin, let me introduce the directors of the company. In addition to myself, we have Jason Babcoke, John Brennan, Owen Ryan, Graham Smith, Mario Spanicciati, Kevin Thompson, and Thomas Unterman. Mika Yamamoto is not able to attend today. Also, I would like to extend a special welcome to Sofia Velastegui, who joined our board in March.
I would also like to introduce the following corporate officers: Mark Huffman, President and Chief Operating Officer; Mark Partin, Chief Financial Officer; Karole Morgan-Prager, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer and Secretary; Pete Hirsch, Chief Technology Officer; and Susan Otto, our Chief People Officer. Also joining us on the call today is Jeff Feiereisen, representing PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm. Mr. Feiereisen will be available to respond to appropriate questions during the Q&A session at the end of the meeting. Sean Curley, our Inspector of Elections from Broadridge Financial Solutions, and Shannon Delahaye, representing Wilson Sonsini, the company's outside counsel. I'd now like to take a moment to thank Mario Spaciotta, who is stepping down from the board today. Mario has been a great partner to me, and his years of service to BlackLine and our shareholders are deeply appreciated.
Mario, on behalf of myself, the other board members, and the entire company, thank you. Now, on to the business of the meeting. I will act as Chairperson of this meeting, and I have asked Karole Morgan-Prager , our Chief Legal and Administrative Officer and Secretary, to facilitate and record the minutes of this meeting.
Thank you, Therese, and welcome to our Annual Meeting. First, I will review the proposals to be voted on, which were included in the proxy statement for this meeting, which notice was first mailed to stockholders on or about March 24, 2020. We will then notify you when the voting polls are open. After the voting polls are open, you may vote your shares online anytime during this meeting prior to the closing of the polls. Once the polls have closed, we will announce the preliminary results of the voting, and Therese will then give a brief company presentation, after which management will be available to answer questions. There is a text box on your screen where you can submit your questions at any time during the meeting prior to the end of the Q&A session.
We will try to answer as many questions as we have time for, but we may not be able to answer all questions submitted. The record date for this Annual Meeting was March 9, 2020. Only stockholders of record as of that date are entitled to vote at this meeting. I have an affidavit of distribution from Broadridge Financial Solutions confirming that the notice of this Annual Meeting was provided on or about March 24, 2020, to shareholders of record as of March 9, 2020. I also have a complete list of stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting, which will be available online for the duration of the meeting and can be found at the Registered Shareholders List link at the bottom of the Virtual Shareholder Meeting website at www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/BL2020.
Our Inspector of Elections has determined that a quorum is present either by proxy or in person, and the meeting may proceed. Our Inspector of Elections has signed an Oath of Inspector of Elections, which will be filed with the minutes of the meeting. The first item of business is the election of our three Class 1 directors: Mark Huffman, Therese Tucker, and Thomas Unterman. The second item of business is the ratification of the appointment of PwC as our independent registered public accounting firm for 2020. The third item of business is our say-on-pay vote, which is an approval on an advisory basis of the compensation of our named executive officers. The voting polls are now open. You should already be on the website www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/VL2020. Have the information that is printed in the box marked by an arrow available and follow the instructions.
The voting polls are now closed. No additional ballots, proxies, or votes, and no changes or revocations will be accepted. The proxies and any ballots previously submitted have been tabulated by the Inspector of Elections, and I have the preliminary voting results. Any votes cast today, including those submitted electronically during the meeting, will be counted in the final tally. With regard to Proposal 1, Mark Huffman, Therese Tucker, and Thomas Unterman, each of them has been elected as a Class 1 director and will hold office until 2023 or until their successors are elected or appointed and qualified. With regard to Proposal 2, the appointment of PwC as our independent accounting firm for 2020, that has been ratified.
Finally, with regard to Proposal 3, the advisory vote on the compensation of our named executive officers, a majority of shares submitted were in favor of the compensation of our named executive officers. These are the preliminary results of voting. The final count may vary following final examination of the proxies and ballots. The final results will be reported on a Form 8-K, which we will file with the Securities and Exchange Commission within four business days of this meeting. I'm pleased to report this concludes the formal agenda. The Annual Meeting is now adjourned. We will now turn to a short report on our operations and then have time to answer any questions you might have. Mr. Feiereisen of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP will also be available to answer any appropriate questions.
I would like to note that during the course of the presentation and the Q&A, we may make forward-looking statements regarding future events or future financial performance of the company, which involves risks and uncertainties. Such statements are only predictions, and actual events or results could differ materially from those predictions due to a number of risks and uncertainties. I refer you to the documents we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the company's last Annual Report on Form 10-K, which was filed on February 27, 2020. These documents contain and identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements. With that, I'll turn it over to Therese.
Thank you, Karole. Please advance the slides. Before I move to our performance in 2019 and through the start of the year, I wanted to take a moment to address that even in this current climate, BlackLine remains at the center of a massive long-term market opportunity across modern accounting and digital transformation. We remain focused on executing our multi-year strategy to drive long-term sustainable growth and advance BlackLine's position as a global market leader. Next slide, please. We believe that we are well-positioned to execute on that objective. Our strengths remain unchanged. We are a SaaS platform. We remain the industry-recognized leader in a large and growing TAM, and we have a strong competitive positioning. Our most recent quarter was solid, delivering 29% growth and maintaining a 110% net revenue retention rate. Next slide. Now, let's have a discussion on our recent performance in more detail.
On our Q4, 2019 was a year of consistent execution, and we were able to accomplish much of what we set out to do in the year to drive growth, scale the business, and maintain a strong leadership position. On a macro level, we continued to see healthy demand across our global markets from companies investing in digital transformation. This trend remained strong in the fourth quarter and drove acceleration in many areas of our business. We finished the year with a very healthy renewal rate and another quarter of improvement in our retention rate. We continued to invest in our strong partner ecosystem, and this resulted in a record number of net new logos. We had record user growth, record growth in strategic products. Our account management team performed exceptionally well. We had a record number of large deals and saw continued growth in EMEA.
We ended the year very confident in our leadership team, our ability to deliver value to our customers and make them successful, and in our strategic initiatives to drive long-term sustainable growth. Next slide, please. Following our strong 2019 performance, we believed that 2020 would be the year of acceleration. For the majority of Q1, we were operating well above plan on all key metrics. We ended the quarter with 29% revenue growth. Driven by our investment in customer success, we saw resiliency in customer expansion with a strong renewal rate of 97%, and dollar-based net revenue retention rate remained steady at 110%. Our gross margins came in at 82%, which is slightly above our long-term goal of 80%. We continued on our path of profitability improvement with a 5% operating margin. Next slide, please.
As you all know, the COVID-19 pandemic hit in Q1 and impacted our business in March. Holding to our core values of serving our customers and serving our employees, we reacted rapidly. We very much prioritized employee safety, and with very minimal disruption, we moved to remote operations globally. We have continued to communicate very strongly with our customers and our employees to make sure that everyone feels very supported. We were also quick to provide a number of different COVID-19 relief efforts to our customers, including things like free CPE training to maintain their accreditation, the usage of certain products like Tasks and Reporting to make sure that they were able to remotely close their books. We've offered a number of coaching sessions, resources from our partners, as well as our subject matter experts. These are our go-to-market teams. We're very quick to adapt to this new environment.
And our Q1 performance was very strong in January and February, but we really began to see deferred purchasing decisions in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our recent trends suggest that continued deal delays are going to be happening due to less access to capital and the reprioritization of many budget items. We will endeavor to manage the company for the long term while we navigate through this environment. Our focus is going to remain on maintaining our goodwill and loyalty with our employees and customers. We intend to continue to strengthen our brand as the category leader and be known for customer advocacy. We continue to invest in product innovation and modernizing our technology and infrastructure. Finally, we will continue to evaluate the broader market for opportunities. Until this environment changes, we will—excuse me.
Until that time, we will endeavor to manage the company for the long term while we manage through this environment. For us, that means first maintaining all of these things and continue to serve. With that, I am concluding my presentation, and I am happy to take your questions.
Thank you, Therese. At this time, we have no questions.
Then, I would like to thank all of you for attending today's meeting and for the interest and investment that you've shown in BlackLine.
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.