Greetings. Welcome to IZEA Worldwide, Inc.'s fourth quarter 2021 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A Q&A session will follow the presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Ryan Schram, President and Chief Operating Officer. Thank you. You may begin.
Good afternoon, and welcome to IZEA's Q4 2021 earnings. I'm Ryan Schram, President and Chief Operating Officer at IZEA. With me on the call today is IZEA Chief Financial Officer, Peter Biere, and IZEA Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, Ted Murphy. Thanks for joining us. Earlier this afternoon, the company issued a press release pertaining to our fourth quarter and full year performance for 2021. If you'd like to review those details, all of our investor information can be found on IZEA's Investor Relations website at izea.com, i-z-e-a.com/investors. Before we begin, take note of the safe harbor paragraph included in today's press release covering the company's financial results, and be advised that during today's earnings call, our management team will discuss IZEA's business outlook and make forward-looking statements.
These statements are predictions based on our as of today that are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties and should not be unduly relied upon. Actual events, results, or trends could differ materially from our forecast due to a number of factors, including those mentioned in our most recently filed periodic reports with the SEC. The company and our management team assume no obligations to update statements made in today's call. In addition, our update today will refer to a certain non-GAAP financial measure, adjusted EBITDA, and other key financial metrics such as gross billings and bookings. Explanation of these measures is included in our earnings release and in our most recent Form 10-K. With the appropriate disclosures taken care of, I'd now like to turn the call over to my colleague and IZEA's Chief Financial Officer, Peter Biere. Peter.
Thank you, Ryan, and good afternoon, everyone. Before I review our fourth quarter results, I'd like to refer you to our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2021 for detailed adjustments made in previously issued financial statements, which impacted certain liabilities, costs, and related revenues associated with our managed services business. In the Form 10-K, we restated previously issued interim financial statements, which were included in our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for the periods ended March 31st, June 30th, September 30th, all in 2020. Previously issued financial statements for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31st, 2020, and all interim periods for 2021 were not materially impacted and did not require restatement. It is assessed that they do not affect the total cost of revenues to be recognized. They only altered the timing.
The aggregate adjustments reduced gross revenues by $362,000, or less than 2% of revenue for the year ended December 31st, 2020, and the total impact of the adjustments on gross revenues was a positive $100. All comparisons in our earnings release for the fourth quarter of 2021 are made on an as-adjusted basis. Now I'll turn to our operating results for the quarter. Total revenue for the quarter of 2021 was $10.3 million or 62% higher when compared to Q4 2020, with $9.9 million from our managed services business and $449,000 coming from our SaaS offerings. Managed services revenue increased by $4 million or 69%, while SaaS revenue declined by $89,000 or 17%, both compared to the prior year quarter.
Managed services bookings, a key metric measuring sales orders we receive less any cancellations or refunds given during a period, totaled $10.6 million for Q4 2021, an increase of 164% compared to Q4 2020. The trend toward larger brands increasing their marketing spend with IZEA also continued during the fourth quarter as we added several new Fortune 500 customers alongside repeat business from three Fortune 10 partners. These factors, taken together with efforts put forth by our team to fulfill campaigns by the end of the year, resulted in the increase in services revenue. We recognize revenue on most of our managed services contracts over time based on the completion percentage, and delivery timing can vary greatly. We're winning larger contracts with new and repeat customers, and these contracts take longer to complete.
This has lengthened the average period for revenue recognition from 6 months a year ago to approximately 9 months currently. SaaS revenue, which consists of license fees, self-service marketplace spend fees, and other fees, were $89,000 lower for the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to Q4 of 2020. Overall, licensee count continues to grow, but fees declined year-over-year due to lower competitive pricing that we introduced in the summer of 2020. We also lowered our pricing on select self-service offerings, which impacted our margins on marketplace spending during the quarter. Gross billings for marketplace spend in the fourth quarter were % lower than the prior year quarter, leading to the lower fee revenue.
Our cost of revenue was $4.8 million in Q4 of 2021 or 46% of revenue, compared to $2.8 million or 44% in the prior year quarter. Accordingly, gross margin in the current quarter averaged 54% compared to 56%. Expenses other than the cost of revenue totaled $5.5 million for the current quarter, compared to $4.7 million for the prior year quarter. Sales and marketing costs were $2.2 million during the quarter, $328,000 or 18% above the comparative, due primarily to sales compensation, which varies with higher bookings and increased marketing costs associated with driving customer growth.
General and administrative costs totaled $3.2 million during the quarter, $723,000 or 30% above the prior year quarter, due primarily to higher compensation and contractor costs to support IT investments. We generated $312,000 in net income for the fourth quarter of 2021, or $0.01 per share, compared to a net loss of $1.1 million in the prior year quarter or -$0.02 per share. Adjusted EBITDA was positive $549,000 for the fourth quarter compared to a -s $512,000 for the prior year quarter, an improvement of approximately $1.1 million.
As of December 31st, 2021, we had $75.4 million cash on hand, up about $1 million from the end of quarter three, partly due to positive EBIT and cash advances from managed services customers ahead of payment to creators. We do not have any debt on our balance sheet. As previously announced, in June 2021, the company entered into a new two-year at-the-market sales agreement under which it may offer up to $100 million of its common stock from time- to time. That agreement provides IZEA with flexibility moving forward. The company has not sold any shares to date under that agreement. With cash on hand and continued strong growth in our core business and a financing vehicle in place, should we require it, we're in a solid position to execute on business growth and opportunities that may lie.
With that, I'll turn the call back over to Ryan.
Thanks, Peter. 2021 was truly our breakout year as a company. All in all, we set new records in nearly every measurable facet, and it served as a positive stepping stone towards IZEA's broader growth strategy shared in previous earnings calls. From our best quarter of bookings ever to delivering an all-time full-year revenue record, it's clear that IZEA's investments of time, capital, and talent are providing demonstrable results for our shareholders. I'd like to share some insight on how we continue to build positive momentum during fiscal year 2021, while also further establishing the foundation for the future of things to come. First, let's start with IZEA's go-to-market strategy.
During the course of 2021, we saw a variety of sectors driving IZEA's growth, some of which began investing in influencer marketing, more notably due to factors created by the pandemic, since carried forward as a force multiplier as the world begins to reopen. The nucleus of our business is Fortune 10 to Fortune 500 brands across five core segments: consumer electronics, consumer packaged goods, retail and grocery, and social media platforms. We're very proud to be the partner of choice for household name companies who entrust our managed service team and who license our software products to develop innovative campaigns across the creator economy.
When we win or expand these types of customers, many of whom conduct extensive competitive reviews and vetting, we believe it not only emphasizes IZEA's value proposition, but it validates our market strategy long term as we seek to consolidate market share. To that end, when you read press releases or hear commentary during this call regarding clients of our managed service practice or SaaS customers who license IZEAx Unity Suite, we intentionally refer to these wins by sector and rank instead of brand or corporation name due to industry standard confidentiality clauses, unless we have permission to disclose from those clients. Don't get us wrong, we love to shout these names from the hilltop. In an effort to provide visibility around momentum to our shareholders, we feel it's important to highlight particularly notable commitments in as detailed of a manner as possible, while protecting confidentiality in a public setting.
As you've likely read in our various press releases throughout the last year, IZEA is actively expanding into new geographies, new sectors, and entirely new types of clients, thanks to the hard work of new and existing team members alike. We are assertively, yet prudently, investing in a combination of personnel, performance marketing, and technology research and development to drive our growth near term and long. Many of these initiatives will be 2023 and beyond storylines, but with a critical foundation having been established during 2021 and throughout this year in 2022.
While we don't have time to recap everything today, I would like to take this opportunity to remind shareholders that all of our exciting news can be found on izea.com/investors, including the opportunity to subscribe to automated email alerts whenever we make important announcements that you may be interested in. That being said, plan on hearing more from us on many initiatives that are actively underway, whether as part of our emerging market strategy that has IZEA entering the Chinese market for the first time, to our new MetaMod offering that brings our depth of experience, relationships and technology to the Metaverse in order to embrace the full promise of Web3, to the continued expansion of our solution partner program, an industry-leading coalition of technology and service providers that enhance campaigns that we build for our clients.
It's a tremendously exciting time to be at IZEA. It all starts with our premise of involving cutting-edge technologies in every aspect of our business. IZEA created the influencer marketing industry in 2006 by launching the very first platform to pay influencers, and we haven't stopped innovating since. To that end, we are actively building the next generation of our enterprise software while simultaneously bringing our marketplace efforts aligned to Shake front and center in the coming months. We also believe there might be entirely new ways to serve the creator economy, given the continued large amounts of money flowing into the space globally, particularly given that there are simply more prospective customers who are creators on an absolute count basis than the ecosystem itself. Putting both universes under our proverbial roof creates limitless potential.
These investments have multi-business unit impact for IZEA in that they drive software and transactional revenue while also working to lower the cost basis of our managed service business unit by increasing operational leverage. Lastly, I want to share some insight on our point of view regarding organic versus inorganic growth. While IZEA has been acquisitive historically, the lion's share of our growth in recent years has been driven solely by organic means. Therefore, our philosophy remains to be primarily focused on ourselves, being opportunistic to strategic inbound M&A, given our unique status of being the only public company dedicated to influencer marketing. Ultimately, it's our belief that consolidation on a multi-continent and/or global basis is inevitable, and we're well positioned to lead, not follow, that reality. One of the key ingredients of our success in recent years has been our role in the war on talent.
IZEA aspires to be the singular player in the creator economy, where our industry's best talent thrives. From clients to those in our technology work groups, we have greatly benefited from the net gain of talented individuals seeking to showcase themselves on a bigger stage and abandon their previous roles at competing smaller startups. Their decision to join Team IZEA is due in part to our financial stability, our access to resources, the company's continued positive performance, and most importantly, our growth potential in the years ahead. We're so glad to have them here and as active co-owners of the company through our compelling team member equity program. A recap of 2021 and a forward-looking view of our business through his eyes. I would now like to turn the call over to my colleague and IZEA's founder, chairman, and CEO, Ted Murphy. Ted?
Thank you, Ryan. At the end of 2020, our team set forth a goal to deliver at least 30% annual revenue growth for each of the next three years or a 30% compound annual growth rate. Revenues in 2020 were approximately $14 million. Based on that rate of 30% growth per year, our goal was to achieve revenues of approximately $23.8 million in 2021 and $31 million in 2022. I shared this goal with our investors in Q1 of 2021, at a time when many were still wearing masks and COVID-19 vaccine distribution was limited. There were a variety of macroeconomic unknowns at that time, much like there are today.
We still put forth a bold target, a target that would require our entire team to work together and execute on a level we never had before. Not only did we hit our 2021 goal, we significantly beat it with organic annual revenue growth of 67% in 2020. We are nearly a full year ahead on the three-year revenue growth plan I outlined this time last year. As a result, we were able to deliver a profitable Q4 and smaller loss for the full year. During our all-company meetings, I often talk about the concept of invisible lines are the unseen barriers that seem difficult, sometimes impossible, to cross. They keep us confined to a box, bound by what we know to be true or possible.
At one time, $5 million in revenue was an invisible line for IZEA, then $10 million, then $25 million. Last year, we smashed through the $25 million revenue line, then continued on to smash $30 million. 2021 set a new standard for IZEA, a new norm for what we know is possible, along with creating the infrastructure and people to support that level of revenue. Yes, we are well ahead of our 3-year plan, but we have zero intention of slowing down. Quite the opposite. We have begun to demonstrate what we can accomplish when meaningful investments are made, and our intent is aggressive with further strategic spending as the year progresses. That means expenses will grow in 2022, just as they did last year. We will spend more in sales, marketing, and technology, the areas that give us operational leverage.
We have $75 million in cash, and we intend to put that to work in 2022. New markets will take time to mature as will new products, and we expect that we will be investing ahead of their contribution. Despite the significantly tougher annual comparison and higher baseline revenue, targeting 30% annual revenue growth in 2022, which translates to a $39 million target this year. This target is aligned with our goal to continue gaining share in the influencer marketing industry, which eMarketer predicts will grow by 11% in the U.S. in 2022. While there are unprecedented global financial and political factors we must continue to monitor and adapt to, we believe IZEA is well positioned on our revenue growth goals this year, given the strong bookings throughout last year and record-breaking Q1 bookings to start. The best is yet to come.
We believe that we are nowhere near our full revenue potential. We are in a growing industry that will expand as new platforms and the next generation of creators is born. We forget that over half of the global population isn't on social media. Each progressive generation of children will drive further adoption of social media platforms of all types, and each platform brings a new crop of influencers who are coveted by brands. IZEA came out of the gates in Q1, not only the best Q1 managed services bookings in company history, it is the best quarterly bookings ever in a quarter that has historically been our lowest bookings quarter of the year. Last week, we announced that managed services bookings for the quarter have surpassed $11.5 million compared to $6.4 million in 2021, an increase of over 80% year-over-year.
We will release the final managed services bookings number next week. While 2022 bookings are off to a tremendous start, recognize the efforts from last year's contracts. Unearned revenue at year-end was $11.3 million, up 71% from $6.6 million at the end of 2020. The unearned revenue from 2021 should be recognized over the coming 2022, and the fast start and current pipeline and our ability to grow revenue in 2022. Last year, our goal was to stabilize SaaS licensing revenue after making sweeping changes in Q3 of 2020 and lowering our pricing plans across the board. We were able to do that by the back half of 2021, and in the process, we increased the number of SaaS customers that we are serving to record heights.
We believe that the addressable market for influencer marketing software and services is broad, and our intent is to diversify our customers as much as possible. We intend to do so at both ends of the spectrum, from enterprise Fortune 500 clients with entire teams focused on influencer marketing, to small start-ups who just need an easy way to get their first campaign up and running. This year is going to be a big one for IZEA on the technology front, with the release of a completely redesigned checkout experience in Shake. We have made it easier than ever to find and hire an influencer on the platform, and we are continually refining the offering. In a few more weeks, we will deliver a massive improvement to ShakeBot, which will further guide people through the entire order process.
These changes are in advance of much larger fundamentals to the Shake platform, including the introduction of a subscription model for both creators and marketers, as well as an iOS app in the back half of this year. IZEAx is also getting support. Later this quarter, we will unveil a new discovery experience in IZEAx that takes advantage of the growing capabilities of BrandGraph. Later this year, we will release an entirely new enterprise influencer marketing platform. We are building a revolutionary application for the next generation of influencer activations. A platform to accommodate all that Web 3.0 will become with a focus on social commerce and measuring influencer ROI. It is a radical departure from both IZEAx and Shake, and something our entire team is incredibly excited about.
As transformational as 2021 was, 2022 is shaping up to be an even more monumental year for our company. Our leadership team remains committed to growth, innovation, and expansion of our geographic footprint. This mindset has served us well this year, and we will continue making investments in building our future. We are thankful for your support in 2021 and look forward to reaching new heights in 2022 and beyond. Thank you all for joining us today. I will now turn it over for Q&A.
Our first question is from Jon Hickman with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please proceed.
Hey, thanks for taking my question. Ted, or I don't know who wants to take this, but could you elaborate a little bit on your expectations for operating expense growth? Last year was up like, I don't know, 10%-15%. Is that what you expect? I mean, can you give us a little more guidance there?
Yeah. We, you know, we're not providing any formal guidance on, expense growth. You know, if we look at the, trailing four quarters and how that's over time, I would expect that it's going to continue along a similar path. You know, we're not expecting any, massive increases, but more of a, steady progression as we continue to build out our team and invest, in marketing.
Can you tell us how many sales guys you have now?
I'm gonna toss that over to Ryan.
Yeah, I mean, we don't really disclose the exact number, but just say around 30 right now, John.
Okay. That's up 10 or so from last year?
You know, we've had different changeouts, but yeah, by and large, directionally, the staff is slightly larger than it was this time last year. The biggest difference, to be entirely candid, is that we're seeing a lot of top performers join us who carry higher quotas than we've had historically before. Therefore, we can also look to achieve more on a per person basis going forward.
Okay. Thanks. That's it for me.
Our next question is from Elliot Shaw, Elliott Elevator. Please proceed.
Just to elaborate on that, Ryan, question for you. Per person revenue, do you guys have a goal that you've set for sales associate on those 30 that you wanna meet?
Hey, Elliot. Nice to meet you.
Hi. Yeah.
We actually have a very unique system at IZEA that allows sales professionals to join us and have quotas that are directly tied to a transparent compensation system. On average, there is no set number per se, per person. It allows us to get people at various stages of their careers, and therefore also adjust our cost and risk structure proportionately to their own individual. We have some people that will contribute millions or low tens of millions, and we have individuals that will contribute less, but our costs are tied proportionally to that contribution to have a much more diverse risk pool than you'd normally see in a traditional organization.
Okay, one more question on that. Do you guys have any kind of a in-house, like you call them, super influencers?
I'd like to think that our very own Ted Murphy, having won so many awards last year, is quite the influencer, having joined the industry.
Oh, okay.
I'll say this, though, Elliot, you know, one of the things that we are seeing that you may have noticed if you are searching for different terms about IZEA or content marketing on Google or Bing is that the amount of thought leadership content and research that we're creating each and every single day is really starting to dominate the organic search landscape for us.
Okay.
Our thought process there is that you can shape influence in a variety, not the least of which is top of mind awareness, but also on keywords that are deeper for what our customers, our brands and our agency clients are looking for and be able to be first in the line to be able to serve that need for them and be a potential partner.
Okay. Excellent. You're an excellent speaker. Back to one more question when you had your initial opening, you mentioned MetaMod and Metaverse. Trademark names that you're looking at. Have you trademarked those through IZEA?
I wish we could own the MetaMod.
Okay.
Um.
Okay.
you actually can go to metamod.com and see specifically the offering that we're putting out there, the extension of the IZEA brand. We look at it
Okay.
From the perspective that we've done this now literally four million times. We can bring all that expertise and look at it from a strategic and an execution and a measurement perspective for that next generation of influencer conversation that Ted was talking about.
Okay, now I wanna ask a couple questions. Thank you, Ryan.
You're welcome, Elliot.
Kelly, just to clarify on MetaMod, it's that application is in progress and under re-review.
Okay. Congratulations on an excellent quarter and the one coming up.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Yes. Congratulations on your initial remarks when you just spoke here a few minutes ago. On the all-company meeting, you said invisible lines, you guys are more aggressive now. How often do you have those?
We typically have those about every six weeks.
Okay. The meat of the whole company, you announced probably, I'm going from memory, six months ago that you had an ATM shelf offering. Is there any plans to pull that shelf offering or lower the total share count made public?
There is-
That makes general shareholders nervous like myself.
There is no current plans or announcement regarding the shelf itself, although as Peter mentioned in his remarks, we have that shelf at all.
Okay.
That is out there to provide some flexibility for us. We have not sold a single share off of that shelf. You know, we currently intend for that to remain out there and have that provide some flexibility if we should need it in the future. You know, we are being judicious in the way that we are looking at potentially accessing that capital.
Okay. The last call then I had with you turned it over to the CFO. What is the share count as of today?
This is a perfect question.
Yes.
Peter, are you there?
Yes, I'm here.
Yeah. It's $62.176 million.
Okay. Pretty much consistent with the last quarter. Okay, one more question for you, Mr. Murphy. Do you remember the old Goodyear?
I do.
Are you guys still there?
I'm here.
Yes. Do you remember the old Goodyear blimp?
I said, yes, I do.
Okay. I didn't hear that. I'm kind of in a concrete structure here. I was wondering. You know, because it's awful expensive to copy, I think you said it was Fiverr or something. They had a Super Bowl ad here, not last year, but the year before. Maybe do a Goodyear, you know, maybe do a blimp with the IZEA streamer or some small planes with some IZEA streamers to get our name out there.
I appreciate.
I'm driving you guys crazy today.
Look, in all seriousness, that is a big part of our strategy moving forward, is just getting much more aggressive on the marketing front. Our marketing team, we are not necessarily looking at blimps as the most cost-effective marketing vehicle for us. We're really focused more on performance marketing.
Okay.
driving our customer acquisition down. We are gonna spend more heavily in paid media. To Ryan's point, we're investing significantly more in content production. We've been building out an entire content marketing team. Those guys are creating some fantastic content every single, and we're gonna continue to invest money there because we've seen that is driving results for us.
Okay, I'm gonna leave it on this. One more little deal for you guys when you have the next six-week team meeting, maybe we can get an artist on board, you know, somebody like, you know, one of the artists, one of the songwriters, and get an IZEA theme song going.
I'm throwing it out there for you guys.
We hired a creator from Shake to do the backing music track to our discovery launch last year, Elliot.
Okay.
We do that stuff all the time. We love to feature our creators wherever we can.
Okay. Media guy, and I never will be, but you guys are doing a beautiful job and, it's been a great conference. Thank you very much for taking my questions and putting me at ease a little bit.
Well, thanks for
If you know anybody who can get a discounted blimp, let us know. Okay. All right. Thank you very much for the time today.
Thanks, Elliot.
Our next question is from Sean Gibney with Alliant. Please proceed. Sean? Oh, we have lost Sean, so we will move on. That is from Pablo Arruda, private investor. Please proceed.
Hi, thank you for taking my question. Good quarter. I just want to better appreciate your business. I was wondering, what is the average spend by brands on your typical, are we talking about $10,000, $20,000 or maybe it's $100,000 or more?
We have certainly moved up over time. I believe that we are currently closer to the $100,000 mark than the $20,000 mark. That changes from quarter- to- quarter, depending on the size deals that come in from any given customer. On our platforms like Shake, the spend is much smaller. You're typically talking hundreds or low thousands of dollars in terms of the spend there. For our customers, you know, they are committing hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars with us typically on a campaign.
Got it. As far as that typical campaign, what is your typical number of influencers that are involved? Is that more like a couple or is it like a dozen or more?
It is certainly more than a dozen. Some campaigns are much larger, where they're using smaller influencers to produce more content, and others are more focused on celebs or web celebs. Even then, it's typically not just like one or two people that they're engaging. They're engaging many people in that campaign.
That's helpful. Thank you. I know in the prior quarters you provided. What is your revenue mix in terms of new versus repeat business? In fact, I think at the start you mentioned that that's been the case. I'm just kind of curious what that mix level is.
Yeah, that also kind of changes from quarter- to- quarter. I believe right now it hovers about 60/40. Ryan, do you want to chime in on this?
No, that's spot on, Ted. What I would say is that from quarter- to- quarter, the effect is really a variance of 20 points either way, with some quarters being more emphasized on new and others emphasized on existing, Pablo. What I will say is that we're really happy on the absolute count basis that we've seen, you know, a really nice influx of net new customers overall our lines of business during 2021. That would be inclusive of our managed and our various software offerings.
Got it. That for example, that 60%, is that in reference to new or to repeat?
That would be the reference to new.
Okay. 60% is new. Okay. Very good. I know that with Shake you mentioned earlier that it's going on in there related to the interface, the iOS later this year. But I also know from your prior quarters you've mentioned that you've had some inventory challenges. I'm curious, is there a sense of you know what the plan is with that as far as profitability? Because that's not profitable yet. Is that correct?
Yes, that is correct. I mean, right now, Shake does not have much of a material impact on revenue, and we're continuing to have some work to do there. I think that much of that comes down to the friction between buyers and sellers at various stages of the process. The new checkout that we just launched today should help to reduce some of that friction, as well as the updates to ShakeBot that we're gonna be releasing next week. As we look to the back half of this year, Shake is gonna play a bigger role in our future, and we are going to bring it into more of a spotlight in terms of the way that we market ourselves and what people see when they come to izea.com.
Got it. Last question, hats off to the team for a positive EBITDA this quarter. But I know that just looking back at the numbers that it's been negative for some time now. It's been unprofitable on an annual basis as well. I'm curious what the plan is going forward and the timeline for profitability on an annual basis.
Yeah. On profitability, we delivered profitability clearly in Q4, but that was not the guiding light. The focus of the team was really on growth and expansion of the customer base. Profitability was a byproduct of the team over-delivering on that growth. We made investments last year. We're gonna continue to make more aggressive investments to capture more share, and that includes expanding our presence in China and in Canada, launching in China and expanding there as well as the launch of a new platform and major upgrades to our existing platforms like Shake. Responsible growth is gonna continue to be the priority, but I would say that to the extent that we continue to outperform, it will lessen our losses or lead to profitability quicker.
Got it. One more, Ted, and I apologize. In that, in the prior response to the other gentleman, you mentioned how you'll be focused on content production. Can you give us a sense of what kind of returns are in that new revenue line and how that differs versus your other businesses?
I was actually referencing for IZEA. We produce content every day as part of our organic search strategy, and that is really to combat what we see as ongoing increases in cost per click for paid search marketing.
I see. I see what point you were referring to. Okay, very good. Thank you for the responses. I appreciate it.
My pleasure.
Our next question is from George Kafkarou who's a private investor. Please proceed.
Hey, guys. Long time. Congratulations on a great quarter.
Oh my gosh. Blast from the past. Hello, George.
Yeah. Great job to the team, man. I've just got a couple of simple questions, if I could, about the revenue and the bookings. How do you see the distribution of revenues by quarter this year? I mean, it's been typically 22%, 24%, 26%, 28%, in that range. How do you see it panning out this year? Do you know?
A lot of that really comes down to the timing of individual contracts and when that work is scheduled and done. I don't know if you saw the press release that we provided. Also provided a chart there that shows the relationship between bookings and revenue. There's a pretty wide gap still between the revenue line and the bookings line. You know, we expect that to begin to catch up a bit, but we're also continuing to grow bookings. That's gonna have an impact on that lag moving forward.
How should we think about the break quarter? Is it just what kind of ranges do you guys think about there?
You know, we're not providing any sort of guidance on a quarter-by-quarter basis. You know
Sure.
We're more looking at this on an annual basis. Part of that is because of that lag time and unpredictability of certain.
Right. Let me ask you mentioned in your prepared remarks the revenue goal for 2022. Was that the revenue goal or bookings goal you mentioned as your goal?
The $39 million number?
Yeah.
That is a revenue goal.
Okay. I just wanna validate one more thing. In your opening comments, you said Q1 is the best managed services number bookings in the history or across the board in numbers in history?
Both.
Discuss currently.
Best Q1 ever and best quarter ever.
Okay.
Did I lose you there?
Well, if you allow me to take creative license on that $39 million all day long.
Yes, there is a lag to those bookings. Yes, if we continue that rate, you know, we would likely cross.
All right. Congratulations. Say hi to everybody, especially to the family and your dad. Well done.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Ryan for closing comments.
Thank you, Sherry, and thank you everyone for joining us this afternoon, for your continued support of IZEA. I'd like to take the opportunity to remind everyone that you're welcome to subscribe to our email newsletter for investors. That's available for you at izea.com/investors. Until next time, be well, and we'll talk to you soon.
Thank you. This does end the conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.