Next Wave Portfolio—Marketo Expanding to Meet Demand

On the Marketo (MKTO) fourth quarter earnings conference call earlier this month, CEO Phil Fernandez said demand was so strong into the end of last year that the company could have used another 10 sales reps to close more business. While this might be a good problem to have, being constrained on the sales front did weigh on Q4 billings growth, which caused an overdone sell-off in Marketo shares following the latest earnings release.

Going into the report, shares of Marketo, provider of a cloud-based marketing automation software platform, had rallied 24% from the December low, so investor expectations were elevated. Adjusted billings growth in the latest quarter decelerated to 43% from 50% in Q3; the actual growth figure is still impressive, but it’s that trajectory of the growth rate that raised some concerns.

Management’s argument that the company could have closed plenty more deals if it just had more feet on the street makes sense, as Marketo delivered plenty of positive Q4 metrics: Revenue rose 50% to $42.3 million, beating the consensus estimate of $40.9 million and the high end of the guidance range of $40.3 million to $40.9 million. Deferred revenue of $62.9 million rose 52% from the year-ago level. Gross margin rebounded 460 basis points year over year, to 69.9%, thanks to the completion of the transition to a new datacenter.

In Q4, Marketo added 295 net new accounts, bringing its total customer base to 3,794, up 26% from the year-ago level. Current customers remain satisfied, as the subscription dollar retention rate in the December quarter advanced to 109% from 100% at the end of 2013; this metric is being driven by improved customer retention, increased cross-selling into the base, less price discounting and usage rights expansion.

Marketo is seeing a lot of success in cross-selling its new Real-Time Personalization (RTP) solution into its customer base. This offering creates real-time interactions with targeted individuals via personalized communications across email, mobile and the Web. The automated RTP offering (no IT involvement is needed) can be used with any content management system. Using industry-specific and behavioral data to customize Web and mobile experiences, the RTP solution enables marketers to drive up to a 30% increase in conversion rates.

Marketo continues to gain traction with larger customers: 29% of Q4 subscription revenue came from enterprise accounts. In the December quarter, the company saw the largest single new subscription transaction in its history, as well as its first professional services deal worth more than $1 million. New business was added from global leaders in the aerospace, software, consulting, advertising and insurance segments.

The company in Q4 saw healthy demand from the healthcare/life sciences vertical, closing a deal with the one of the largest for-profit hospital chains in the U.S. In addition, a collaboration with a global systems integrator resulted in Marketo being selected by Pfizer to be the hub for the drug giant’s new interactive management platform. Pfizer will use the Marketo platform to create engaging customer narratives as part of its worldwide marketing program, according to Fernandez.

Marketo, known for its expertise in business-to-business (B2B) marketing, has been talking up its expanding role in the larger business-to-consumer (B2C) segment. On the Q4 earnings call, Fernandez said the company in 2014 made a lot of progress in adding new B2C-focused customers. In addition, Marketo is seeing more hybrid (B2B/B2C) deals, such as the one with Carfax, which uses the company’s marketing automation platform to develop and expand relationships with its dealer network, as well as to interact with consumers who purchase its used-car history reports.

Marketo’s recent hiring of software industry veteran Steve Winter as head of worldwide field operations is helping move the needle on the enterprise side of the business. Since joining in October, he has worked aggressively to build the sales management team and add a strategic enterprise accounts team to sell to the largest 1,000 global companies. Winter, who moved to Marketo from SAP, has also put together sales teams dedicated to certain verticals—including higher education, financial services, healthcare and retail.

Even with the decelerated billings growth in Q4, Marketo was still able to offer upbeat guidance for Q1: revenue of $45 million to $46 million, above the consensus estimate of $44.6 million. This guidance range represents sequential top-line growth of 6.4% to 8.7%, better than the sequential growth guidance of 4.6% to 8.2% going into Q1 a year ago.

Given Marketo’s expanding presence in the enterprise—including a new partnership with SAP to integrate the two companies’ marketing platforms to better share customer data with the goal to create better campaigns—and push to build out its enterprise-focused sales force, the company remains well positioned for the year ahead.

For 2015, Marketo sees revenue of $204 million to $206 million (growth of 36% to 37.4%), vs. the consensus estimate of $202.3 million. With Marketo shares recently trading at $28.24 (down nearly 21% from the February 10 high of $35.63), the market cap stands at $1.16 billion, 5.6x the midpoint of the 2015 revenue guidance range. Relative to the expected top-line growth rate, this valuation presents an attractive risk/reward set-up.

Marketo remains a ‘Buy’ in the Next Wave Portfolio up to $30 a share.

 

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