#Yelp restaurant reviews full#

Valuation remains a key draw to Yelp as well. Given Yelp continues to have a healthy cash balance and generous EBITDA/cash flow each quarter, I expect to continue seeing aggressive buybacks going forward. There is another $182 million remaining on the current buyback authorization, as of the end of Q1. Yelp has purchased $274 million of its stock since it began an aggressive buyback program in October 2020, which is a significant portion of the company's ~$2 billion market cap. The hiring of a distributed workforce, and in locations other than the Bay Area, will bring personnel cost benefits on top of these real estate savings. More to the point above: by shifting to a primarily remote-work policy and shuttering offices in large metro areas, Yelp estimates that its savings on real estate alone will drive $9.5-$11.5 million in annual savings, which isn't a small amount for a company generating just over $1 billion in annual revenue. Reducing and shifting real estate footprint.The company considered this move as part of a broader push (even before the pandemic) to cut down its Local (small business-focused) sales teams, hire more Enterprise-facing account executives, and shift staff away from its San Francisco headquarters and to geographically cheaper locales. Yelp was an early reactor to the pandemic and aggressively laid off/furloughed a large portion of its sales team. The impacts of the pandemic won't last, but Yelp's cost cuts will.Yelp continues to grow its paid advertiser accounts at a healthy pace thanks to the success of its self-service channel, and average spend per account is also gliding upward. Sales strategy shift has not impacted account growth.

Yelp is reshaping its sales teams to cut down on account executives focused on lower-dollar customers (the Local sales headcount is at 50% of pre-pandemic levels) and is instead hiring much higher-ROI salespeople focused on enterprise customers.

These deep-pocketed advertisers benefit from reaching consumers on a platform known for its truthful and useful reviews, and Yelp benefits from having high-contribution recurring clients. In other words, Yelp is shifting away from its traditional stronghold of focusing on local businesses and restaurants and going after large, multi-location national chains.

#Yelp restaurant reviews full#

Earlier initiatives that Yelp had set in motion on the advertising side are producing strong lifts in advertising revenue, while the company's years-long efforts in cost cutting have paid off in maintaining adjusted EBITDA levels high.ДЄs a reminder for investors who are newer to this name, here's a full rundown of the reasons to be bullish on Yelp: Since I last wrote on the company in February, Yelp has only gotten cheaper while it also produced a very strong Q1 earnings print. To me, Yelp represents an excellent low-risk way of maintaining exposure to the tech/internet sector, and its outperformance versus tech peers and the market is likely to continue. Yelp's relative outperformance is a function of the fact that the stock was already so cheap to begin with - and after the drop, it only became even cheaper. Its stock is down 'only' ~20%, roughly matching the performance of the S&P 500 - while many other tech stocks have seen declines of 40% or more. The consumer-reviews site, best known for its restaurant ratings, has had much better fortunes than its compatriots in the tech sector this year. Yelp ( NYSE: YELP) is a top pick in this regard. Amid this backdrop, it's a good time to invest in safer, beaten-down stocks that have plenty of rope from a valuation front to recover. Michael Vi/iStock Editorial via Getty ImagesДЄ renewed flight to safety has begun, with investors fearing both unchecked inflation and the relative ineffectiveness of both fiscal and monetary policy to prevent a stagflation from occurring.