Marchex is cutting more staff.
The Seattle-based advertising analytics company laid off 30 employees this week, or about 10 percent of its workforce that now sits at just under 300 people. The layoffs affected employees across the company.
These cuts come after Marchex laid off another 40 people this past August following the company’s disappointing Q2 2016 earnings report, which caused shares to drop more than 17 percent.
Anne Devereux-Mills, who took over as Marchex board chairman this past October and now leads a 5-person “office of the CEO,” told GeekWire that the cuts are meant to help Marchex return to profitability. Here’s a statement from Devereux-Mills:
“Since October, our leadership team has been thoroughly reviewing Marchex’s entire business as part of our commitment to accelerate the company’s return to growth and profitability. That review led us to today’s very difficult decision. Beyond cutting costs, we’ve structured these moves to make us a more entrepreneurial and efficient organization to execute an ambitious strategy for the coming year. We’ve also taken care to ensure that this will not impact our continued priority to deliver world-class products and services to our customers.”
In October, Marchex CEO Pete Christothoulou and Board Chairman Clark Kokich resigned from the company. One month prior, Chief Product Officer Ziad Ismail also stepped down. In June 2013, co-founder John Keister left the company.
Marchex, which went public in 2004, operates search, display, and call advertising analytics. It helps clients like AT&T, Bank of America, and Zillow calculate the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns.
In late 2012, Marchex split into two separate public companies, one operating under the name of Marchex and the other under the name of Archeo, which consisted of a domain name and advertising marketplace. In April 2015, it sold more than 200,000 domains to GoDaddy as it domains were no longer core to Marchex’s focus, with the company increasingly focusing on mobile performance advertising.
Devereux-Mills said in October that the company’s recent struggles — shares are down 30 percent in the past year — are the result of a combination of factors. She said Marchex sits at the “apex of answers” for helping brands track their digital advertising, but the company “hasn’t been as effective in letting people know there is a solution.”
“We are inventing something new, and that takes a lot of constant attention,” she said in October. “A lot of times we get it right and sometimes we need to tweak it to get better. We are in a tweaking moment.”
Marchex has no job openings on its website. The company, valued at about $111 million, posted a $5.9 million GAAP net loss in the most recent quarter and had $105 million cash on-hand as of Nov. 2. Here’s a look at its stock price over the past year:
