Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator's instruction) Your first question comes from the line of Richard Baldry - Canaccord Adams.
Richard Baldry - Canaccord Adams
I think on the prior call, you thought the key works typically had something on the range of a three to four extra return on dollar spend. So, during the pullback in spending, did you do that to those metrics really tail off pretty quickly in the quarter? I am trying to figure out sort of how that decision was made.
Tim Bixby
Yes, when we started to run our campaigns, and we ran, we did some offline in radio and then we did some online with mostly in media stuff outside of the core. It gets sort of got lost. We saw it very quickly got lost and now our consumers were feeling about all the negative noise and so the rates are very good but the conversion rates were not. So, we decided to sort of pull it back and then on the keywords, in the media that we now get the solid return of investment which is down at our core categories that we have been working on the last couple of weeks that we started moving for probably a couple of years.
Richard Baldry - Canaccord Adams
And maybe on looking at the balance sheet or cash resources versus the market account, can you talk about sort of your comfort levels, of what type of cash you want to have to run the business. It looks like it start of pulling back on growth or spending on one side of the table and maybe put under for increased buybacks over the year ahead.
Tim Bixby
Yes, I think if you look back I guess at the last couple of years, it is a good project. When we think about it, in the case of 2008, we generated a healthy cash flow from operations and then we felt comfortable enough with our cost structure and our outlook to reinvest that into primarily the co-location transition and also a healthy amount to the share repurchase. The share repurchase is obviously a little more discretionary. I think that is something that we are comfortable with. The cash at the beginning of the year was essentially unchanged at yearend but that range feels comfortable for us and I think we are looking into the 2009 something similar where $3 million ahead on cash or breakeven or better and so we will invest in this current ROI. That is what you should expect.
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