Well done, The Knot
The Knot was firing on all three cylinders for a change. Its online advertising, publishing, and retailing arms all grew by 20% or better during the quarter, led by a 38% surge in Internet ad revenue. The company's top line rose by 31% to hit $17.7 million. Wall Street's target was set just 22% higher.
Profits per share tripled to $0.15 a share, also comfortably ahead of the $0.12 per share in net income that analysts had been expecting. The company will flesh out its performance in an afternoon conference call, but it looks like another winning quarter for a company that has beaten analyst profit targets by a fair margin in four of the past five quarters.
The Knot has been busy. Earlier this week, the company announced that it was acquiring the lilaguide, a provider of localized guides with ratings on more than 32,000 baby-related service providers. What is a marriage-planning site doing with a publisher of baby-rearing resources? Shame on you if "shotgun wedding" is your only response. The Knot has been moving up and down the courting cycle to widen its grasp on anxious fiancees. It is now reaching out early in the Cupid process with a pair of dating-site acquisitions, and has successfully launched TheNest.com to cater to newlyweds tackling many of the issues that new married couples face.
First comes love. Then comes marriage. You just knew that the baby carriage was coming sooner or later. As fate would have it, I was interviewing CNET
It's a natural fit for The Knot's model, which cashes in on wedding-related service providers through its localized city guides for couples planning that big day. The Knot is one of the few companies that has made the lead-generating business work beyond the paid-search stars like Google
Cars and auto insurance for first-time drivers? Stop salivating over the prospects, The Knot. The newborns with parents flocking to the lilaguide still have years before crossing that milestone!
The Knot and CNET have been recommended to Motley Fool Rule Breakers subscribers over the past year.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz got married years before TheKnot.com was around, and he regrets that. He could have had a punctual person working the video camera that day. The Fool has a disclosure policy. Rick is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.