Thorne HealthTech, Inc. (NASDAQ:THRN) Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call November 10, 2022 8:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Thomas Wilson – Vice President, Investor Relations
Paul Jacobson – Chief Executive Officer
Bryan Conley – Chief Financial Officer
Michelle Crow – Chief Marketing Officer
Conference Call Participants
Elizabeth Anderson – Evercore
Sean Dodge – RBC Capital Markets
Max Rakhlenko – Cowen and Co.
Operator
Welcome to the Thorne HealthTech Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. Right now, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A transient question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] Thanks.
Now, let me turn the decision over to Thomas Wilson, Vice President of Investor Relations. So, Thomas you could begin.
Thomas Wilson
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining Thorne HealthTech’s Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. With me today to share our results are Paul Jacobson, our CEO; and Bryan Conley, our CFO. Tom McKenna, our COO; and Michelle Crow, our CMO are also available for questions.
Before we start, please note that today’s discussion comprises forward-looking statements which might be subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by our forward-looking statements. More details about potential risk aspects might be present in our 2021 Annual Report on Form 10-K, and our upcoming Form 10-Q, which we anticipate filing after market today and in other SEC filings.
Today as well as with US GAAP reporting, we might be discussing financial measures that don’t conform to GAAP. We consider these non-GAAP measures enhance the understanding of our performance because they’re more representative of how we internally measure the business.
Non-GAAP financial measures mustn’t be considered in isolation from or as an alternative choice to GAAP measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results is obtainable within the earnings press release we issued after market closed yesterday and within the supplemental investor presentation posted to our IR website.
Finally, in three weeks, we might be participating within the Evercore ISI HealthCONx Conference and holding investor meetings. A webcast of the event might be accessible on our IR site, and we stay up for meeting with you.
With that, I’ll turn the decision over to Paul.
Paul Jacobson
Thanks, Thomas. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining our third quarter earnings call today. I’ll summarize our strong financial performance for Q3, with record sales and powerful profitability discuss how our consumers are holding up in the present environment, step through a handful of recent developments and opportunities on the testing and R&D sides of our business, and round out my prepared remarks with our outlook to shut out 2022. Bryan will provide further discussion of our Q3 performance and capital deployment in his prepared remarks. Lastly, additional details might be present in the earnings release and supplemental investor presentation that we issued after the market closed yesterday.
With that, let’s dive in. During Q3, we remain focused on a number of core areas of our operations that drive strong performance for the business. These included ensuring seamless operations from ingredient sourcing to distribution, an area where we’re starting to see certain supply chain improvements continuing to deliver the best quality products, innovations and thoughtful engaging content to our customers in support of their health journeys, and our cutting-edge health tests and distant sample collection capabilities, which significantly improve user experiences over current industry norms, and are presenting significant business development opportunities in multiple fields of health and wellness.
We’re also preparing to further scale the complement business as we move closer to expanding manufacturing and achievement, to support continued growth, and anticipated future demand. With the expansion, we are going to give you the option to drive increased efficiencies for higher margins and industry-leading turnaround times.
On the demand front, let me take a moment to focus on a number of trends we’re seeing relative to customer strength and behavior on this market, which contributed to our strong Q3 results and helped inform our updated full-year outlook. As well as, while we don’t normally seek advice from business performance on a sequential quarter basis, I’ll provide some color through that lens given the difficult nature of the present economic backdrop. To date, Thorne customers proceed to be resilient.
Our total number of shoppers and energetic subscriptions continues to climb. Our unit economics similar to typical order size and order value are up Q3 year-over-year. Unit economics also held firm from Q2 to Q3 and remained solid through October. We have experienced increased demand for our products containing ingredients which were relatively more impacted by global supply chain disruptions similar to certain Bulk powders like creatine, where we forward bought a great quantity of the worldwide supply and lower margins with the intention to give you the option to serve our customers ahead of anticipated shortages.
While we proceed to see strength in our typical high-end consumer we don’t expect to be insulated from economic conditions that can impact certain pockets of our consumer base as we progress through Q4 and into next yr. That said, we’re generally encouraged by recent trends holistically and the early implications for 2023.
Now with consumer health backdrop in mind, I’ll transition to among the financial highlights for Q3. Starting with the highest line, I’m pleased with our record net sales of $58.4 million, representing growth of greater than 21% for the quarter.
Sales performance was driven by 47% growth in our direct-to-consumer channel, primarily from continued traction growing brand awareness including from our Healthy Aging brand campaign, which occurred through the second quarter of this yr.
Our growth was broad-based across third-party marketplaces and Thorne.com consistent with our approach to satisfy customers where they’re. The strong D2C performance was underpinned by 60% year-over-year growth in subscription sales, which increased to 37% of direct-to-consumer sales.
We experienced, a 41% year-over-year increase in transaction sales although, Q2 transaction sales dollars were greater than each Q1 and Q3, which we mainly attribute to heightened
transaction volumes stemming from the campaign running in Q2. Rounding up direct-to consumer channel growth drivers, we proceed to attain superior customer satisfaction stats which might be significantly higher than the typical digital retailer.
For the quarter, our Net Promoter Rating was 72% in comparison with a retail average of around 35%. We also recorded an LTV to CAC ratio of seven.8, inclusive of the advantages of the Q2 campaign
spend that didn’t reoccur and subsequently drove CAC down.
Turning to the skilled and B2B channel. We proceed to experience comparability challenges from the impacts of previously disclosed, lost distributor sales to its end customers in Ukraine, Russia and Eastern Europe. Despite the impact arising from that conflict, skilled and B2B channel sales increased almost 6% over Q3 of last yr driven primarily by a continuation of regular growth in skilled sales led by the mix of our sales force efforts and continued growth in online dispensary sales.
As a percent of sales, direct-to-consumer channel sales and skilled and B2B channel sales were 46% and 54% of total net sales, respectively. On a go-forward basis, we proceed to expect our annual sales mix to be closer to 50-50 split from direct-to-consumer channel growth outpacing skilled and B2B channel growth near-term.
With respect to gross margin, there are a few primary aspects to unpack that drove margins down yearover-year. First, within the last two quarters we highlighted our advanced purchases of raw materials to mitigate against potential supply chain disruptions.
As a reminder, many but not all of our ingredient purchases are, governed by preexisting supplier agreements. Nevertheless, to further ensure supply continuity amidst the present economic conditions, we proactively identified second procurement sources, which resulted in higher average material cost than historical norms. In Q3, those higher raw material costs flowed through our cost of sales line concurrent with our strong revenue growth driving gross margin down.
Second, lots of the ingredients and products which were probably the most impacted by global supply chain disruptions, have lower gross margin profiles similar to creatine products and Bulk powders. Our second source pricing and margin levels haven’t been where we would like under long-term supply contracts, leading to an unfavorable mix shift to margins. Nevertheless, we’re currently moving into agreements with these suppliers as needed.
This month for instance, we entered right into a latest supply agreement for creatine, which can significantly reduce our per unit cost starting in 2023, after cycling through remaining higher cost inventory in Q4.
Moving down the P&L to operating expenses. R&D decreased barely year-over-year to $1.8 million mainly from lower third-party spend, which may vary depending on in-flight research project activities. Marketing costs of $4.5 million decreased significantly to about 8% of sales in Q3 in comparison with 22% of sales within the prior yr. That decrease was attributable to the mix of the change in timing and related costs of our major brand campaigns, which occurred in Q3 of last yr in comparison with 2Q of this yr.
And the choice we highlighted on our last earnings call, to prioritize delivering on our full-year profit goals and by extension reduce the extent of full-year spend by deferring the follow-on marketing campaign originally planned for Q3 2022.
As expected the reduced external spend resulted in slower latest customer growth. I might highlight, nonetheless, that excluding the quarters related to these last two major campaigns, our marketing run rate has been about 10% to 11% of quarterly sales for the last two years, a level which has historically been effective in driving meaningful growth.
The deferral also provided some insights that allow us to deepen our understanding of consumer behavior in a difficult environment on a more organic basis and subsequently helps us inform our go-forward strategies. I’ll provide directional commentary on our near-term marketing
approach in reference to our updated 2022, outlook shortly.
Moving along, SG&A increased by almost 36% year-over-year primarily attributable to continuation of increased selling costs from the mix of top line growth, a more normalized run rate public company cost pool including a full quarter of stock-based compensation in Q3, as we accomplished our IPO in September 2021.
Bryan, will provide more color in the person components in selling, distribution, general and administrative expenses in his commentary, which can show favorability we’re seeing as a percentage of sales on a trended basis.
Turning to take advantage of these results. Our adjusted EBITDA grew significantly to $8.3 million with expanded adjusted EBITDA margin of 14.6% for the quarter. Rounding out the underside line, GAAP EPS grew to $0.07 and adjusted EPS grew to $0.12.
That wraps up my prepared remarks related to Q3. Before waiting for guidance, I’ll share a handful of, updates related to our health tests and blood sample collection technology with a number of comments on our scientific teams’ brain health work. Starting with Gut Health after relaunching our proprietary test, which revolutionizes long-standing user experience to microbiome testing, our customers who take these tests are deep insights into their health have opted to make use of the brand new technology despite our ongoing support of the legacy test. This stack pattern is effectively in-market evidence of the user preferences we confirmed through the wide technology study.
As awareness of the importance of microbiome health grows, which it actually is on a worldwide stage, our first mover advantage and IP creates lasting competitive moats. The recent interest we have been getting from potential early B2B adopters, albeit still low volume from latency has expanded into broader discussions that put a highlight on the extent of science we deploy across the business. I feel these holistic business development opportunities that showcase our science and range of solutions, provide levers to drive a continuation of our above-market growth long term.
We have also made great strides in bringing our OneDraw blood sample collection device to the buyer market. Our recent progress is positioning us well to capitalize on ample business development, monetization opportunities spanning from our own D2C ecosystem to decentralized clinical research within the near-term.
In August, we achieved a major milestone upon receiving D2C medical device clearance from Japanese regulators. We consider that validation is critical to our upcoming work with the FDA to deploy a latest product that might be accessible to anyone due to the high hurdles required by Japanese regulations.
As we push ahead to D2C clearance within the US, we’ve got not slowed our efforts to expand OneDraw’s capabilities, which should result in earlier and more significant latest business once the device is in market. For instance we’re continuing development of a serum separation cartridge to expand the range of device applications along with health panels related to conditions consumers cannot test for today. Working with a partner lab to enhance DNA preservation and extraction, we identified a process that permits for cold, chainfree sample preservation that optimizes retrieval of DNA from the device’ sample strip. The outcomes of which have been superior to our current methods.
With that I’ll turn to guidance. And as Bryan has a packed agenda and I need to depart loads of time in your questions. As we glance to the long run, we proceed to guage our marketing spend. We consider we’ve got a possibility next yr to thoughtfully increase our investment to drive efficient latest customer acquisition and support long-term brand equity.
Along with further investing in a diversified paid media strategy, we may also strategically scale our influencer marketing efforts. Our goal is to benefit from the broad community of differentiated customers to construct deep personalization in content and use this network to construct user generation — generated content affordably.
Performance data from 2022 has shown us that the inclusion of influencers in our marketing generates higher returns for paid owned and earned tactics. Our more strategic approach to influencers starting in 2023 might be applied across the business including in additional cutting-edge R&D areas, where influencers haven’t been deployed before similar to our brain health platform. We also know that a personalised customer experience or helping the shopper answer the query what do I take and why increases engagement and drives higher conversion.
In 2022, customers that engaged with quizzes and help tests had a better conversion rate and greater lifetime value. We’ll proceed to prioritize our personalized customer experience by expanding our capabilities with dynamic web content scaling Thorne adviser and adding a more interactive approach for our customers with various key influencers. We’re constructing plans to maneuver away from among the more traditional marketing tactics, to deploying a more data science-driven approach to our community of shoppers and customer influencers.
We consider, we’re positioning ourselves for continued significant profitable growth over the long-term, far above industry market rates, similar to the 6.3% estimated CAGR for the worldwide dietary supplements market from 2022 to 2030 for a recent TAM study by Grand View Research.
With respect to our brain health initiatives, our scientific team continues to supply cutting-edge research and insights that may very well be transformative to how certain conditions are approached. For instance, we received summary results from a placebo-controlled clinical trial conducted with Mayo Clinic. The target of that trial was to measure the decline in cognitive processing speed and efficiency and whether there was an increase in protein indicative of injury even within the absence of concussion symptoms.
The trial participants were junior ice hockey players with that cohort having been chosen attributable to the repetitive head impacts over the course of the season. The info which is embargoed presently might be presented at a world conference on brain injury in early 2023 and the outcomes might be published in a peer-reviewed journal around the identical time.
Based on the study results, an identical study is about to launch in one other category of ice hockey players. The work we’ve got occurring around brain health is front and center once we take into consideration being the leading company in scientific wellness and healthy aging. Based on our year-to-date performance through October and aforementioned topics, we now expect our full-year guidance to be net sales of between $232 million and $235 million, representing growth of 25% to 27% over 2021. Gross margin of between 52% and 53%, adjusted EBITDA of between $25.5 million and $28.5 million, representing growth of 24% to 38.5% over 2021. And adjusted EPS of between $0.34 and $0.37.
As well as, our guidance for adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS includes the next assumptions: marketing costs of between 14% and 15% of net sales, depreciation of roughly 2.7% of net sales, an estimate full-year adjusted tax rate of 10% and diluted weighted average shares outstanding of 53 million as of December 31, 2022.
With that I’ll turn the decision over to Bryan.
Bryan Conley
Thanks, Paul and good morning, everyone. I’m blissful to report one other quarter of strong financial performance, as net sales grew by 21.7% or $10.4 million to $58.4 million through the third quarter of 2022. The rise was led by double-digit growth in our DTC channel, which grew by 47.2% to $8.7 million. Subscription sales of $10 million continued to strengthen through the quarter growing 17.1% over the identical period last yr. Subscription sales through the third quarter represented 37% of our DTC sales and 17.1% of our total sales.
Our transaction-based or non-subscription DTC sales also grew by $4.9 million or 40.6% year-over-year. By way of our skilled and B2B business, sales through the third quarter were $31.4 million, a rise of 5.9%.
Gross margins during Q3 were 48.2% of net sales, declining 500 basis points from last yr and was impacted by short-term increases in specific raw material costs and a marginal decline in ASP, driven by the continued growth in our skilled/B2B channel, driving an unfavorable shift in sales mix through the quarter.
We proceed to stay critically focused on operational efficiency and disciplined cost management and actively review and have interaction our strategic suppliers to make sure that the short-term cost impacts are minimized and long-term savings opportunities from scale are realized.
On our Q2 call, we indicated we were starting to take a position in and upgrade our manufacturing facility to maximise production efficiency, increase throughput and drive long-term cost savings. Through the third quarter, we officially broke ground on the expansion, which can double our maximum manufacturing capability and set us up for our next leg of growth to be on $500 million in annual sales. We expect the expansion to be accomplished through the fourth quarter of 2023.
operating expenses. SG&A grew $4.9 million or 36.6% to $18.3 million, representing 31.4% of net sales. As a reminder, our SG&A costs are comprised of three primary operating functions: one selling; two distribution achievement; and three general and administrative.
Selling costs are comprised of the price of our sales professionals including commissions and related direct selling costs. Through the third quarter of 2022 selling costs were $4.1 million or 7% of sales in comparison with $3.1 million or 6.5% of sales in the identical period
last yr.
Distribution and achievement costs are comprised of costs to operate our two distribution and achievement centers and include achievement personnel costs, outbound freight and shipping costs and facilities costs. These costs were $3.7 million through the third quarter of 2022 or 6.4% of sales in comparison with $3.3 million or 6.8% of sales last yr.
General and administrative costs, which include our corporate cost and general overhead were $10.5 million or 18% of sales through the third quarter in comparison with $7.1 million or 14.7% of sales last yr. Adjusted to exclude the impact of depreciation and equity compensation costs, general and administrative costs through the third quarter of 2022 were $7.9 million or 13.5% of sales in comparison with $6.4 million or 13.3% of sales last yr. We proceed to stay focused on managing our SG&A expenses and leveraging the fixed cost components of our corporate cost structure.
Through the third quarter, marketing expenses were $4.5 million or $6.3 million lower than the identical period last yr as we reduced and deferred marketing spend and prioritized delivery on our full-year profit goals for 2022.
Research and development expenses were $1.8 million through the third quarter, down 18.9% from $2.2 million through the prior yr. Third quarter per share earnings on a GAAP basis were $0.07 per share, which is $0.06 per share higher than a yr ago. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2022 was $8.3 million, a rise of $7.2 million in comparison with the $1.1 million reported through the prior yr.
year-to-date results for the primary nine months of 2022, net sales were $169.2 million, a rise of $33.8 million or 24.9% over the prior yr. Growth in sales, were led by a $26.9 million or 49.1% increase in our DTC sales, of which $10.7 million was attributable to the continued growth in DTC subscription sales.
B2B skilled sales through the first nine months of 2022 were $87.5 million, a rise of $6.9 million or 8.5% over the prior yr period. Gross margin for the primary nine months of 2022 was 53%, a rise of 10 basis points in comparison with 52.9% through the same prior yr period.
Through the first nine months of 2022, SG&A expenses grew $17.5 million or 47.2% to $54.5 million or 32.2% of net sales. Drilling down into the three primary operating functions of our SG&A costs, through the first nine months of 2022, selling costs were $11.8 million or 7% of sales in comparison with $7.8 million or 5.7% of sales through the first nine months of 2021.
Distribution and achievement costs were $12.2 million through the first nine months of 2022 or 7.2% of sales in comparison with $8.6 million or 6.3% of sales last yr. General and administrative costs were $30.5 million or 18% of sales through the first nine months of 2022 in comparison with $20.7 million or 15.3% of sales last yr.
Adjusting to exclude the impact of depreciation and equity compensation costs, general and administrative expenses through the first nine months of 2022 were $22.9 million or 13.5% of net sales. Comparatively G&A, excluding depreciation and equity compensation costs for the nine months of 2021 was $18.8 million or 13.9% of net sales.
Marketing expense through the first nine months of 2022 was $27.5 million, a rise of $7.4 million or 37% over 2021, driven primarily by the $10.2 million investment into our 12-week Healthy Aging campaign aimed toward increasing brand awareness and driving latest customer acquisition, which ran nearly all of the second quarter of 2022. Research and development expenses were $5.5 million through the first nine months of 2022.
Earnings on a per share basis for the primary nine months of 2022 or $0.06 per share, a rise of $0.05 per share as in comparison with the primary nine months of 2021. Adjusted EBITDA for the primary nine months of 2022 was $15.6 million, a rise of $0.4 million in comparison with $15.1 million through the prior yr.
Turning from operations and specializing in capital and liquidity. As of September 30, 2022 we had a money balance of $27.4 million, of which $22.5 million was unrestricted. Operationally through the first nine months of 2022, we used $8.8 million of money in our operating activities, driven by marketing and promoting spend and growing our inventory including raw materials which increased by $13.4 million to support our continued growth, latest product launches and to guard our supply chain.
As mentioned in my earlier comments, through the third quarter we broke ground on the expansion of our primary manufacturing facility in Summerville South Carolina. This project will expand our production facility by 74,000 square feet and permit us to double the manufacturing capability to support our continued growth to roughly $650 million in annual sales. This project has a budget of $32 million for construction and an extra $12 million for manufacturing and production equipment.
We expect the expansion to be accomplished and online by the top of 2023 and can fund the investment with a mix of borrowings from our revolving line of credit, a tenant reimbursement provided by the present landlord and money from operations. The $12 million in purchases of long-life production equipment might be financed through our current equipment finance facility.
Simultaneous to the expansion project through the third quarter, we also commenced the upfit of a latest warehousing and achievement facility, directly adjoining to our primary manufacturing facility in Summerville South Carolina. This facility is under a long-term lease, which can start through the second quarter of 2023 once we expect to take control and have access to the property.
The budgeted cost for the upfit of the brand new facility is roughly $11 million, which we also plan to fund with a mix of borrowings from our revolving line of credit a tenant allowance from the present landlord and money from operations. As of today, we’ve got not drawn any amounts against our revolver and the total $15 million stays available to fund working capital requirements and strategic initiatives similar to the expansion of our manufacturing facility and the brand new warehousing and achievement facility.
As we move into the ultimate quarter of 2022 and work to shut out our first full-year as a public company, I need to acknowledge and thank our team members for all of their incredible efforts and value contributions. You’re the inspiration of Thorne and the rationale our customers trust our brand for his or her bodies. Your unwavering commitment to excellence continues to make Thorne HealthTech, a pacesetter within the health and wellness space. We can’t be more excited in regards to the opportunities ahead.
This completes our prepared remarks. We’d now wish to open the road for any questions you might have. Operator, can we’ve got our first query, please?
Query-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thanks. Our first query comes from the road of Elizabeth Anderson of Evercore. Your line is open.
Elizabeth Anderson
Hi guys. Good morning. Thanks a lot for the query. I used to be wondering in the event you could comment on — I understand what you were saying within the quarter in regards to the advanced purchase and securing a more diversified supply chain. Are you able to help us think through type of the expected type of timeline that these like latest purchases cover? And just type of the best way to take into consideration that over the subsequent couple of quarters and whether you are type of serious about continuing to do this as we get into the fourth quarter?
Paul Jacobson
Yes. Elizabeth, how are you doing? It’s Paul. I’ll answer a bit of it after which I’ll let Bryan or Tom comment. So, the situation is actually specializing in a few ingredients. One specifically where there have been supply chain problems globally we had a possibility to either do no business on this particular ingredient area, which is significant to the sports performance business specifically and to those that take part in certain areas of athletics that our consumers or to step up and make a serious play knowing that we were doing it at low margins and doing it in a way that may protect our business going forward.
So, we made a major purchase principally locking up an enormous supply chain where we wanted the few firms capable of provide. The margins were low I believe it was around 18% or 20%. And we’ll be washing through that offer through the course of 2022 through the fourth quarter where we all know that we’ve got the inventory sold.
Our team recently — the team reporting to Tom, recently made a major change in the availability agreement going forward where our margins on this ingredient will return back to something that is more normalized and we expect the profitability on this particular ingredient to be good going into 2023. But it is going to wash through during this quarter and it affected our overall gross margin.
Elizabeth Anderson
Got it. No, that is super helpful. Are you able to speak about your type of pricing strategy on this era of, obviously, inflation plus like a more volatile macro?
Paul Jacobson
Yes. So, we attempt to operate under the idea that we’ve got a high-end consumer base. But there needs to be some realism baked into the best way we price products. You may’t just constantly depend on price increases and hope people will buy.
So, what we’ve got done prior to now is we raised prices just about across the board within the last couple of years on type of a 3% level. And sometimes we are able to get away with just doing it across the board. This yr, at the top of this month actually, we are going to finalize our approach towards next yr’s pricing.
But I’ll let you know that what we’re doing goes through a complete SKU rationalization play. So, there might be products and we expect that we’ll take a net price increase going forward into next yr. But there are products that we expect we could drive so much more sales if we drop the margins potentially from something like 70% or 80% all the way down to something more normalized and raised prices on another ingredients where we expect we’ve got more pricing power.
So, we might be taking a rise but we’re not going to only slap it out to our customers as an across the board. It will be rationalized and done one-off. And I believe between production and marketing they stunning much finalized the approach going forward.
Elizabeth Anderson
Got it. And perhaps only one last query. I spotted obviously the macro is somewhat volatile, but I used to be wondering in the event you had any early thoughts on 2023 you can share with us when it comes to where you expect type of particularly on the revenue line type of growth to come back out?
Paul Jacobson
So, let me just say that to date in October and the start of November, we have seen very strong demand. So, it gave us some confidence anyway that things are going to carry together and perhaps improve. Going forward into next yr we’ve got not finalized our budgets for the yr, but we anticipate projecting significant growth next yr.
And we’re also ourselves almost as a start-up in relation to the best way that we wish to handle marketing and Michelle is working along with her team to give you a knowledge science influencer-based strategy that we expect goes to be really great for us and hopefully, drive sales going forward next aggressively into 2023.
Elizabeth Anderson
Got it. Thanks a lot.
Operator
Thanks. Our next query comes from Sean Dodge of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Sean Dodge
Yes. Thanks guys. Good morning. Possibly just on one in all your last comments there Paul in regards to the demand holding up well in October and appears like to date into November. You said, most of your consumer base is pretty insulated economically but still some pockets potentially of sensitivity there. Possibly just give us a way of once we take into consideration guidance for 2022, the expectations you have built into there around how your consumer base specifically holds up? Does all the pieces must remain strong so that you can hit the guidance, or is there some, form of, I do not know cushion or wiggle room in there for just a little bit of decay?
Paul Jacobson
Yeah. I mean, I — again I — it’s why I attempted to say something to provide you just a little little bit of a heads-up on October and November. So, to date things look good and we’re not quite halfway through the quarter yet. But I believe that there — our guidance is such that we feel pretty comfortable with it. We have gotten through a few of it already. But look I don’t desire to let you know that if the world fell apart in December that we would absolutely lock into all the pieces. I mean, I am unable to tell. But to date from what we have seen it’s based on strong demand for our products.
Sean Dodge
Okay. Fair enough. After which before you’d mentioned some impact out of your distributor partners selling into Eastern Europe. Is there any update you may share there, has that gotten worse or higher? After which how much is Eastern Europe at this point contributing to revenue?
Paul Jacobson
Right. So I do not intend to make excuses here, which is why I didn’t bring it up an excessive amount of of this. But in the event you — I’ll offer you the numbers. So we’re taking a $17 million or $18 million hit on this — from this one particular customer that is a world distributor for us that happens to sell in multiple parts all over the world, but they got — they went to zero consequently of the war.
So we’re not for that. We would be having a blowout yr within the upside. That is been the expansion determinant on our B2B channel and it has been the — it’s develop into virtually — it’s totally, very hard to forecast with these guys going forward. I’d say that we have had a month or so recently where we had some pickup in visits though. And — but I do not know whether that is going to be — that is going to proceed going forward.
Sean Dodge
And so far as while you begin to lap that, is that late February coincident with the Russian invasion is that when that gets dropped out of at the very least the year-over-year comparables?
Paul Jacobson
Yeah, yeah. I’d say right across the — some a part of the second quarter.
Operator
Thanks. Your next query comes from Oliver Chen of Cowen and Co. Please go ahead while you’re ready.
Max Rakhlenko
Hey guys, it’s Max on for Oliver. Thanks so much for taking our query. So first on top line, just a few parts here. Nevertheless it looks like there was a little bit of a sequential decel within the DTC segment each year-over-year, in addition to on the two-year. So if perhaps you may comment on that? After which also if our math is true, it looks like guidance implies a pretty big step up. I assume, that speaks to your comments on October and November. So just curious any comments on what happened in 3Q inside DTC. And does that mean that demand is definitely accelerating sequentially as well?
Paul Jacobson
Okay. So I’ll let Michelle answer the primary part and I’ll answer the second part.
Michelle Crow
Yeah. So I take a look at the year-over-year trend, demand points did remain strong DTC demand within the quarter up 47% [ph], and we saw a growth within the number of buying customers each quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year. But when it comes to unit economics that’s where we actually saw a rise. So order size is up 25% [ph] year-over-year, and net price per unit up 6% year-over-year, after which really stable order frequency, which we feel is promising provided that we proceed to amass latest customers farther from the core.
And usually through our conversations with our distributor partners, we have learned that the category of consumer health has seen a softening in other categories like a parallel and outdoor, and furthermore the Thorne in outperforming brands in our specific category. So all of that is actually promising when it comes to the year-over-year performance.
To your query specifically in regards to the sequential trends, specifically across the transactional that is really a function of scaling back the marketing budget by about $9 million for the second half of the yr. We mitigate the impact of that reduce by specializing in unpaid tactics, so like web optimization, content marketing, scaling our master program through own channel, marketing automation tactics, however the $9 million cutback did impact the Q3 web traffic in number of buying customers. But we’re confident that may be strong economics despite that cutback that after we scale up spend again in 2023 that we are able to convert those cutback [Technical Difficulty] potential growth trend.
Paul Jacobson
Right. And Sean to your query in regards to the guidance being a serious step up, I might say that it’s a results of what we have been serious about once we gave guidance initially of the yr that we would see a step up within the fourth quarter. I believe it might have been so much more had we not made the marketing cutback that we did. But from what the demand we’re seeing, to date through the primary half of the primary — the fourth quarter, it looks pretty good.
Max Rakhlenko
Got it. Okay. That is very helpful. After which on gross margin, obviously, there’s numerous moving parts here, each on the raw side, constructing out the brand new supply chain, probably it’ll have some impact, I might guess. After which also, you mentioned potentially taking AURs down a bit. So, I assume, how should we take into consideration your gross margin, each over the subsequent several quarters, in addition to long-term? Should the declines be pretty similar as what we saw in 3Q, or how should we just model that line?
Paul Jacobson
Okay. Sorry. I do know, it’s Max, not Sean. So, the margin — the best way we’re margin that we guided towards 52%, 53% for next yr. We will have — we expect the fourth quarter margins to be barely higher. We’re going to run off these purchases of ingredients that we did buy at low margins and do it in size by the — probably end of the fourth quarter, it’d sleep just a little bit into January.
But usually, the guidance that we gave on margin of 52%, 53% is where we’re. Now, there’s just a little little bit of a component here with this — the brand new facility coming online that can have some — that’s having some negative impact on the margin short-term, which is why we’re forecasting 52%, 53%. Once that facility is online, we see all varieties of reasons that we expect the margins can go up fairly dramatically from there.
And I do want to emphasise that this expansion of the power led by Tom McKenna is something that we’ve got done before, and this is just not — we’re not latest to this. It isn’t nearly as complicated as what we have done prior to now. So we’re quite confident that we’ll give you the option to drive higher margins once this is finished going forward.
The opposite thing is that, it is going to allow us to have interaction in the best way we’re bringing in latest equipment and among the things we’re doing in far more personalization of our business, including meeting demand that we have had for years for a selected unit of use packaging that our customer base has been clamoring for. And the one reason we’ve not introduced it prior to now really has been COVID being such that we couldn’t — we’ve not been capable of come up with the brand new machinery that we wanted.
Max Rakhlenko
Got it. After which only one quick last one. But how should we take into consideration your LTV to CACs going forward? Obviously, there’s — 3Q may be very strong, however it’s been pretty volatile just given your marketing campaign. So, I believe you gave us a number previously. So just curious if that ought to still hold. After which moreover, how should we take into consideration the fitting marketing budget for the business going forward, say, next yr and really just longer-term?
Paul Jacobson
I’ll take the primary a part of…
Michelle Crow
Yes, definitely. So when it comes to our customer acquisition cost specifically, we’re really striving to be efficient for the entire yr and from an LTV to CAC ratio perspective, our goal is 3 times or higher. To your point about form of the fluctuation quarter-to-quarter, that basically is a function of the timing of the spend. But in 2023, based on our strategic approach, we’ll be having more always-on marketing spend, which can form of level out the spend and subsequently, level out the shopper acquisition cost impacting the LTV to CAC ratios, that may be form of more stable as we move forward.
Paul Jacobson
And when it comes to the general marketing budget, so I’d wish to emphasize a few things. Initially, risk control is what we’re after without delay until we see the economy starting to show around. We’re anxious to take risk but do it intelligently.
As I discussed just a little bit earlier, and I attempted to allude to this in my prepared remarks, we’re taking, under Michelle’s leadership, a really, very hard take a look at what we expect marketing should appear to be on a go-forward basis over the subsequent few years. We’re within the technique of doing a deep dive and bringing more data science approach to the best way we’ll do things inside — in-house to maintain it vertically integrated and utilize what we expect is an underutilized asset, which has been our — the community we have built of influencers over the past several years and take a look at to search out latest and differentiated ways to deploy that to marketing.
So we’re within the technique of constructing the budget now, but that signifies that we’re also looking, as I discussed, at almost — like what’s going to we do if we were a start-up and the way would we market ourselves given the assets we have already built up over the past half a dozen years or so. So we — I assume, it is a long-winded way of claiming that we expect to have interaction in marketing in a extremely intelligent risk and daring way, but expect us to step it up.
Max Rakhlenko
No, that is very helpful. I appreciate all the colour. Best regards and the blissful holidays.
Paul Jacobson
Thanks. You too.
Bryan Conley
Thanks.
Operator
Thanks. [Operator Instructions] We’ve got had no further questions. So I’d wish to close the decision here. Thanks all for joining. It’s possible you’ll now disconnect your lines, and have a beautiful day.
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