In the latest of its quarterly presentations, affiliate network Tradedoubler, revealed that net sales had fallen by 12% to SEK 504.3 million (£48 million) in its final quarter, a drop that CEO Rob Wilson said ‘continued as anticipated’.

Net sales specific to Tradedoubler’s performance marketing activities fell by 8%. The network believes this is due to a large client terminating its contract in Q1.

For the network’s entire year, net sales amounted to SEK 2 billion, down over SEK 300 million (£28 million) from 2012, or 12% when taking into account exchange rates, when the figures were well above SEK 2.3 billion.

Pockets of Euro recovery

Despite issues with sales, Tradedoubler said it is seeing some good signs for certain markets in 2014. The Nordics performed strongly along with eastern Europe, particularly Poland, and the UK is building momentum.

Gross profit between October and December of 2013 reached SEK 114.7 million, compared to SEK 134.6 million in 2012. Across the whole financial year it stood at SEK 455 million, down from SEK 542 million the year before.

Tradedoubler said it would be kicking off a new restructuring programme to reduce costs by SEK 55 million. The first signs of this business overhaul will be seen by the network in the latter half of 2014.

Some of the measures being taken by Tradedoubler to assist with its bottom line include Nordic operations now being run from Stockholm, integrating the company’s campaign activity with its performance marketing business and using Telford to house more administrative functions.

Management restructure

Several changes at senior management level were also announced. Andrew Buckman has switched from the chief operating officer role to chief strategy officer. Jonas Ragnarsson, who resigned as chief financial officer late last year, has been replaced by Tomas Ljunglöf and finally, Tradedoubler’s chief revenue officer position has been filled by Richard Julin.

EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2013 was SEK 16 million, which was an improvement over the same period in 2012 where EBIT was down SEK 2.1 million. For the whole of 2013 EBITDA was SEK 75.4 million.

Tradedoubler’s board set out some new long-term targets for the business. It is hoped that net sales will grow in excess of 5% annually, in local currency, and an EBITDA or gross profit ratio in excess of 20% over the business cycle is delivered.

PerformanceIN will be discussing Tradedoubler’s future plans with CEO Rob Wilson and chief revenue officer, Richard Julin, in an article to be released during the coming weeks.