LinkedIn 2012 Annual Report Download - page 47

In 2013, our philosophy is to continue to invest for long-term growth and we expect to continue to
invest heavily in our product development efforts to enable our members and customers to derive more
value from our platform. In addition, we expect to continue to aggressively expand our field sales
organization to market our solutions both in the United States and internationally. We also expect to
continue to make significant capital expenditures to upgrade our technology and network infrastructure to
improve the ability of our website to handle expected increases in usage, to enable the release of new
features and solutions, and to scale for future growth. To support these efforts, we expect to increase our
workforce which will result in an increase of headcount related expenses, including stock-based
compensation. As of December 31, 2012, we had 3,458 employees, which represented an increase of 63%
compared to the same period last year.
Key Metrics
We regularly review a number of metrics, including the following key metrics, to evaluate our
business, measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, formulate financial projections
and make strategic decisions.
•Number of Registered Members. We define the number of registered members in our network as the
number of individual users who have created a member profile on our website as of the date of
measurement. We believe the number of registered members is a key indicator of the growth of
our network and our ability to receive the benefits of the network effects resulting from such
growth. Growth in our member base depends, in part, on our ability to successfully develop and
market our solutions to professionals who have not yet become members of our network. Member
growth will also be contingent on our ability to include additional languages on our website and
continued international expansion of our member base. We typically experience slower member
growth in the third quarter of the year as a result of decreased Internet usage by professionals
during the summer months. We believe that a higher number of registered members will result in
increased sales of our Talent Solutions, Marketing Solutions and Premium Subscriptions, as
customers will have access to a larger pool of professional talent.
The following table presents the number of registered members as of the periods presented:
December 31, December 31,
2012 2011 % Change 2011 2010 % Change
(in thousands)
Number of registered members(1) ........ 201,912 144,974 39% 144,974 90,437 60%
(1) The number of registered members is higher than the number of actual members due to various
factors. For more information, see ‘‘Risk Factors—The number of our registered members is higher than
the number of actual members, and a substantial majority of our page views are generated by a minority
of our members.’’
The number of our registered members increased by 39% in 2012 compared to 2011, and by 60% in
2011 compared to 2010. Over these same periods, the increases in our net revenue exceeded the growth in
our number of registered members. While growth in the number of registered members is an important
indicator of expected revenue growth, it also informs our management’s decisions with respect to those
areas of our business that will require further investment to support expected future membership growth.
For example, as the number of registered members increases, we will need to increase our capital
expenditures to improve our information technology infrastructure to maintain the effectiveness of our
solutions and the performance of our website for our members.
•Unique Visitors. We define unique visitors as users who have visited our website at least once
during a month regardless of whether they are a member, based on data provided by comScore, a
leading provider of digital marketing intelligence. We view unique visitors as a key indicator of
growth in our brand awareness among users and whether we are providing our members with
45