Thryv Strategy and Business Model

Executive Overview

Thryv is a small-business software and marketing company focused on helping local and service-oriented small and medium-sized businesses get found online, manage leads and customers, schedule work, communicate with clients, send estimates and invoices, accept payments, and automate follow-up marketing. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Thryv operates primarily in the United States and Australia. Its business has two distinct engines: a growing software-as-a-service business built around recurring subscriptions, and a legacy Marketing Services segment that still sells digital marketing, websites, listings, search, and some remaining directory-style advertising products. That mix makes Thryv a transition story rather than a pure-play software company. Management has been using the cash generation of the mature marketing-services base to fund a pivot toward higher-quality recurring software revenue. Thryv’s roots go back to directory publishing businesses more than a century old, but its current strategy is centered on becoming an end-to-end operating platform for small businesses. In FY2023, the last full fiscal year publicly available when this profile was drafted, Thryv reported about $1.0 billion of revenue. The acquisition of Keap in early 2024 added CRM and marketing-automation depth to that software strategy.

Thryv at a Glance

Logo
Common name	Thryv
Full legal name	Thryv Holdings, Inc.
Headquarters	Dallas, Texas, United States
Ownership	Public company; no controlling shareholder publicly disclosed as of early 2024
Ticker	THRY
Exchange	NASDAQ
Market Cap	$163.87M
Revenue (FY2024)	#N/A
Founding / major historical milestones	Roots in directory-advertising businesses dating to 1886; Dex One and SuperMedia merged in 2013; business restructured in the mid-2010s; Thryv software brand launched and corporate rebrand completed in the late 2010s; Sensis acquired in 2021; Keap acquired in 2024
Industry or industries	Small business software, customer relationship management, marketing technology, payments, digital marketing services, local business media
Key products or services	Small-business management software, CRM, scheduling, invoicing, payments, marketing automation, listings management, reputation management, websites, search marketing, digital marketing services
Geographic footprint	Primarily the United States and Australia; customer reach is broader for software, but disclosed operations are concentrated in those two markets
Business segments as officially reported	Thryv SaaS; Marketing Services
Company website	https://www.thryv.com/

1. What Is the Strategy of Thryv?

Thryv’s public disclosures through FY2023 and early 2024 describe a company managing two businesses at once: a declining but cash-generative marketing-services operation and a growing SaaS platform aimed at small businesses. Using the Playing to Win framework, the strategy is clearer than it first appears.

1. 1a. What is the winning aspiration of Thryv?

   Thryv’s winning aspiration is to become a mission-critical operating platform for small businesses rather than remain primarily a legacy directory and advertising company. In management’s framing, “winning” means helping SMBs run the front office in one place: getting found, converting leads, managing customer communications, scheduling work, invoicing, collecting payments, and driving repeat business. Public reporting in FY2023 and early 2024 makes clear that the company’s real objective is a mix shift toward recurring SaaS revenue, with the legacy Marketing Services segment serving as a funding source rather than the strategic end state.

2. 1b. Where does Thryv play?

   Thryv plays primarily in the small and medium-sized business market, especially local, service-oriented, and relationship-driven businesses that often lack dedicated information-technology staff. Geographically, its disclosed operating footprint is concentrated in the United States and Australia. Functionally, it focuses on customer acquisition, customer relationship management, appointment scheduling, billing, payments, and marketing automation. It does not try to be broad enterprise software. It also continues to play in outsourced marketing services for SMBs, particularly where customers still want hands-on support with digital presence, search, websites, and related advertising.

3. 1c. How does Thryv plan to win?

   Thryv appears to plan to win through integration, simplicity, and service. Small businesses often use too many point solutions or still run important workflows manually. Thryv’s pitch is that one platform can replace that complexity. Its value proposition is strongest where SMB owners want an all-in-one tool plus onboarding and support, not just software seats. A second element is structural: Thryv can use cash flow and customer relationships from its legacy business to fund software growth and cross-sell SaaS into an installed base that already buys marketing help. The 2024 Keap acquisition also suggests a build-and-buy approach to broadening product depth and reaching somewhat more sophisticated SMB buyers.

4. 1d. What capabilities must Thryv have in place?

   To make that strategy work, Thryv needs several capabilities: a direct SMB sales engine; strong onboarding and customer-support operations; software-development and platform-integration capabilities; payments and communications integrations; marketing expertise for the services business; and disciplined portfolio management so it can run a declining segment for cash while still investing in growth. It also needs acquisition-integration capability, because deals such as Keap only create value if products, sales motions, and customer journeys become more coherent.

5. 1e. What management systems does Thryv require?

   Thryv needs management systems that can track two very different operating models at the same time. For SaaS, the critical systems are recurring-revenue metrics, subscriber growth, average revenue per user, retention, onboarding quality, product adoption, and sales productivity. For Marketing Services, the key management disciplines are cost control, churn management, renewal economics, and cash generation. At the corporate level, capital allocation matters: management must decide how much cash from the legacy segment goes to product investment, acquisitions, debt service, and operating expenses. In practical terms, Thryv’s management system has to prevent the legacy business from starving the growth business while also preventing the SaaS push from ignoring profitability and cash flow.

2. What Are the Current Strategic Initiatives of Thryv?

Based on Thryv’s FY2023 annual reporting, early 2024 earnings commentary, and acquisition activity, the company’s near-term agenda appears to center on the following initiatives.

• Accelerating SaaS growth. Thryv has been pushing its software business as the center of the company’s future. That includes adding subscribers, increasing software revenue per customer, and improving adoption of multiple modules rather than selling a single narrow tool.
• Broadening the software platform with Keap. The acquisition of Keap in early 2024 added CRM and marketing-automation functionality and gave Thryv access to a somewhat different SMB customer profile. Strategically, this broadens the platform and may help Thryv serve more advanced small businesses that need stronger lead nurturing and campaign automation.
• Using Marketing Services as both a cash source and a conversion funnel. Thryv still derives meaningful revenue from Marketing Services. The company’s strategy is not simply to maximize that business indefinitely; it is to manage the decline carefully, preserve cash flow, and convert suitable customers to SaaS where the economics are more attractive over time.
• Improving retention, onboarding, and customer outcomes. SMB software economics are heavily influenced by churn. That makes customer setup, training, adoption, and ongoing support strategically important. Thryv’s public positioning suggests it understands that customer success is not a back-office function; it is part of the product.
• Adding automation and artificial-intelligence-enabled features. Thryv has publicly discussed AI-enabled workflow and content features. For a time-constrained SMB owner, automation that saves hours of manual work can be more valuable than adding another dashboard.
• Expanding and strengthening Australia. Through Sensis, Thryv has a meaningful Australian foothold. That market matters because it provides an additional SMB base, local sales and marketing capability, and a second geography in which to scale software and services.
• Maintaining financial discipline during the business-model shift. Because Thryv is still in transition, finance is strategic. The company must balance SaaS investment with cost control, leverage management, and disciplined use of cash from the legacy segment.

3. What Is the Business Model of Thryv?

What customers actually buy

Customers buy two different things from Thryv. First, they buy recurring software that helps them run core front-office workflows such as customer management, scheduling, estimates, invoicing, payments, marketing, and follow-up. Second, they buy outsourced marketing services such as websites, listings management, search-related services, and other digital marketing support. Some legacy customers also still buy directory-style advertising products.

Recurring versus one-time or repeat-driven revenue

The SaaS business is primarily recurring, usually sold as subscription software with add-on functionality and, in some cases, usage-linked payments-related revenue. Marketing Services is not pure recurring software revenue, but much of it is still repeat-driven because customers typically sign up for ongoing campaigns or contract periods rather than one-off transactions. Even so, the economic quality of the two streams is different: SaaS is the strategic recurring engine, while Marketing Services is mature and declining.

How pricing power works

Thryv’s pricing power appears to come less from premium brand cachet and more from workflow integration, switching friction, and service convenience. A small business that uses Thryv for customer records, texting, scheduling, estimates, invoices, and payments may be reluctant to rip out the system once it is embedded in daily operations. That said, SMB software remains competitive and price-sensitive, so Thryv likely has to prove tangible return on investment rather than rely on simple list-price increases.

Why the business mix matters

The business mix is central to understanding Thryv. Marketing Services still mattered more to reported revenue in FY2023, but SaaS carried more strategic importance because recurring software revenue generally supports better long-term visibility, customer lifetime value, and valuation quality. The legacy segment, however, still matters because it throws off cash and gives Thryv customer relationships that can be mined for cross-sell opportunities.

What drives gross margin, operating margin, and cash generation

In SaaS, gross margin is influenced by hosting costs, support, onboarding, and product complexity, while operating margin depends heavily on sales efficiency and customer retention. In Marketing Services, margins depend on fulfillment efficiency, media economics, labor intensity, and how fast the legacy base declines relative to cost takeout. Cash generation is helped by the company’s relatively light physical-asset base and by the mature Marketing Services business, which can still generate cash despite shrinking revenue.

Revenue model

Thryv’s revenue model is best described as a hybrid of subscription software, payments-related revenue, and contracted marketing services. It is not a freemium or advertising-only model. The company’s strategic aim is clearly to increase the share of revenue coming from subscription-like software economics.

4. What Products and/or Services Does Thryv Sell?

Thryv sells a mix of software products and outsourced marketing services to small businesses.

• Core Thryv SaaS platform. This includes customer relationship management, contact and lead management, appointment scheduling, calendars, estimates, invoicing, payment acceptance, messaging, reminders, document management, and workflow tools aimed at helping small businesses run daily operations.
• Marketing and customer-engagement tools. Thryv also offers capabilities around online presence, reviews, listings, social posting, campaign management, and follow-up marketing. These tools are important because many SMB buyers want lead generation and customer retention tools tied directly to the operating workflow.
• Keap. After acquiring Keap in early 2024, Thryv added a recognized SMB CRM and marketing-automation product. Keap is strategically important because it deepens automation, lead nurturing, and campaign functionality and can expand Thryv’s reach into more sophisticated small businesses.
• Marketing Services. This legacy but still meaningful segment includes websites, digital marketing services, listings and search-related offerings, and some remaining directory-style advertising products. It appears to remain a significant revenue contributor, but it is not the long-term strategic center of the company.

In economic terms, Marketing Services still represented a large part of revenue in FY2023, but SaaS appears to carry the most strategic importance because it is the growth platform and the basis for Thryv’s repositioning.

5. What Are the Key Competitors or Peers of Thryv?

Thryv’s competitive set is fragmented because the company sits between SMB software, local-business marketing tools, and outsourced digital marketing services. It faces both direct software competitors and substitutes such as local agencies, Google, and social-ad tools.

• HubSpot. A broader CRM and marketing platform that competes for SMB and mid-market customers seeking integrated sales and marketing tools. HubSpot is generally more software-centric and often moves upmarket.
• GoDaddy. Competes in websites, digital presence, commerce, and SMB productivity tools, especially with very small businesses that want simple, self-serve digital tools.
• Wix. A website and commerce platform with booking, marketing, and customer-engagement functionality. It is a strong substitute for SMBs that begin with website creation and add business tools later.
• Intuit Mailchimp. Competes in email marketing and automation for small businesses and has adjacency to Intuit’s large SMB installed base.
• Birdeye. Strong in reputation management, messaging, reviews, and local-business engagement. It overlaps with Thryv where online presence and customer communication are central.
• Housecall Pro. A closer vertical competitor in home services, with field-service workflows such as scheduling, dispatch, invoicing, and payments.
• Jobber. Focused on small field-service businesses. It competes where Thryv targets owner-operators and local service firms that need easy operational software.
• ServiceTitan. A stronger player for larger or more operationally complex trades businesses. It is more specialized and often more robust in vertical workflow depth.
• Hibu. A useful peer for the Marketing Services business because it also sells outsourced digital marketing to small businesses.

Beyond named companies, major substitutes include Google Business Profile, Google Ads, Meta advertising tools, Yelp advertising, and thousands of local agencies and freelancers. That is why Thryv’s integrated-product-plus-service positioning matters: it is competing against fragmentation as much as against any single rival.

6. What Is the Marketing Strategy of Thryv?

Thryv’s marketing strategy appears to be practical, ROI-led, and closely tied to its sales model. The company is not primarily a mass-brand marketer; it sells to busy small-business owners who respond to clear value propositions such as getting more leads, reducing no-shows, speeding up invoicing, and getting paid faster.

Several elements stand out:

• Sales-led demand generation. Marketing appears to support direct and inside sales rather than replace them. This fits a product set that often needs explanation, setup, and trust-building.
• Problem-solution messaging. The company’s marketing is built around operational pain points: too many disconnected apps, missed leads, weak online visibility, and slow cash collection.
• Cross-sell from an existing customer base. One of Thryv’s more distinctive marketing advantages is its installed base of SMB customers from the Marketing Services business. That base can be nurtured toward software adoption.
• Product-led proof, not just brand awareness. For Thryv, onboarding, support, reviews, and customer outcomes likely do more for marketing effectiveness than a broad awareness campaign would.

Marketing is therefore both a supporting capability and part of the product story. Thryv sells marketing tools and marketing services to clients, but its own customer-acquisition engine appears more direct-response and consultative than brand-driven.

7. What Are the Key Customer Segments of Thryv?

Thryv’s customer base is centered on small and medium-sized businesses rather than large enterprises or consumers. Within that broad market, several segments matter most.

• Local service businesses. This appears to be the natural center of gravity for Thryv: businesses that depend on appointments, repeat customers, reputation, and fast follow-up. Examples can include contractors, home services, health and wellness practices, legal professionals, and other relationship-driven SMBs.
• Time-constrained owner-operators. Thryv’s value proposition is especially relevant where the owner is also the operator and cannot assemble a stack of separate software tools.
• Existing Marketing Services customers. This is a strategically important segment because it is both a source of current revenue and a conversion pool for SaaS cross-sell.
• More sophisticated small businesses reached through Keap. Keap extends Thryv’s reach toward SMBs that need deeper automation, campaign sequencing, and lead nurturing.
• Australian SMBs. Through Sensis, Thryv has a meaningful second geographic customer base outside the United States.

Customer concentration appears low because Thryv serves many SMBs rather than a handful of large accounts. That diversification is helpful, but SMB exposure also brings higher churn risk and macroeconomic sensitivity.

8. What Is the Sales Model of Thryv?

Thryv’s sales model appears to be primarily direct, supported by digital lead generation and cross-sell into its existing customer base.

• Direct and inside sales. Thryv historically has sold to SMBs through a direct sales organization rather than relying mainly on resellers. That matters because many SMB buyers want explanation, configuration help, and a human point of contact.
• Installed-base cross-sell. A major channel advantage is the ability to sell software into existing Marketing Services relationships. This can reduce customer-acquisition cost relative to a pure cold-start SaaS model.
• Digital inbound and self-serve support. Some SaaS demand likely comes through online channels, demos, and inbound digital marketing, especially as the product set becomes more software-centric.
• Partner and ecosystem potential. Keap may expand partner, referral, and integration-led opportunities, although Thryv’s public identity remains more direct-sales oriented than channel-led.

This channel structure affects the economics of the company. A direct sales model can create stronger customer intimacy and better cross-sell, but it is also more labor-intensive and requires careful management of territories, compensation, onboarding quality, and sales productivity. That makes go-to-market design one of the highest-value areas for outside analysis and consulting support.

9. In What Geographies Does Thryv Operate?

Thryv is geographically focused rather than broadly global. Its operations and customers are concentrated mainly in two markets.

• United States. The United States is the company’s core market and the location of its headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Its largest sales, customer-support, and corporate footprint is tied to the U.S. market.
• Australia. Australia is the company’s most important non-U.S. geography, primarily through Sensis. This gives Thryv a meaningful second SMB market and local commercial infrastructure outside the United States.
• Other markets. Software products can often be sold beyond the company’s main operating geographies, but publicly disclosed business emphasis has remained centered on the United States and Australia rather than on a broad multi-continent expansion strategy.

Because Thryv is a software-and-services company, its geographic footprint is defined more by offices, sales and support operations, and cloud infrastructure than by factories or heavy industrial assets. The company is therefore geographically diversified enough to avoid being purely domestic, but still concentrated enough that the U.S. market remains the central driver.

10. Who Are the Owners of Thryv?

Thryv is a publicly traded company listed on Nasdaq under the ticker THRY. As of early 2024, the company did not publicly disclose a controlling shareholder in its proxy materials.

Ownership appears primarily institutional and dispersed. Public holder reports in 2024 commonly showed major asset managers such as BlackRock and Vanguard among notable shareholders, alongside insider ownership by executives and directors. As with any public company, those institutional positions can change over time.

11. How Is Thryv Organized?

At the reporting level, Thryv is organized around two principal business segments:

• Thryv SaaS. The software business, including the core Thryv platform and, after the early 2024 acquisition, Keap.
• Marketing Services. The legacy business that sells digital marketing services and related offerings to SMBs, along with some remaining traditional directory-style products.

At a practical management level, the company also has to organize across product, sales, customer success, technology, and geography. The U.S. and Australian operations are strategically important operating layers, even if the external segment reporting is simpler. Shared corporate functions such as finance, legal, technology infrastructure, and human resources support both segments.

That structure matters because Thryv is not simply running one product portfolio. It is running a growth software business inside a company that still has a large mature-services business. The organizational challenge is to allocate talent and resources without allowing one model to distort the other.

12. How Does Thryv Operate?

Day to day, Thryv operates as a combination of SaaS provider, customer-success organization, and marketing-services operator.

1. Customer acquisition. Thryv generates leads through direct sales, existing customer relationships, inbound digital channels, and brand presence in the SMB market.
2. Sales and solutioning. Reps sell a mix of software modules and services based on the customer’s needs. For many SMBs, the sale is consultative rather than purely transactional.
3. Onboarding and setup. New SaaS customers need contact import, process configuration, training, and integration into daily workflows. This is operationally important because poor onboarding drives churn.
4. Software delivery and support. Thryv must keep its cloud-based software stable, secure, and usable while providing ongoing support to nontechnical users.
5. Marketing-services fulfillment. For services customers, the company builds and manages websites, listings, search-related services, and other marketing programs. This is more labor-intensive than SaaS and requires campaign execution discipline.
6. Billing, collections, and account management. Recurring subscriptions, services contracts, and payments-related revenue all require tight billing and retention processes.

The main operational complexities are typical of SMB-focused businesses: customer churn can be high, sales productivity matters enormously, customers need more support than enterprise buyers with internal IT staff, and the company must manage a legacy business in decline while building a modern software platform.

13. What Are the Growth Opportunities for Thryv?

• Cross-selling SaaS into the existing customer base. This is one of the clearest opportunities. Thryv already has relationships with many SMBs through Marketing Services, and some of those customers should be addressable for software conversion.
• Upselling more modules and payments adoption. Growth does not need to come only from new customers. It can also come from deeper wallet share as customers add scheduling, invoicing, communications, marketing automation, and payment functionality.
• Monetizing the Keap acquisition. Keap creates a path to broader CRM and automation capabilities, a somewhat wider customer profile, and cross-sell opportunities across the combined base.
• Retention improvement. For SMB software companies, lowering churn can be as valuable as adding new logos. Better onboarding, product adoption, and customer-success workflows can materially improve lifetime value.
• Australian expansion. Sensis gives Thryv a real operating platform in Australia. That could support additional SaaS penetration beyond the legacy marketing-services base.
• AI-enabled workflow automation. If Thryv can use AI to save customers time on communications, campaign creation, review management, and administrative work, it may improve differentiation and justify stronger retention or pricing.
• Partner and ecosystem development. Over time, Thryv may be able to widen distribution and product utility through more integrations, referrals, and ecosystem partnerships.

The main constraints are also clear: intense SMB software competition, customer-acquisition cost, churn, macro sensitivity among small businesses, execution risk in integrating acquisitions, and the ongoing revenue decline of the Marketing Services segment.

14. What Is the History of Thryv?

Thryv’s history is unusual because it is not a conventional founder-led software story. The company’s lineage is rooted in local advertising and directory publishing.

• 1886 roots. One important ancestor of the business, R.H. Donnelley, was founded in 1886 by Reuben H. Donnelley. The broader corporate lineage also includes telephone-directory and local-media assets built over many decades.
• Directory-era consolidation. Over time, various legacy directory businesses were combined and restructured as the economics of print directories weakened.
• 2013 merger. Dex One and SuperMedia merged in 2013 to form Dex Media, creating one of the larger U.S. directory and local-marketing platforms.
• Mid-2010s restructuring. The structural decline of print directories and the debt burden inherited from the old business model led to Chapter 11 restructuring in the mid-2010s.
• Shift to Thryv. In the late 2010s, management launched the Thryv software brand and reoriented the company toward small-business SaaS and digital marketing services rather than legacy print.
• 2021 Sensis acquisition. The purchase of Sensis expanded Thryv in Australia and added another SMB marketing platform.
• 2024 Keap acquisition. The acquisition of Keap deepened CRM and marketing-automation capabilities and reinforced the company’s transition toward software.

The key historical point is that Thryv is a reinvention story: a legacy local-media company trying to transform itself into a recurring-revenue SMB software platform.

15. What Are the Key Brands Owned by Thryv?

Branding matters at Thryv, but mainly as a product and trust architecture for small-business buyers rather than as a classic consumer-brand portfolio.

• Thryv. This is the core corporate and product brand. It represents the company’s attempt to move beyond legacy directory media and position itself as an all-in-one platform for small-business operations and marketing.
• Keap. Keap remains an important product brand after the 2024 acquisition because it carries recognition in SMB CRM and marketing automation. Strategically, it helps Thryv reach customers that may want deeper automation than the core platform alone historically offered.
• Sensis. Sensis is strategically important in Australia. It functions as both a market entry point and an operating brand in that geography.

For Thryv, brand is less about premium lifestyle positioning and more about credibility, ease of use, and reducing perceived risk for small-business owners making software and marketing decisions.

16. How Is Thryv Using AI?

As publicly discussed through product announcements and management commentary by 2024, Thryv’s use of artificial intelligence appears focused on practical SMB workflow automation rather than on a separate standalone AI business.

• Live customer-facing use cases. Thryv has highlighted AI-assisted features for tasks such as drafting marketing content, helping with review responses, and simplifying communications or campaign creation. These are logical use cases for SMB customers who need time savings more than advanced technical customization.
• Productivity-oriented positioning. The AI message is not mainly about replacing human labor at enterprise scale. It is about helping very small teams do more with less effort.
• Roadmap extension. Broader AI-enabled automation across lead follow-up, workflow suggestions, support productivity, and customer insights appears to be a plausible roadmap direction, but public disclosures through early 2024 suggested more feature-level enablement than a fully disclosed companywide AI transformation.

That is strategically sensible for Thryv. SMB customers usually value AI most when it is embedded in everyday tasks and saves time immediately.

17. What Is the Technology Strategy of Thryv?

Technology is central to Thryv’s competitiveness because the company is trying to become a core operating system for small businesses, not just a seller of marketing services.

• Integrated workflow over point solutions. The technology strategy appears centered on unifying CRM, communications, scheduling, billing, payments, and marketing into one platform so SMBs do not have to stitch together multiple tools.
• Ease of use for nontechnical users. Thryv’s target customer rarely has a dedicated software administrator. The product therefore has to be usable, easy to onboard, and operationally helpful from day one.
• Build-and-buy platform expansion. The Keap acquisition suggests Thryv is willing to acquire technology and customer bases where that accelerates capability depth faster than building everything organically.
• Embedded payments and communications. Integrations around payments, messaging, and marketing channels are strategically important because they increase product utility and make the software harder to replace.
• Cloud delivery and ongoing product iteration. As a SaaS provider, Thryv has to ship frequent updates, maintain reliability, and keep improving onboarding, mobile usability, and automation.

Technology at Thryv is therefore both the customer offering and an internal enabler. The company’s challenge is not just to have features, but to make the platform coherent for small businesses that want simplicity.

18. What Is the Finance Strategy of Thryv?

Thryv’s finance strategy is tightly linked to its corporate transformation. The company is not managing a steady-state mature business; it is using the economics of one business to fund the growth of another.

• Use legacy cash flow to fund SaaS growth. The central financial logic is to harvest cash from Marketing Services while investing in software, customer acquisition, product development, and selective acquisitions.
• Shift toward recurring revenue. A higher share of SaaS revenue should improve predictability and, over time, the quality of the revenue base even if it requires near-term investment.
• Manage leverage and liquidity carefully. Given Thryv’s history and transformation profile, balance-sheet discipline matters. Management has to preserve flexibility while funding growth initiatives.
• Maintain cost discipline in the declining segment. If Marketing Services revenue falls faster than costs can be removed, the self-funding model weakens. Expense management is therefore strategic, not merely administrative.
• Deploy capital selectively. The Keap deal shows that acquisitions can be part of the capital-allocation plan, but the company does not appear to be pursuing indiscriminate roll-up behavior.

In short, Thryv’s finance strategy is to make the transition affordable: generate cash from the old business, invest enough to grow the new one, and keep the balance sheet stable enough that the pivot remains credible.

19. What Major Acquisitions Has Thryv Made?

Acquisitions are not the whole Thryv story, but they have played a meaningful role in geographic expansion and capability building.

• Sensis (2021). Thryv acquired Sensis to expand in Australia. Strategically, this added a meaningful second SMB market, local operating infrastructure, and additional marketing-services and software relationships.
• Keap (2024). Thryv acquired Keap in early 2024 to add CRM and marketing-automation depth. This was a strategically important software acquisition because it broadened Thryv’s SaaS portfolio and may help it serve more advanced SMB workflows.

The larger pattern is that Thryv uses M&A selectively to accelerate the shift toward software and to deepen geographic reach. The company does not appear to be relying on constant acquisitions as its only growth engine; the bigger transformation is the internal repositioning from legacy local media to SMB SaaS.

20. How Companies Like Thryv Leverage Independent Consultants through Umbrex

Umbrex has grown a global community of over 8,000 independent management consultants based in more than 50 countries. These consultants are alumni of McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and other top consulting firms. Companies like Thryv engage Umbrex when they need the analytical horsepower and specialized functional expertise those firms are known for, but they do not need a full traditional consulting team with all the overhead. Umbrex consultants work across strategy, operations, organization, marketing, sales, finance, technology, enterprise resource planning, and AI. For a company like Thryv, the most useful projects are usually tightly tied to SaaS scaling, legacy-business optimization, acquisition integration, and go-to-market performance.

• SaaS growth strategy. Re-segment the SMB market, identify the highest-value verticals, and sharpen Thryv’s where-to-play choices by customer type, business size, and use case.
• Pricing and packaging redesign. Evaluate subscription tiers, feature bundles, payments monetization, and Keap-versus-core-platform packaging to improve average revenue per user without hurting conversion.
• Keap integration and synergy capture. Build the post-merger integration plan across product roadmap, sales coverage, customer migration, support, and back-office operations.
• Marketing Services-to-SaaS conversion program. Design the analytics, playbooks, and customer journeys to migrate the right legacy customers into software while protecting cash flow from the remaining services base.
• Salesforce productivity improvement. Redesign territories, lead routing, compensation, onboarding, and manager cadence to raise direct-sales efficiency in SMB acquisition and cross-sell.
• Customer onboarding and churn reduction. Map the first-90-day customer journey, diagnose adoption drop-offs, and redesign customer-success workflows to improve retention and expansion.
• Australia growth strategy. Assess how best to use Sensis as a platform for SaaS penetration, channel development, and portfolio optimization in Australia.
• AI roadmap and use-case prioritization. Identify the highest-return AI applications across product features, support automation, sales productivity, and marketing content generation.
• Finance and operating-model transformation. Build segment-level dashboards, cash-flow bridges, and capital-allocation frameworks to manage the transition from legacy services to recurring SaaS.
• Partner and ecosystem strategy. Evaluate referral partners, software integrations, payments relationships, and app ecosystem opportunities that could extend Thryv’s reach without relying only on direct sales.