No one said running the largest independent demand-side platform in the world would be easy. If recent headlines indicate anything, The Trade Desk now knows that better than anyone.
Major agencies, including Dentsu and WPP, are pulling back ad spend from TTD’s OpenPath platform, citing concerns of hidden fees and lack of transparency. Most notably, Publicis Groupe is no longer recommending TTD to clients in light of a third-party audit, citing similar concerns. Meanwhile, TTD is shifting its payment model for identity providers, like LiveRamp and Experian.
What seems like conversations about transparency around data fees and incrementality may actually be a matter of control. The programmatic ad industry is changing. Demand-side platforms, supply-side platforms and agency hold cos alike are all pushing to become the premier so-called unified ad platform (UAP) or a single platform that is capable of replicating the programmatic supply chain.
While The Trade Desk is aiming to become a UAP on the demand side, it’s facing competition from the likes of Pubmatic, Magnite and Index on the supply side.
“Everyone is trying to be that sort of orchestration layer. If they can’t necessarily be in a position to control budgets directly, they can be the entity, the platform that orchestrates how that gets spent,” Seb Joseph, Digiday’s executive news editor, said on a recent episode of the Digiday Podcast.
Agency holdcos too could position themselves to be UAPs with their agentic platform offerings, said Tim Peterson, co-host of the Digiday Podcast, and executive editor, video and audio.
As Peterson puts it: You either control the budget or the inventory. “There’s this control around inventory that’s playing out between agencies, DSPs, SSPs right now,” Peterson said on the podcast.
At the same time, three top executives have departed The Trade Desk, including comms executive Melinda Zurich, svp of consumer products Matthew Henick and Ian Colley, TTD’s chief marketer and executive vp, who’s leaving after seven years, per reports. The Trade Desk’s stock is down roughly a third this year, as well.
Make no mistake. The Trade Desk isn’t losing. The independent DSP posted revenues of almost $3 billion last year, thanks in part to its AI-driven platform Kokai. The Trade Desk finds itself on one side of what could best be described as a tug-of-war on the buy side.
“The Trade Desk, it outlasted the likes of Turn and MediaMath, which were its DSP [predecessors],” said Ronan Shields Digiday’s adtech senior reporter, who also joined the podcast.
To maintain its dominance in light of its fallout with three out of the big six agency holdcos, TTD is going direct to brands and publishers via its OpenPath offering. Meanwhile, SSPs like Pubmatic and Magnite are working directly with agencies.
There’s another layer of this conversation — that’s the long-term impact of AI, agentic ad buying which could further muddy the roles of DSPs and SSPs.
“The Trade Desk’s existence and its size also begs the question whether the agency layer and programmatic layer need to exist at all,” said Joseph.