What does an end-to-end programmatic marketing platform look like these days?
If you’re Amazon, Google, Meta or (most recently) Viant, your buying platform includes an AI-assisted creative generator.
Viant bought Waymark this week. The deal will allow its marketer clients, especially small and midsize businesses (SMBs), make CTV ads that are better, cheaper and regularly refreshed.
On today’s podcast, we discuss why time-strapped SMB marketers, who often lag enterprise marketers in tech adoption, have bucked the trend and become early adopters of AI. Business flyers, for example, are increasingly made by AI and promoted on Meta. One can only imagine what happens when SMBs get a hold of Waymark’s tech to generate the mattress warehouse and regional car ads of the future. We’re joking, but also not joking.
Then, we dissect The Trade Desk’s most recent earnings. Investors rewarded TTD with a 20% rise in stock price for having (almost) stabilizing revenue, which declined just $3 million to $736 million year over year. The Trade Desk touted that its strength in attracting political advertising and healthcare advertising, though it’s notable that the DSP’s rivals don’t play deeply in those highly regulated verticals. Amazon outright bans political advertising (though perhaps because Amazon operates a pharmacy, it’s open to healthcare and pharma ads, albeit with standard caveats), while Google tightly restricts both political and healthcare advertising.
As part of its turnaround, it’s possible The Trade Desk may buy another company, which it’s done only sparingly during its run as a DSP (Sincera being a notable exception). CEO Jeff Green signaled his openness to buying a company on the Q3 earnings call. Who knows what startups or established companies might call TTD in response.
