The Trade Desk has been public about wanting all users to migrate to the new Kokai user interface for its DSP by the end of this year.
It’s what CEO Jeff Green told investors in February.
But yeah, that’s not gonna happen.
Kokai adoption has been slower than the company expected, which means that its legacy interface, Solimar, won’t be deprecated in the near future.
Rumors had been swirling that TTD would soon announce plans to deprecate Solimar in order to push users to adopt Kokai.
Some advertisers even claim their TTD account reps teased the company’s plan to sunset Solimar as quickly as possible. AdExchanger has heard from multiple agency sources who say TTD reps told them that Solimar will be phased out starting in Q3 and that TTD will disallow the creation of new campaigns in Solimar starting in August.
But, according to a source close to The Trade Desk with direct knowledge, it currently has no concrete plans to deprecate Solimar at all. It’s still TTD’s intention to phase Solimar out once all buyers have moved over to Kokai, the source added, but full Kokai adoption will require more time, and it’s unclear exactly how much.
The previous plan to reach full Kokai adoption by the end of 2025 is in doubt, this source said, because some of Kokai’s features are still being developed.
In other words, Solimar is here to stay for now.
Eye on Kokai
Phasing out Solimar now “doesn’t make sense,” said the source close to TTD, because several TTD clients are still using it. TTD “wouldn’t [stop] clients who are still using Solimar,” they said, “because that would be detrimental to business and also current clients and campaigns.”
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On top of that, a number of TTD clients use both Solimar and Kokai for different purposes, the source added, and TTD wants to continue to provide that flexibility for the time being. TTD is “keeping Solimar around until everyone feels comfortable with Kokai,” they said.
Besides, some Kokai features are not ready for primetime yet, the source said. For example, Kokai’s Deal Desk curation solution that allows sell-side companies to package inventory into deal IDs is only entering beta testing this quarter – meaning it’ll clearly need more time to bake.
Plus, Q4 is just around the corner, the source said, which would be a terrible time to force everyone over to a new and partially untested interface. TTD “doesn’t want clients to have to learn a whole new interface at the busiest time of the year,” they said.
For all those reasons, the source said, TTD is not “deprecating Solimar or preventing clients from using it.”
Say it ain’t Solimar
In short, despite rumors to the contrary, Solimar will not be phased out in Q3 and TTD won’t be disabling the creation of new campaigns in Solimar by next month.
So why do some agency sources claim to have been told by TTD account reps that Solimar will be imminently phased out or disabled for new campaigns?
It’s possible that those account reps are using “a sales tactic” to boost Kokai adoption by suggesting Solimar will soon no longer be viable, the source close to TTD said. The Trade Desk did not respond to AdExchanger’s request to clarify whether its sales or account reps receive incentives for boosting Kokai adoption.
So, if agencies are hearing otherwise from their account reps, then it appears those reps are not in alignment with The Trade Desk’s company line.
Still, the source close to TTD pointed out that the company’s Q3 earnings call is coming up on August 7, noting that it’s entirely possible we’ll hear about new plans for Kokai and Solimar at that time.
So stay tuned.
