the trade desk

In a world being agentically orchestrated at scale, human judgment is the indispensable guardrail preventing us from optimizing right over the cliff.

The Trade Desk is muscling its way into the TV operating system business with its Ventura OS – but the real story isn’t the product itself. It’s what TTD’s ambitions reveal about conflicts of interest within the industry and the inherent mismatch between consumer and advertiser needs.

The Trade Desk expanded its relationships with a host of travel, hospitality and mobility-focused commerce media partners, including Uber Advertising, Booking.com, United Airline’s Kinective Media and MARRIOTT MEDIA.

I’ve always loved sci-fi movies and the way they portray futuristic worlds shaped by advanced technological innovation. One of my favorite movies is the ’80s classic “The Terminator.” And the more I hear about “agentic AI” in ad tech, the more I think the film is a perfect analogy for what’s happening right now.

To close the gap between digital audio ad spend and audience engagement, audio platforms want to get more deeply embedded in omnichannel campaign planning tools.

Viant creates a direct pipeline between its DSP and media companies; Google and TTD won’t renew their TAG accreditations; and OpenAI may lower the cost of tokens.

Samsung Ads is making its home screen ads available programmatically, the company announced on Wednesday.

Advertisers can target high- and medium-attention ad inventory in Amazon DSP while filtering out low-attention placements and made-for-advertising sites.

Communications leaders are reshaping the C-suite; Executive turnover continues at The Trade Desk; TikTok Shop earns dedicated RFP budgets.

The programmatic intelligence layer is owned by the same parties that are extracting margin from it. That structure is now being dismantled by an AI-underpinned protocol that moves the intelligence layer into the open.

Email targeting in CTV has a credibility problem as buyers and sellers question whether one-to-one identity even fits a channel built for broader reach.

Agentic media buying may cut middlemen or add more chaos; Grocers are remodeling for retail media amid rising costs; Peacock is betting on the booming microdrama trend.

PubMatic has run more than 30 fully autonomous, end-to-end agentic campaigns through the SSP’s AgenticOS platform, in addition to more than 1,000 direct publisher deals.

If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? And if a UID2 doesn’t work, does anyone notice? Inside a UID2 mix-up that has a publisher questioning the value of alt IDs. Then, what Kochava’s settlement with the FTC means for any ad tech company that handles location data.

TTD CEO Jeff Green laid out the DSP’s plan for winning in a new world of advertising that – AI aside – necessitates major changes in how marketers behave.

Magnite posted strong Q1 numbers and is confident that it will prevail in its battles with both Google and The Trade Desk.

TTD confirmed that this CTV publisher’s errors would have made its UID2s useless for ad targeting. But TTD also said it wouldn’t have had enough information to flag the issue.

Programmatic enemies make better friends in the AI era; social video projected to outgrow CTV this year; and apps are integrating into chatbots, but where are the users?

Going viral isn’t great; AI search is a nightmare; and CTV is forcing everyone to get along.

Agency picks can quietly determine a brand’s tech stack; Ad spend is shifting away from the open web; The CW is betting on partnerships, not its own platform.

The Trade Desk announced that it will begin allowing mutual clients to use its DSP within the Pacvue or Skai platforms.

The Trade Desk is getting agentic; OpenAI pivots its ads business; and the line between SSPs and DSPs keeps on blurring.

A proposed standard under discussion at W3C aims to redefine how ad effectiveness is measured across the web. This proposal would centralize measurement of ad effectiveness under the control of Google, Apple and Meta.

DSPlease Brand marketers and agency buyers are skeptical of DSPs’ transparency claims. After Publicis announced last month that it’s no longer recommending The Trade Desk to its clients, other DSPs saw an opportunity to strike. Since then, other DSPs (Viant being “the most aggressive,” according to one media buyer) have been reaching out to TTD […]

The Trade Desk overhauls ID partner payments; investors downplay their software holdings; and Kalshi’s “we don’t do death markets” campaign may be backfiring.

Ad agency holding companies are among the most adaptable businesses out there. In recent years holdcos like Publicis, WPP and Omnicom-IPG have stretched our notions of what an agency business even is exactly.

Publicis recommends some clients ditch The Trade Desk; ChatGPT reconsiders its “unlimited” enterprise subscription; and how NYC’s Washington Square Park became an influencer hub.

Jeff Green doubles down on OpenPath’s value; Amazon wants Perplexity to disable agentic shopping; and the creator economy takes on political fundraising.

It can be hard to measure the effect of advertising on in-person sales. Men’s Wearhouse partnered with measurement agency Ovative to see what was working.

The divergence between the DSPs reveals shifting buy-side priorities. Advertisers have grown wary of how The Trade Desk earns margin, where its algorithm steers inventory and how these strategies compete with buyer goals.