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The Trade Desk

The Trade Desk

Overview

What is The Trade Desk?

The Trade Desk is the eponymous flagship product from the company headquartered in Ventura California, a demand-side / data management hybrid platform (DSP / DMP).

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

The Trade Desk has become a preferred choice for managing programmatic advertising campaigns, allowing users to develop data-driven media …
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Great DSP

7 out of 10
July 12, 2022
Incentivized
The Trade Desk is a fantastic DSP that can be used to extend your reach on branding and performance campaigns worldwide. We have found …
Continue reading

Programmatic Juggernaut

9 out of 10
September 18, 2020
Incentivized
The Trade Desk is a great programmatic partner. We have used them to run mobile and desktop campaigns. They helped us run campaigns on …
Continue reading

Great value

10 out of 10
September 17, 2020
Incentivized
Marketing dollars are extremely limited and The Trade Desk allows us the visibility and metrics to spend them wisely. We believe we have a …
Continue reading
Read all reviews
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Product Demos

Demo Day 14:The Trade Desk

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The Trade Desk Showing A Lot Of Reasons To Buy

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How To Use and Find RainBarrel Audiences within The Trade Desk

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Product Details

What is The Trade Desk?

The Trade Desk offers a self-service, cloud-based platform that enables ad buyers to create, manage, optimize and measure advertising campaigns across ad formats and devices. Integrations with hundreds of leading global data, inventory, and publisher partners ensure maximum reach and decisioning capabilities, and enterprise APIs enable custom development on top of the platform.

The Trade Desk's technology offers advertisers audience scale and reach, evaluating more than 13 million impressions and quadrillions of permutations across the open internet every single second. The platform's goals-based buying allows advertisers to set multiple KPIs, with transparency into performance and the ability to optimize campaigns in-flight. Advertisers on the platform can also leverage a data marketplace to inform and measure their ad campaigns against actual online and offline business results.

The Trade Desk states they excel in Connected TV and Retail Media, as well as emerging programmatic channels like audio, digital-out-of-home, and gaming. To help marketers understand the rapidly evolving and complex world of data-driven advertising, The Trade Desk also offers Edge Academy certification courses.

Founded in 2009 in Ventura, California, The Trade Desk (Nasdaq: TTD) has more than 1,800 employees in 26 offices across 12 countries in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. The vendor states their clients include many of the biggest brands and largest advertising agencies in the world, and they boast client retention above 95% for the past seven years, due too their client service and technology.

The Trade Desk Video

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The Trade Desk Competitors

The Trade Desk Technical Details

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Frequently Asked Questions

The Trade Desk is the eponymous flagship product from the company headquartered in Ventura California, a demand-side / data management hybrid platform (DSP / DMP).

Amobee Marketing Platform are common alternatives for The Trade Desk.

The most common users of The Trade Desk are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(19)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

The Trade Desk has become a preferred choice for managing programmatic advertising campaigns, allowing users to develop data-driven media plans and analyze target audiences. With its DMP capabilities, users have found it useful in developing customer audiences and efficiently managing campaigns on behalf of their clients. Its integration with third-party reporting dashboards also enables users to import performance data and provide comprehensive programmatic performance reports. Digital marketing agencies, especially those serving automotive dealerships, have relied on The Trade Desk to manage display advertising campaigns, leveraging its wide reach and exclusive inventory to run user acquisition and retargeting campaigns worldwide. Additionally, the platform's adaptability to various metrics and excellent performance across different GEOs make it an ideal choice for extending the reach of branding and performance campaigns. As a result, users have praised The Trade Desk for its technology and vast reach, which have led to good CPAs and ROI.

Advanced and Comprehensive Programmatic Media Tools: Many users have found The Trade Desk to offer a full suite of advanced and comprehensive programmatic media tools. This has allowed them to effectively optimize bidding across various factors, resulting in increased win rates and successful campaign performance.

Data Management Technology: Several reviewers have praised the data management technology provided by The Trade Desk. They appreciate its continuous improvement and evolution in the industry, which enables better targeting and more effective ad campaigns.

Wide Reach and Global Coverage: A common positive sentiment expressed by users is the wide reach and global coverage offered by The Trade Desk. This allows for reaching a wide audience through cookie matching, expanding campaign reach, improving user engagement, and achieving successful campaigns in various regions.

Lack of Pricing Transparency: Some users have expressed dissatisfaction with the pricing structure of The Trade Desk, stating that it is not very transparent in terms of margins and fees.

Limited Reporting Features: Several reviewers have mentioned that the reporting provided by The Trade Desk is somewhat limited and could be improved in terms of clarity and granularity. They feel that more detailed and customizable reporting options would greatly enhance their experience with the software.

Usability Issues: A number of users have found The Trade Desk to be less user-friendly compared to other platforms. They have expressed a need for faster support via email and have suggested that the platform could benefit from additional data providers.

Users commonly recommend the following about The Trade Desk:

  1. Reach out to The Trade Desk's support staff for any doubts or questions about the service. Users appreciate the great support provided by the team.

  2. Be cautious of inconsistencies when attributing DMA to conversion or activity through 3PAS on The Trade Desk platform. Addressing this issue would lead to better accuracy and reliability.

  3. Consider that The Trade Desk is an expensive but premium and powerful tool for programmatic advertising. It is recommended for those who require an advanced tool with strong integrations, reporting, analytics, and data capabilities.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-7 of 7)
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July 12, 2022

Great DSP

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Trade Desk is a fantastic DSP that can be used to extend your reach on branding and performance campaigns worldwide. We have found them to have exclusive inventory and vast reach and that has allowed us to run user acquisition and retargeting campaigns to add to the DSP mix that we are already using.
  • Unique ID to track users across the web.
  • Different bidding techniques.
  • Premium supply.
  • Reporting not granular enough.
  • Not transparent on their take rate.
  • Lots of CTV inventory.
The Trade Desk works especially well for CTV campaigns in the US. Even though you can run mobile campaigns, their focus on the last few years has been on connected TV and that is why they have a lot of premium inventory. I would not recommend running desktop campaigns with them as it is not their primary focus.
Phil Parrish | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
The Trade Desk is our agency's preferred demand-side platform and data management platform to manage our clients' programmatic advertising campaigns. We use The Trade Desk (TTD) across our Client Services department. We have licensed TTD's platform since 2015. We use TTD to develop data-driven media plans for our clients - this includes developing an analysis of the best ways to target our clients' audience(s) and to forecast available impressions, CPM rates, and the optimal allocation of media budget across a variety of targeting tactics. Our Client Services department develops customer audiences in TTD's DMP. We then set up and manage campaigns and the underlying ad groups in a "full service" capacity for our clients. We use a third-party reporting dashboard that imports performance data from TTD to report on programmatic performance for our clients.
  • RTB media buying technology
  • Full suite of programmatic media tools for ad agencies
  • Advanced bid and budget management technology
  • Data management technology that's improving/evolving
  • Industry leading bidding technology and optimization grains
  • Access to the most third-party data in the industry
  • Open source technology with API integrations with the most third-party platforms
  • Ad impression and media spend forecasting tools
  • More hands-on sales support for agency clients
  • Media spend threshold incentives for agency clients
  • Advancing/improving the DMP product
After extensive research of DSP and DMP platforms in the market, our agency made the wise decision to license TTD's platform and develop a long-term partnership. TTD continues to innovate and offer cutting-edge media buying solutions, access to more audience data segments, and access to new and emerging media channels like CTV/OTT and digital-out-of-home. We couldn't be happier with TTD's technology and is one of the most advanced agency users of TTD is a key differentiator for our agency.
September 18, 2020

Programmatic Juggernaut

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Trade Desk is a great programmatic partner. We have used them to run mobile and desktop campaigns. They helped us run campaigns on different GEOs across the globe. Their level of service is really good and they have a unique supply which helps us achieve our client goals, no matter if they are brand goals or performance targets.
  • They provide a unified ID that allows you to identify users across the web.
  • Their performance algorithms work really well, meaning campaigns usually hit their desired CPA.
  • Plenty of reach across the globe in all GEOs.
  • More data providers.
  • I would love to get faster support via email.
  • The platform is not very easy to use.
The Trade Desk works very hand in hand with agencies and they are suited for performance and branding as well. However, it is still hard to merge that data on an independent ad server and centralize it on an independent reporting hub to understand the full customer journey with search, programmatic, and social.
September 17, 2020

Great value

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Marketing dollars are extremely limited and The Trade Desk allows us the visibility and metrics to spend them wisely. We believe we have a good ROI here. They have been a good programmatic resource for our many campaigns. We leverage their technology and breadth of reach to penetrate our target markets. The Trade Desk has been useful and adaptable to a variety of metrics we like to monitor for each campaign. It appears to do well in digital marketing among the top paid search engines. Although we don't yet have experience in using it in secondary markets, we look forward to expanding its usage to meet the growing needs of our diverse company. Usage began in just our USA division, but we expect to begin rolling it out to other divisions and countries soon.
  • User engagement - Cookie matching provides better engagement and effectiveness
  • Reporting of campaigns - Great reporting on display advertising & platforms
  • Dashboard reporting - Scalable to global deployment & campaigns
  • Look and feel could be updated. Ease of navigation and dashboard could improve.
  • Improve clarity on fees and other costs
We are a large company, but The Trade Desk seems like it would also work well for small companies. In our limited deployment, we focused on the USA market and Digital Marketing, but we see this platform working for global markets, multi-language, and across all paid search engines. They provide great user engagement and dashboard reporting to help us manage each campaign in real-time. The Trade Desk seems to do all of these things well and would work for most companies. I have yet to see a campaign and/or executive initiative that The Trade Desk can't handle. We have had a favorable experience and believe it has met every objective we have.
John Kobel | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are a Digital Marketing Agency serving Automotive Dealerships across the United States. We manage all of their digital marketing--paid search in Google, Bing, and Yahoo, Facebook, and of course Display Advertising. We used The Trade Desk to manage all the Display advertising for our clients. We were given an agency-level account and were able to manage all of our clients' accounts under it.
  • Manage multiple client accounts for Display Advertising
  • Manage multiple clients' Display Advertising across an array of Display Platforms
  • We were also able to manage clients' Video and Native Advertising Campaigns
  • I honestly can say that The Trade Desk hit all the marks on their offerings.
  • There is not really anything negative about The Trade Desk.
  • The only minor point would be the pricing as they charge a %, which needs to be added to clients' costs.
As with all SaaS platforms, there is a steep learning curve, but if you take the time to really learn its functionality and processes, The Trade Desk can be a real life-saver when it comes to managing multiple client campaigns for Video, Display, and Native advertising across multiple display platforms.
Gabriela Band | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Trade Desk is a great partner and we have worked together on a number of campaigns. They work as our programmatic arm and they are a great DSP that leverages their technology to achieve very good CPAs while taking advantage of their vast reach. We have never encountered any problems working with them.
  • Their technology is very good. We have gotten great results working with them.
  • They have vast coverage across the globe.
  • They are able to do cookie matching, vastly increasing the reach of the campaigns.
  • They are not very transparent in terms of margins and fees.
  • They need to get more video inventory, there is not enough.
  • The reporting they provide is a bit limited.
The Trade Desk is best suited for campaigns that are performance oriented. They are able to provide good CTRs and low CPAs. I would not use them for branding as those kinds of campaigns mostly need connected TV inventory as wells as videos and there are better alternatives in the market for that niche.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
TheTradeDesk is being used by one department to extend the reach of our campaigns. We buy media against our first party audience pixels to gather additional insights about our users and expand our mono-lingual network into a bilingual network.

TheTradeDesk allows us deliver our campaigns in full at scale often focusing on in-view targeting metrics.
  • Allows you to very optimize and control bidding across pretty much every factor that impacts win rate/delivery.
  • Engaged, hands-on account services team is readily available to provide insights, demonstrations, and quality assurance.
  • Auto-optimization and pacing tools allow for less manual campaign management.
  • Reporting platform leaves a lot to be desired. Requires a lot of trial/error to pull exactly what you need to drive optimizations/learnings.
  • The "stop"/"continue bidding" feature for sitelists, devices, player sizes, etc is awful. When you set something up specifically, you should not have the AUTOMATIC option to serve beyond those parameters.
  • Trafficking video (VAST/VPAID) tags requires a manual insertion of a click URL. Completely redundant ask and is not provided by advertisers as that URL lives within the ad tag. Should not require multiple actions traffic a video tag.
  • Creative approval process (manual) doesn't seem necessary and is not a part of peers' platforms. There is no "pause/deactivate" feature for creative, you remove them or adjust the end date.
All programmatic buying of media online can be done in TheTradeDesk which is why we brought it in-house. The option to go into CTV and podcast environments is of future interest.

We are able to launch campaigns faster in other platforms (DataXu, in particular) so if time is critical we do not start here. From a creative approval to meaningful spend in Day 1, TheTradeDesk is outperformed by DataXu.
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