The Trade Desk


The Trade Desk Inc is a global technology company that markets a software platform used by digital ad buyers to purchase data-driven digital advertising campaigns across various ad formats and devices.
Founded and headquartered in Ventura, California, TTD is the largest independent demand-side platform providing real-time ad pricing and placement for advertisers at agencies and brands. The company’s self-service software platform includes integrations with data, inventory, and publisher partners; enterprise APIs facilitate custom development on the platform.

History

The Trade Desk was co-founded in 2009 by Jeff Green, the company's chairman and CEO, and David R. "Dave" Pickles, its chief technology officer. The partners had met at Microsoft, where Pickles worked, after it acquired Green’s real-time, online auction advertising company, AdECN, in 2007.
In 2012, the company was included as an alpha partner in Facebook’s launch of the real-time bidding advertising platform, Facebook Exchange.
In 2015, The Trade Desk was named among the top 10 of America’s Most Promising Companies by Forbes; Green and Pickles were also named Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of The Year 2015 in the Greater Los Angeles region.
In 2017, The Trade Desk became one of the originators of the OpenRTB SupplyChain, which provides transparency in programmatic buying, enabling buyers to see all selling or reselling parties to a bid request.
In 2018, The Trade Desk launched new AI tools: Koa, an AI forecast engine; Megagon user interface; and The Trade Desk Planner, for mapping strategies. That year, the company also introduced its proprietary unified ID solution, as a free universal cookie identification service. In 2018, The Trade Desk was also ranked #2 among the 100 Best Medium Workplaces 2018 by Fortune.
In September 2019, The Trade Desk launched an advertising campaign, “Media for Humankind,” to position itself as a “more transparent digital advertising” alternative to Google and Facebook.

Operations

The Trade Desk is the largest, independent programmatic advertising DSP for digital media buyers in the world. Through its real-time bidding technology platform, media buyers can target specific audiences with customized interactions across a variety of formats and devices.
The Trade Desk platform facilitates purchases of digital media on various media networks and sell-side platforms; users can manage digital advertising campaigns in real-time. Enhancements include integration of proprietary first-party and third-party data to optimize campaign efficacy, and a user interface and APIs to build proprietary technology on top of The Trade Desk’s platform.
In 2017, The Trade Desk integrated connected TV buying and measurement directly into its platform; acquired marketing insights firm AdBrain; and partnered with fraud prevention firm White Ops to block fraudulent ad traffic prior to purchase.
In July 2019, Amazon opened connected TV Apps integrated with Amazon Publisher Services, enabling the purchase of ad inventory for third-party TV content provider The Trade Desk, through Amazon Fire TV devices.
As of December 31, 2018, The Trade Desk employed over 634 people in the United States, with a total of 944 personnel in 23 offices worldwide. As of October 10, 2019, The Trade Desk had 1,200 employees in 23 offices in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.
The Trade Desk launched its programmatic ad buying platform in China, in 2019, facilitating access to Chinese media companies, such as Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu Exchange Services.

Financial

The Trade Desk launched its IPO September 21, 2016, with an initial stock price of $18.00; its IPO closing market price gained to $30.10 per share.
TTD's opening day was reported as a "vote of confidence for the demand-side platform, whose S1 filing revealed healthy financials: Triple digit revenue growth and profitability — rare in a sector that is seeing much of its growth chomped away by the duopoly Google and Facebook." TTD has been cited as one of the best-performing stocks in the market,
with its stocks trading at nearly 14 times the IPO price three years later.
In 2017, revenue rose 52 percent to $308 million. In September 2018, the firm had a market cap of $6.2 billion, which doubled to $12.37 billion by 2020. Revenue for 2018 rose to $477 million. In 2019, third-quarter revenue was reported as $164 million, attributed to the growth of connected TV advertising. The Trade Desk finished 2019 with a record total spend on the platform of $3.1 billion.