By Ronan Shields<\/a><\/span> \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 February 12, 2025<\/span> \u00a0\u2022<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n Ivy Liu <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n The Trade Desk saw its stock price plunge by as much as 26% after it issued its first-ever quarterly earnings miss, i.e., its market capitalization lost billions of dollars of value despite double-digit growth. <\/p>\n It was the first in its eight-year run on the public markets, with CEO Jeff Green keen to show his company was grabbing the nettle by outlining a \u201c15-point action item list\u201d on The Trade Desk\u2019s subsequent earnings call. <\/p>\n The independent ad tech talisman posted Q4 revenues of $741 million \u2013\u00a0its earlier guidance was for $756 million \u2013\u00a0representing a 23% revenue increase (full-year revenues were $2.4 billion, up 26%), but its stock price dipped from just above $122 to $92 per share in the minutes after this disclosure.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reality is that we stumbled into a series of small execution missteps,\u201d Green said, \u201cas companies grow and become increasingly complex, they need recalibration to unlock new opportunities.\u201d <\/p>\n Below is an outline of some of the key areas identified by Green and The Trade Desk\u2019s leadership as they seek to return the outfit to its earlier growth acceleration, with company leadership claiming this pursuit involved the biggest organizational overhaul in its history recently. <\/p>\n Recent structural changes have seen the company streamline its reporting structure, with its priorities including more face-time with brands. \u201cSome teams focus on brands, while others focus on agencies,\u201d said Green. \u201cOur commitment to agencies remains strong, but we are also expanding brand direct relationships, particularly through joint business plans.\u201d<\/p>\n Pursuing joint business plans or \u201cJBPs\u201d directly with brands is a public change that will likely require a political balancing act given its core customer constituency of media agencies, many of whom are eager to guard their powerbroker status<\/a> on Madison Avenue. <\/p>\n \u201cThey [JBPs] grow about 50% faster than the rest of our business,\u201d added Green. \u201cBrands will generally continue to work with agencies, but they also understand that programmatic is becoming a larger and more important element of their campaign plan. As a result, programmatic decision-making is happening at a higher and higher level within brands.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of the \u201cmissteps\u201d that caused the Q4 miss was the slower-than-expected uptake of its Kokai platform, a panel that media planning teams use to execute campaigns, i.e., spend their ad dollars on The Trade Desk. <\/p>\n Green pointed out how \u201cthis slowed us down,\u201d noting the drag on its Q4 performance as clients moved away from its legacy platform more slowly than it had anticipated, meaning it effectively had two platforms to support. The coming year will see accelerated migration efforts from The Trade Desk to reduce this duplication.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, The Trade Desk\u2019s leadership spoke of how its continued investment in technology, with the term \u201cAI\u201d used liberally at this juncture, presumably for Wall Street investors eager to hear such buzz phrases. <\/p>\n More specifically, Green mentioned how its planned TV OS Ventura<\/a> was intended to \u201ccreate a better supply chain for all,\u201d including media owners and advertisers. <\/p>\n Furthermore, it offered more insight into its\u00a0planned purchase of Sincera<\/a>, adding how the \u201cmetadata company\u201d will aid its quest further to hone its buying activities on the open internet. \u201cOur work with Sincera will accelerate a cleaner supply chain for the open internet and accelerate the work of Openpath,\u201d added Green.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Given that much of the narrative that helped The Trade Desk reach its multi-billion dollar valuation, comparisons with Google are often made. <\/p>\n Speaking with analysts, Green moved to assuage investor anguish by reminding them how his team believed verdicts in its multiple pending ad tech antitrust trials would see it slide out of its competitive purview (to a large extent) in the near future.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are preparing for a world where Google exits the open internet,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m confident that one way or another, Google will exit the open; I think they should; most of their antitrust and regulatory problems come from the draconian ways they have engaged with the open internet in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/digiday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/03\/trade-desk-digiday.jpg?w=1030&h=579&crop=1\")
<\/p>\nIncrease brand-direct efforts <\/h2>\n
AI and platform investments <\/h2>\n
Green is certain Google will \u2018exit the open internet\u2019<\/h2>\n