The Trade Desk integrates connected TV buying and measurement directly into its platform

In response to the increasing inventory supply available to advertisers through connected TV (CTV) as more consumers become “cord-cutters,” The Trade Desk is rolling its connected TV-buying capabilities directly into the demand-side platform. The update means buyers can use first- and third-party audience data for targeting and measure video ad buys across screens — mobile, desktop and TV — using both digital and traditional TV metrics.

The demand-side platform (DSP) also enables advertisers to retarget addressable connected TV ad viewers across other devices programmatically.

The Trade Desk has offered connected TV buying services for some time, but deals were executed in a one-to-one framework. “It had been in a silo deal-based environment,” said Tim Sims, SVP of inventory partnerships at The Trade Desk, in a phone interview. “Now Connected TV is fully integrated into the platform to help advertisers understand their audiences across all screens. Advertisers are able to activate first-party audiences against connected TV and stitch [ad exposures across screens] together to understand the impact of omnichannel messaging to consumers.”

Sims sees global opportunity for programmatic omnichannel video as more connected TV inventory becomes available. “We are seeing inventory on-boarding from more and more broadcasters in the past nine to 12 months to programmatic. The long-term opportunity for connected TV is why we are seeing more adoption by broadcasters. As the audience starts to shift to consumption of long-form video content, people are thinking more about programmatic and addressable opportunities. We are seeing re-entry or first-time entry into the ecosystem of inventory sources.”

The Trade Desk has integrations with on-demand and live-streaming inventory sources from broadcasters and over-the-top (OTT) services such as Scripps Networks Interactive and Sling TV.

Integrations with Nielsen enable traditional media buyers to understand incremental reach and cost per point (CPP) generated by connected TV campaigns. Advertisers can measure the impact of their video campaigns across screens with metrics including video completion rate, gross rating points (GRPs) and view-through conversions.

The Trade Desk customers, such as WPP-owned Xaxis media buying and planning agency Mediasmith, are able to execute addressable audience targeting across all video inventory sources from the platform.

“By making CTV inventory available within the platform, The Trade Desk makes it easy for us to apply the same targeting parameters from our desktop and mobile video buys to CTV campaigns,” said Marcus Pratt, VP of insights and technology at Mediasmith.

“Extending programmatic to TV has always been our goal,” said Max Jaffe, SVP of North America trading and operations at Xaxis, in a statement, “but the challenge was finding the same users in TV that we were reaching online. Connected TV targeting changes that. We can now focus commercials on specific households — at scale — using our own custom data segments inside The Trade Desk platform.”

With this update, The Trade Desk joins the ranks of other omnichannel and specialized DSPs that are integrating programmatic connected TV buying into the mix. Addressable TV ad spend in the US is expected to top $2 billion in 2018, up from roughly $900 million in 2016, according to eMarketer.