蘑菇AV

At The Trade Desk鈥檚 FWD25 event, executives detailed how they鈥檙e using direct consumer relationships to enhance targeting, measurement, and personalization in a privacy-first era. Early adoption pays off: The New York Times is reaping the benefits of having abandoned third-party cookies well before industry-wide deprecation and pursuing a first-party data strategy.

The news: Virtual product placement startup Rembrand has raised $23 million in Series A funding led by super{set}, with participation from The Trade Desk, Naver D2SF, and L'Or茅al's venture fund BOLD, bringing its total funding to $31 million.

In March, Disney announced that Disney+ and Hulu inventory would be made available programmatically via The Trade Desk (TTD). In September, news broke that TTD was working on a CTV operating system. The OS, Ventura, was officially announced in November. Our take. Expect 2025 to be just as eventful in the digital arena鈥攚ith the same thorough analysis from our analysts in the year to come.

Roku, Disney, and The Trade Desk are just some of the large CTV players fueling growth in this vital segment of off-site retail media. Retail media CTV will make up 39.4% of off-site retail media ad spending in 2024. Retail media CTV ad spending will more than double from 2024 to 2028. The figure will go from $4.19 billion in 2024, to $10.44 billion in 2028.

CTV ad inventory is sold by streaming services (e.g., Netflix, Disney+), programmatic platforms (e.g., The Trade Desk, FreeWheel), and manufacturers of connected devices and smart TVs (e.g., Roku, Samsung)鈥攏ot to mention countless resellers. This complicates cross-platform measurement. Nielsen鈥檚 analogue panel-based measurement struggled to keep up with audience fragmentation.

The Trade Desk. World Economic Forum.

Google might not be willing to switch its smart TVs to Roku鈥檚 OS (an issue The Trade Desk will face as it enters the sector). Still, Roku鈥檚 suite of content that appeals to broad audiences has been enough to bring the two companies to the table.

Netflix also teamed up with leading ad tech partners like The Trade Desk, Google, and Magnite to bolster programmatic ad offerings and reach premium advertisers with better targeting. To improve measurement, Netflix partnered with firms iSpot and TVision, complementing existing relationships with Nielsen and other analytics companies. These additions aim to improve insights and campaign effectiveness.

In-game advertising will maintain solid growth over the next few years, but its share of digital ad spending will decline, despite heightened brand interest.

CVS partnered with The Trade Desk and Vibenomics to offer self-service audio ads to shoppers in 6,900 stores. 7-Eleven plans to expand its Gulp Radio network to 5,000 stores by the end of 2024, and to all 12,000+ 7-Eleven, Speedway, and Stripes locations nationwide by the end of next year.

To reinvigorate its retail media capabilities, it also debuted a self-service ad partnership with The Trade Desk. 7. Lidl. Since launching in the US in 2017, grocer Lidl has struggled with brand confusion with fellow discount European grocer Aldi. A new marketing campaign is reintroducing the brand to US customers.

Major CTV players like Roku have struck deals with The Trade Desk to broaden their data pools in hopes that even more highly targeted ads will deliver greater revenues. The Trade Desk itself is looking to get into the CTV operating system market, setting it up to have a significant advantage due to its wealth of personal data.

While its ad business has yet to be a major revenue driver, it continues to build scale and attract more advertisers, with deals made through major programmatic marketplaces like Google Display & Video 360 and The Trade Desk. The company is experimenting with shoppable content in shows like 鈥淓mily in Paris,鈥� which could become a new revenue stream if consumers embrace it.

The Disney ad server, reappropriated from Hulu, plays a critical role in this transition, enabling direct connections with partners like Google and The Trade Desk for better data exchange and audience activation.

Roku's decision to open its first-party data to demand-side platforms like The Trade Desk signals a potential shift away from walled gardens in the connected TV (CTV) space. This move may pressure other streaming platforms to follow suit, potentially transforming the CTV advertising landscape.

The Trade Desk. TikTok.

But because some CTV display placements are sold by device manufacturers (e.g., Samsung, LG, Roku) and ad tech partners (e.g., The Trade Desk, Microsoft, FreeWheel), most streamers are categorized as open web under our definition. One notable exception: YouTube, which will represent about a third of programmatic CTV ad spending this year.

鈥淓very brand with valuable first-party data has the potential to become a media network,鈥� said Ellen Mulryan, senior director of retail data partnerships at The Trade Desk. Our take: As third-party data becomes scarcer, brands that collect data can use it to sell ads through commerce media platforms. Expect more commerce media launches and partnerships in the coming months.

鈥淎nd we鈥檝e done research with The Trade Desk, and they verified that 50% of our customers aren't included in some third-party demo segments.鈥�. Dollar General鈥檚 stores are somewhat small, making it easier for shoppers to get in and out鈥攁nd for DG Media Network to leverage in-store audio to boost discovery.

So something that happened in this past quarter was that Spotify launched a supply side platform for buying video ad space and it has a major ad industry partner in The Trade Desk, which runs one of the leading demand side or buy side platforms.

Google operates in a competitive ad tech market with Meta, Amazon, TikTok, and emerging DSPs and SSPs from The Trade Desk, Magnite, and Xandr, demonstrating a thriving, multiplayer market. The growth of display advertising and programmatic tools highlights continuing innovation and competition across social media, retail, and mobile platforms, contradicting monopoly claims.

Earlier this month, Ad Age reported that The Trade Desk was planning to develop a CTV operating system and could possibly acquire an established player. Our take: The rapid pace of CTV ad innovation highlights a scramble between players for dominance of the promising ad channel.

To this end, The Trade Desk (TTD), a demand-side platform and steward of the Unified ID 2.0, has partnered with cloud provider Snowflake and data marketplace tech vendor Narrative to enable secure, turnkey data collaboration and activation. Ad tech consolidation is coming. The programmatic market is overdue for a cycle of consolidation among ad tech vendors.

The Trade Desk. YouGov.