On June 6, The Trade Desk convened over 4,000 marketing leaders virtually and in-person to unveil our bold new collaborative approach to product innovation, now known as Kokai. Our CEO, Jeff Green, announced the launch of a number of exciting new features, and gave a preview of what’s in store for the coming months. In case you missed it, here are some highlights.
“We have to partner with each other. I believe that’s the only way the open internet can win.”
Jeff Green
CEO, The Trade Desk
1. We’re here to help you maximize your first-party data
We have always prioritized building and maintaining trust around first-party data, enabling you to leverage your own data effectively. We recently launched Galileo, an all-in-one customer relationship management (CRM) data solution to help you easily onboard, activate, and extend your first-party data with Unified ID 2.0 (UID2). Galileo has made it easier than ever to utilize first-party data, with over half of our platform’s marketers already using it. By harnessing the concept of seeds — concentrated insights about existing customers — you can unlock the potential for growth by allowing our platform to find similar audiences.
Our focus is on leveraging data to its fullest potential, expanding its scope and embracing an audience-centric approach in our platform, while still offering you power and control over your inventory selection, with the ultimate goal of advancing the open internet.
2. Galileo got an upgrade
The upgraded version of Galileo offers exciting enhancements, including 14 new data partners and 7 new customer data platform (CDP) and clean room partners, along with significant improvements that make leveraging first-party data easier than ever, providing compelling reasons for advertisers to utilize it.
3. We have a new Partner Portal
Our partners are core to our business and value proposition. Over the last two quarters alone, we have completed over 450 partner integrations — with 52 data partners, 54 inventory partners, and over 300 platform API integrations.
We wanted to make it easier for clients and partners to integrate with us. So with Kokai, we launched our new Partner Portal, which offers an improved experience for developers and data scientists that streamlines the integration process with supplemental materials for building to our APIs in a centralized hub, while providing better assistance to our valued partners.
With the Partner Portal, we are ultimately opening up our platform to make it easier than ever for all of our clients and partners to plug into our platform with as little friction as possible.
4. We’re committed to creating a cleaner supply chain
We want to establish an effective and transparent supply chain built on what we value: cleanliness and integrity. To that end, we prioritize buying inventory with global placement ID, proper labeling, and a higher probability of viewability, helping improve effectiveness for our advertisers.
OpenPath — which offers clients direct and transparent access to inventory from leading premium publishers — just celebrated its first birthday. OpenPath plays a pivotal role in creating a cleaner supply chain. To date, we have offered over 11,000 destination sites, apps, and channels across the top 20 sellers that aggregate domains across the internet. Over the next year, we expect to be at 100.
Right now we have deals in the works in United States, Canada, Japan, Indonesia, Korea, New Zealand, the U.K., Spain, and Germany — many of which include Connected TV (CTV), extending our direct connections to inventory beyond display and video to include streaming.
5. Human and machine: You can harness the power of AI with Koa™
AI has become a fundamental part of The Trade Desk’s platform and will continue to shape our capabilities for the long term. Since Koa’s release in 2018, our philosophy for AI has always been that it does not replace users and the humans leveraging our platform — it makes them better and more efficient.
Koa, your new and improved copilot, uses deep learning models to process complex data sets much more quickly so it can provide optimizations and recommendations that complement trader insights, hypotheses, and business rules — enhancing your ability to execute while maintaining your sense of transparency and control.
With Kokai, our new UI will streamline your inputs to give you more control and maximize context for Koa. That way, Koa can optimize to more strategic dimensions in the form of relevance scoring, performance prediction, real-time decision-making, campaign optimization, and budget prioritization.
6. Every advertiser should have an identity strategy
A strong identity strategy is essential for advertisers worldwide to connect their data and marketing efforts effectively. We recently launched UnifiedID.com, an open-source project facilitating collaboration within the community, providing convenient access to resources and software development kits (SDKs) for UID2.
We’ve also expanded developments in UID2 that enable advertisers to leverage their data securely without it ever leaving their environment, ensuring privacy and control.
Exciting advancements in European Unified ID (EUID) aim to align with GDPR principles and empower consumers with privacy ownership, including the right to be forgotten. And anchoring data practices around something like EUID can help uphold user preferences and privacy. More EUID announcements are to come later this summer.
7. You can unify your measurement with the Retail Sales Index
The Retail Sales Index is our way of bringing objective measurement to the open internet. When you opt in to letting us add relevant retail audience segments to help you achieve your campaign goals, you now also receive added-value retail sales measurement with participating major retailers. This innovative product allows you to understand the revenue impact of your media buys and track sales across retailers, all in one place.
8. Not all content is created equal
The TV Quality Index (TVQI) is a valuable tool that addresses the measurement challenges in the advertising space, particularly considering the distinction between different types of content. By pinpointing the value of professionally produced content and showcasing the importance of premium content, you can shape your budget accordingly and justify the incremental costs associated with digital advertising.
Now generally available with insights surfaced directly in platform, TVQI is a free tool that provides additional signal for optimization, especially in the context of CTV, where traditional metrics, like clicks, may not be applicable. With every 10-point increase in TVQI, we see conversion rates increase by an average of 15 percent.
9. Not all reach is created equal, either
Relevance is crucial in advertising, and so is measuring that relevance. While there are effective reach measurement products for TV, the need extends beyond traditional channels.
With our new Quality Reach Index, you can quantify the quality of your reach beyond demographics, enabling you to understand the true impact of your advertising on your customer base and to make more informed decisions.
For those investing in omnichannel strategies, start with more relevant reach at the top of the funnel — the ones who are most likely to convert — and then drive those qualified customers down the funnel. This can help you achieve stronger lower-funnel results across your performance-based channels like display and mobile.
10. You can balance simplicity and power in our transformed user experience
At The Trade Desk, we strive to develop a user interface that is both intuitive and powerful, maximizing your value and control while minimizing any overwhelming complexity.
Later this summer, we’ll be releasing significant UI/UX updates that will enhance your user experience and decision-making process. With the introduction of our shopping-cart functionality, you’ll see a real-time impact analysis of the changes you’re making on things like relevance, expressiveness, budgeting, and forecasting at the top right of every page.
AI-powered forecasting will allow you to make informed decisions before taking action. Additionally, an upgraded interface will be rolled out gradually, aiming to provide a powerful and transformative experience for platform users.
The new paradigm of a programmatic periodic table will serve as the centerpiece — an intuitive cockpit, guiding you through all aspects of campaign setup, execution, and measurement, with all the relevant data right next to every decision. And reports will be cached, eliminating the waiting time and enabling you to optimize more effectively.
Kokai is more than just another product launch — it’s our new approach to collaborative innovation, an entirely new blueprint for maximizing value on the open internet.
Weren’t able to join? Don’t worry, you can watch our 12-minute recap video or a replay of the event in its entirety here.