TTD's Innovations This Quarter Set the Stage for Long-Term Growth

As the advertising landscape undergoes rapid transformation, driven by AI, privacy-safe identity and the rise of the open Internet, The Trade Desk, Inc. TTD, with its strategic roadmap, appears well-positioned to accelerate its growth trajectory heading into 2026. TTD reported third-quarter revenues of $739 million, an 18% increase year over year, driven by strong digital demand. Growth continues to be fueled by new Kokai platform innovations that enable smarter, data-driven ad buying.

In the ongoing fourth quarter, management introduced three major innovations—a platform upgrade and two new products set to fuel its long-term growth engine. TTD has revamped its data marketplace, updating its mechanics, incentives and overall dynamics. The outcome is a more competitive, AI-driven platform with richer data, more segments and better rewards for high-quality contributors.

For the next innovation, it launched Audience Unlimited this quarter, a single-fee model that lets users access and layer third-party data more freely, making it easier to enrich and boost campaign performance. Lastly, it is launching Trading Modes, similar to car driving modes, letting buyers choose how hands-on they want to be—either maintaining more control or leaning on automated performance optimization. In both modes, agentic AI acts as a co-pilot, adapting its involvement to deliver the best results. This feature is expected to accelerate AI adoption across the platform.

Koa Adaptive Trading Modes, powered by agentic AI, are designed to maximize the benefits of Audience Unlimited by providing flexibility tailored to campaign needs, allowing advertisers to choose between performance and control. Audience Unlimited and Koa Adaptive Trading Modes will be introduced to select agencies on The Trade Desk’s Kokai platform in late 2025, with general availability expected for early 2026.

As Kokai adoption expands, along with growth in CTV and retail media, increased global support for UID2 and strong client retention, the company remains well-positioned to capture market share in 2026, despite broader macroeconomic uncertainties and rising competition from Magnite, Inc. MGNI and Taboola.com Inc. TBLA.

How are Market Rivals Keeping Pace With TTD?

Magnite operates as a leading supply-side platform (SSP), helping publishers manage and monetize their ad inventory across channels, including streaming, online video, display and audio. It delivered a strong third quarter, driven by standout CTV growth of 18% ex-TAC, or 25% excluding political spend, surpassing expectations. DV+ also performed well, meeting guidance. Within CTV, ClearLine, buyer marketplaces and live sports continue to be key areas of strength. In November, MGNI launched Live Scheduler, an industry-first tool that lets media owners plan, activate and measure ads around live events like sports or political debates using a standardized system that turns real-time moments into scalable ad opportunities.

Taboola is a global leader in performance advertising, helping businesses grow across the open web. Realize, Taboola’s new performance advertising platform, expands the company’s reach beyond native advertising into broader performance markets like display and social. Taboola is enhancing Realize with new Generative AI features, delivering measurable results for advertisers. Realize operates like Google Ads or Meta Ads, offering an easy-to-use, AI-powered platform. Unlike Google’s search or Meta’s social reach, Realize connects with 600 million people daily across top open web partners like Yahoo, NBC, ESPN and Apple News. Its edge comes from AI and first-party data based on real user interests, giving advertisers authentic insights and stronger results.

TTD’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of TTD have declined 72.3% in the past year against the Zacks Internet -Services industry and S&P 500 composites’ rise of 75.2% and 15.4%, respectively.

In terms of forward price/earnings, TTD’s shares are trading at 31.16X, higher than the Internet Services industry’s 29.43X.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for TTD’s earnings for 2025 has gone up over the past 60 days.

TTD currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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