Can Trade Desk's OpenAds Make Media Supply Chains Healthier?

The Trade Desk, Inc. (TTD) recently announced broad support from publishing partners for OpenAds, a new auction environment designed to give publishers and sellers a direct, high-integrity and transparent alternative for programmatic advertising. Early supporters include AccuWeather, The Arena Group, BuzzFeed, The Guardian, Hearst Magazines, Hearst TV, Newsweek, People Inc. and Ziff Davis.

As programmatic advertising continues to scale, advertisers are increasingly focused on transparency, visibility and signal. OpenAds is designed to address these concerns by delivering a cleaner and more credible auction framework, which supports healthier dynamics across the media supply chain. By improving price discovery and auction integrity, the initiative aims to ensure that buyers can clearly understand inventory quality and audience characteristics, while publishers gain better insight into how their inventory is valued.

Management stated that the initiative reflects a shift toward cleaner and more transparent auction mechanics, starting at the auction itself. It also noted that the technology benefits both buyers and publishers by enabling advertisers to clearly understand what they are purchasing and the audiences they are reaching, supported by the strongest possible signal.

OpenAds is being developed as an open, high-integrity auction option that Trade Desk can participate in alongside other buyers and DSPs. The company has indicated that key elements of OpenAds will be open-sourced and its mechanics made transparent for industry review.

OpenAds also complements other supply-side initiatives from Trade Desk, including OpenPath, which enables direct connections into trusted publisher auctions, and PubDesk, which provides sellers with clearer data on pricing, demand signals and inventory performance. Together, these tools are designed to improve efficiency, strengthen trust between buyers and sellers, and align incentives around quality rather than volume.

The company expects OpenAds to remain in active development and to roll out more broadly through 2026, with additional publisher integrations planned. Over time, management believes that a healthier, more transparent auction environment will not only improve outcomes for advertisers and publishers but also reinforce the long-term competitiveness of the open Internet relative to closed, owned-and-operated advertising ecosystems.

How Trade Desk’s Rivals Stack Up Against It?

Amazon.com, Inc.’s (AMZN) international expansion and diversification across e-commerce, AWS cloud services, advertising and streaming create multiple revenue streams while reducing concentration risk. The advertising business continues rapid expansion as brands allocate more marketing budgets to Amazon's platform, leveraging its valuable consumer data and purchase intent signals. Prime Video and streaming services add another revenue dimension while strengthening customer loyalty through bundled offerings. In third-quarter 2025, the company announced partnerships allowing advertisers to buy ad space on Netflix, Spotify and SiriusXM Media through Amazon Ads, expanding its advertising reach beyond its own properties. The strong performance in advertising reflected successful AI-powered optimization of the platform and growing market share in digital advertising, providing a high-margin revenue stream that supports investments in other parts of the business.

PubMatic, Inc. (PUBM) recently launched AgenticOS, a new AI-powered operating system designed to enable autonomous, agent-to-agent execution of programmatic advertising across premium digital environments. The company is leveraging CTV, AI-driven automation and sell-side data intelligence to drive its growth. It is aggressively expanding and diversifying its DSP mix, reducing dependence on legacy buyers and concentrating on mid-tier DSP partners. Additionally, PubMatic launched Programmatic Guaranteed with a top-three DSP, enabling more efficient execution around CTV and premium video deal Supply Path Optimization (SPO), driving Higher Platform Engagement. SPO remains a key growth driver, accounting for more than 55% of activity on its platform in the third quarter, as PubMatic leverages its SPO leadership to onboard more buyers onto its Activate direct-to-supply platform.

TTD Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of TTD have lost 68.2% in the past year against the Internet – Services industry’s growth of 59.1%.

In terms of forward price/earnings, TTD’s shares are trading at 30.69X compared with the Internet Services industry’s 28.51X.

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

TTD currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). 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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