Ad Tech Briefing: Inside The Trade Desk’s POV on the future of open internet monetization

He framed the conflict as a battle between publishers seeking fair yield and resellers protecting inefficient margins. In response, Green unveiled several initiatives aimed at restoring transparency, strengthening direct connections between buyers and sellers, and countering what he described as “supply-chain shenanigans.” They are below:

• Launch of OpenAds, an open-sourced auction framework.
• Integration of OpenAds with OpenPath for direct, “fair-market bidding.”
• Ongoing use of a branched version of Prebid preserving original TID standards.
• Introduction of PubDesk, an analytics portal offering publishers automated demand insights.
• Enhanced enforcement against request duplication and bid manipulation via the Sincera acquisition.

Ahead of his on-stage appearance at this week’s Prebid Summit, Digiday caught up with The Trade Desk’s Mike O’Sullivan, co-founder of SIncera, to gain more clarity on the thinking of the self-styled “open internet DSP.”

The conversation below has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.  

Digiday: If OpenAds is positioned as a fair auction, how can publishers be sure they won’t lose control over yield optimization? 

Mike O’Sullivan: I think it’s important to note that we’re not trying to do publisher-yield. What we’re trying to do is to get our bids as close to the publisher as possible, so they can effectively decide what to do with that bid… they can do yield management.

We’re doing OpenAds to have a clean option, and we can understand the supply chain. We can drive better buyer performance, and when we see that better buyer performance is heavily correlated with high-quality publishers. We’re trying to give publishers our best bid, and publishers can choose to use it or not.  

I think it’s exciting with some of the things that are happening with Google [in its ad tech antitrust trial], and we’re hopeful there’s new companies that come forward and do yield-management, because that’s been really difficult to do for the last 10 years with the way that Google Ad Manager has been structured. 

What assurances can The Trade Desk give that publishers won’t become dependent on one DSP for access to premium spend?

To a certain degree, we can’t control what the market looks like. I’d say there are around five DSPs that make up 90% of spend, so that’s not a lever that we can control. Meanwhile, there are far more intermediaries than there were five years ago, while the DSP side is numerically shrinking. 

OpenAds was introduced as driving a huge amount of efficiency in the supply chain. A lot of those intermediaries will feel threatened because they’re attracting more value than they’re creating, but by making the supply chain more efficient, hopefully, we’re opening the door for more buyers and more buying systems to come forward.

Do you see SSPs as redundant — or as still playing a necessary role in the ecosystem?

I think that SSPs can play a super-valuable role, there are a lot of different companies that exist in that category, and some really try to do the right thing, and many are trying to innovate. But with a lot of them, there’s a lot of signal manipulation and volume manipulation that’s happening today. 

However, if you ask me, “Is there a space for technology that serves publishers, especially in a post-Google/DOJ world?” [where its ad tech arm is divested], then I say, “100%, there’s never been a better time in terms of build opportunities to be an SSP.”

The Trade Desk’s Jeff Green and Mike O’Sullivan will further explain their opinions on stage at Prebid Summit, on Oct. 14.

What we’ve heard

“We had to wait in line for two hours, and then when you got in there, there was loads of room, I think it’s a total ego trip!” 

– ‘The ATG party’ was apparently the hottest ticket in town for the ad tech masses during AWNY’s opening night, but much umbrage was caused by the wait to get in. 

Numbers to know

• 1 million: The number of downloads OpenAI’s Sora garnered in under five days
• $10.8 million: the 2024 revenue for the latest public market ad tech company Knorex 
• 20,000: The number of Advertising Week New York attendees
• 12: the number of Amazon spokespeople on stage at this year’s AWNY, more than any other single company

What we’ve covered

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Advertising Week Briefing: Amazon is primed to take over the ad industry

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What we’re reading

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People Inc. cuts 6% of Its workforce

As if we needed any more reminder that being a publishing business really does suck in the internet economy. 

Zeta Global plans to quadruple client revenue with its new AI release

The company hosted Zeta Live in parallel to this year’s AWNY, marking it with the public debut of its Athena user interface.  

MRC’s auction-based standards: An inside look

Because it’s important to have standards, especially in the murky realms of ad auctions.