After The Trade Desk’s audit row, rivals rush to pitch features and transparency chops

RTBHouse, or rather the DSP side of it, has fielded client questions about the fracas in recent weeks, though the volume was low and the tone more curious than urgent — the kind of checking-in that tends to follow media coverage than genuine alarm. Roy Geva Olmert, svp of client services, cut through it simply: “Transparency is a means to an end. CMOs don’t really care about how you go about running your business. What they do care about is that you do right by them.” 

It’s not exactly the burning platform rivals are banking on.

Among them has been noisy neighbor Viant, a connected TV (CTV)-focused DSP that’s a fraction of The Trade Desk’s size, but which has gained commercial momentum in recent quarters (revenue last year rose 19% to $344.2 million).

“Viant has been the most aggressive,” said one media buyer, who exchanged anonymity for candor. Reps for the company had been in touch, they said, to restate its commercial offering and — unsurprisingly — contrast its transparency credentials with that of The Trade Desk’s, following Publicis Group’s leaked audit. A spokesperson for Viant declined to comment.

The approach hadn’t left the buyer impressed. “They were mostly generic and focused on their transparency, which from my perspective is no different whatsoever than The Trade Desk. In fact, I [ended up with] more questions than answers from that,” they told Digiday.

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Other competitors are choosing the high road.

DSP and SSP provider Nexxen cut the ribbon on an updated user interface equipped with several AI agents designed to aid buyers with pre-campaign quality assurance, deal troubleshooting and campaign optimization; the features went to open beta in March. The tools are intended to save users time, money and make recommendations that fill in the audience targeting or inventory gaps left by human-authored media plans.

Speaking to Digiday, Karin Rayes, Nexxen’s chief product officer, also emphasized users’ ability to ignore or switch off the AI agents (AI feature creep having been a pain point among media buyers using the DSP lately).

“We will work more and more towards automation but always in transparency and giving users choice,” he said. Where its agents make recommendations, Rayes said they’d been designed to present multiple scenarios rather than funnel a user down a given path. “It doesn’t need to be a black box,” he said.

It’s a convenient time to emphasize feature development; Nexxen’s team isn’t the only ones doing so.

Amazon used the NewFronts stage to unveil a trio of partnerships with Comcast, Tubi and Samsung last week. The deals extended access to streaming inventory via its DSP, as well as embedding its interactive ad formats across more of the CTV landscape. Meanwhile, Yahoo DSP is building up a team focused on AI-powered buying and planning AI tools, hiring for strategy and product roles as it seeks to develop a tech edge on rivals.

Some companies, including StackAdapt, Tatari, Ilumin and Quantcast have been running paid ads on LinkedIn in recent weeks explicitly highlighting the differences between themselves and The Trade Desk, according to Adweek.

As well as Viant, four agency media buyers told Digiday that reps from companies like Yahoo, Simpli.fi, MNTN and Basis Technologies had been in touch to gauge their appetite for change, though none had yet offered commercial incentives in return for switching.

“We’ve definitely felt partners lean in, but not necessarily in a discount war sense,” said Savannah Bishop, group media director at full service agency Fitzco.

Blockchain-enabled media buying platform Blockboard has also been on maneuvers. CEO and co-founder Matt Wasserlauf told Digiday that a sales outreach push emphasizing its approach to transparency was “the natural move” for the firm at this moment.

“I’m having renewed conversations with the Big Four [holding company agencies], and everybody else. Clients are reaching out to me and at midnight, saying, ‘Can we have meetings?’ It’s very, very exciting,” he claimed.

California media agency Quigley-Simpson was among more than 10 clients that had begun testing Blockboard’s platform within the last three weeks, he said.

“We’ve had a bunch of inbounds that say: ‘Given the latest Trade Desk news, are you interested in having another conversation?’ So it’s definitely been happening,” said another agency media exec, who exchanged anonymity for candor.

For the most part, however, those entreaties aren’t necessarily landing on receptive ears. Much of the current melodrama is rooted in tensions over margin, control and principal media buying practices — concerns endemic to big shops like Publicis but less acute for mid-market or indie shops. None of the media buyers who said they’d been approached, said their agencies had changed their DSP roster in response.

NP Digital, for example, was approached by MNTN, a specialist CTV DSP, in recent weeks. “We’ve pushed back,” said Dana Heins, director of programmatic media.

“In our industry there’s a tendency to jump on the topic du jour or prevailing trend in a self serving or advantageous way,” said Justin Scarborough, head of programmatic at media agency Crossmedia.

Buyer wariness is one of the factors driving other DSP players to emphasise features, rather than exploiting customer discontent alone.

Rayes said that in conversations with agency customers, Nexxen’s reps were emphasizing the savings that could be made by consolidating their investments with the company, but not offering explicit discounts or incentives.

“It’s [about] leveraging our data, leveraging our media, leveraging our demand… we’re able to consolidate fees and ultimately save them money and also drive better performance,” he argued. “There’s been consolidation in the marketplace, and I think you have to bring relevant and meaningful value to be a partner.”

— Seb Joseph contributed to this report.