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Ad Tech Briefing: The Trade Desk’s CFO search indicates a tough road ahead for independents
This Ad Tech Briefing covers the latest in ad tech and platforms for Digiday+ members and is distributed over email every Tuesday at 10 a.m. ET. More from the series →
After a rocky 2025, ad tech entities, particularly “independents,” are taking measures to steady the ship in the coming 12 months, with the exit of The Trade Desk’s CFO (its second in six months) the most high-profile example.
Earlier this week, The Trade Desk announced the exit of Alex Kayyal, the demand-side platform’s finance chief who has been in role since August 2025 and served on its board from the February prior to that, topping off what’s been a tumultuous 12 months.
The Trade Desk’s chief accounting officer Tahnil Davis will serve as interim CFO, while the search for a more permament replacement is conducted.
The termination of such a senior executive after a short time in office raises questions – NewStreet Research’s Dan Salmon has a concise analysis – with The Trade Desk’s share price plunging 5% in the early hours after the January 2026 announcement.
The departure also echoes similar moves from other DSPs, including layoffs at challengers in the sector such as Yahoo in earlier months, with sources telling Digiday the moves were signs of a financially challenging 2025 for the sector.
A November survey from Digiday Research noted the marked rise of Amazon’s DSP, with the results showing that decline of The Trade Desk – dropping from 55% in Q1 2024, to 29% Q3, 2025 – contrasting with the rise of the e-commerce giant’s fortunes – shooting up from 29% to 50% during the same period.
Of course, the rise of Amazon contrasting with the rocky fortunes of independent DSPs helps resurface “the Open Internet vs. Wall Gardens” debate, although, a report released this month point to a wind in the sail of the latter.
According to a report from Winterberry Group, which characterizes the following 12 months as one of “continuous evolution” as opposed to runaway growth or sudden contraction, with advertising spend projected to grow to $664 billion in 2026, up 9.4% year over year when political advertising is included.
However, in a market that is stabilizing after several years of volatility, while also undergoing structural change driven by AI, marketers are being asked to “do more with the same,” per Winterberry’s researchers.
All of this means performance advertising will likely be marketers’ cause célèbre in the months ahead as their peers in the finance department ask for immediate results for their marketing investment, making the jobs of sales staff at platform-providers – read Amazon, Google and Meta, etc. – equipped black boxes primed to take further advantage.
What we’ve heard
“According to a reputable leaker on TeamBlind; the layoffs are pushed right one day- i.e. 28 JAN 2026 [sic] is purportedly the new day. Everything else should be consistent/correct.”
— As Amazon is expected to follow up on its series of 2025 layoffs, reputedly preparing to cut 30,000 jobs, ahead of its Feb. 5 earnings call, one anonymous source forecasts the precise date the axe will fall.
Numbers to know
- $270 million: The amount Yelp paid to acquire Hatch
- $1.6 million: The amount raised by Gareth Glaser’s Gamera
- $18.3 million: The amount EDO was forced to pay iSpot over data
- $1.5 billion: Netflix’s ad revenue in 2025
What we’ve covered
Bold Call: OpenAI’s ads pivot may come too little, too late
OpenAI is set to wade into the advertising business this year, but its move to finally monetize ChatGPT with ad dollars may have come a touch too late.
The top AI platforms for publishers, ranked
Two years after OpenAI signed its first content licensing deal with Axel Springer, the field of AI platforms doing business with publishers has expanded exponentially. Especially just in the past year.
What we’re reading
OpenAI CFO defends ads in ChatGPT as ‘strong business model’
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar defended the company’s addition of ads to its popular chatbot ChatGPT as a way to democratize access to artificial intelligence, while speaking at last week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
YouTube is reaching a ‘tipping point’ in convincing advertisers it really is TV
A research study released this month by Pixability found that in a survey of 288 media agency professionals, finding 62% of US agencies and 85% of UK agencies plan to include YouTube in their CTV ad buys this year.
Performance Max beta enables advertisers to split-test assets
Google is testing the ability for advertisers to split-test shopping ads, specifically for creative assets in Performance Max campaigns.
Amazon opens ‘Prebid Adapter’ beta, seeks to bridge ad demand
Amazon has moved its Publisher Services (APS) “Prebid Adapter” into beta on Wednesday, making it available in GitHub.
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