The Trade Desk, outpacing the media industry for growth, see a 2024 as a year of volatility for advertising.
The company grew revenue 23% to $US1.95 billion in the December quarter with a record $9.6 billion of spend flowing through its global technology platform for buyers of advertising.
Jeff Green, founder and CEO, sees pockets of winners and losers in 2024.
“Nearly everyone will be either better off or worse off,” he says.
“I believe 2024 is a year of volatility for the global advertising market. And for those who are prepared, like The Trade Desk, it’s an opportunity to win share”.
The Trade Desk had been outpacing most digital media players.
The shift of advertising dollars from linear to connected television (CTV) continued to be a core driver in the December quarter.
“In Q4, CTV again represented our fastest growing channel at scale around the world, with particularly strong growth internationally,” says Green.
“We saw strong momentum in retail media, as we won incremental shopper marketing budgets and more advertisers continued to utilise retail data in their campaigns.
“And we continued to see positive results from increased utilisation of first party data, as the enhancements we’ve made throughout the year are helping deliver better outcomes for advertisers.”
The strong growth in retail media was underpinned by advertisers getting to work with first party data.
“In the fourth quarter we saw major new shopper marketing budgets shift to The Trade Desk as more advertisers started to move from a non-decisioned, insertion-order strategy – which has long been typical in the retail space -- to one that’s highly decisioned, and leveraging retail media." says Green.
The Trade Desk in the first quarter of 2024 is seeing continuing strong spend in CTV and retail media.
The company estimate March quarter revenue to be at least $478 million which would represent growth of 25% increase.
“While there is much to celebrate about 2023, I’m even more excited about 2024 and beyond,” says Green.
“I’ve never felt more confident heading into a new year. I believe we are uniquely positioned to grow and gain market share not only in 2024, but well into the future, regardless of some of the pressures that our industry is facing, whether it’s cookie deprecation, growing regulatory focus on walled gardens, or the rapidly changing TV landscape.
“These industry shifts represent tremendous growth opportunities for us. Shifts in our nearly 1 trillion-dollar global advertising market are not dissimilar from shifts in all large markets, including the equities markets.
“When macro changes come to the equities markets caused by economic velocity changes, fed moves, or governmental changes—these sorts of macro shifts force the smart money to rotate.
“Or said another way, macro changes almost always force a revaluing of the market. Every investment is scrutinised and adjusted.
“Similarly, the internet is being revalued once again. We’ve seen this many times before. During the pandemic, people streamed more. We got more inventory and the value of choice in CTV helped create better performance, so the value of CTV went up. Things shifted.
“We saw it again in 2021 when Apple made changes to limit relevant advertising in its operating system, which impacted their browser and their mobile environments”
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