Few Thoughts on TTD

Investment Analysis Clubs Saul’s Investing Discussions
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I was looking at TTD yesterday and came across these links Starrob shared to the TTD boards. Pretty good stuff (apologies if this has all been posted here before).

Here’s a presentation CEO Jeff Green gave in April at an advertising conference. I thought he did a good job of distinguishing between programmatic advertising vs. search-based advertising. He also helped me understand why there is a opportunity in the space beyond Facebook and Google, which I was dubious about before.

He also talks about why/how programmatic advertising can solve so many of the advertising industry’s traditional problems, like which ads are effective vs. which ads are not.

His conclusion is basically that in the future there will be less ads, they will cost more, and they will be worth it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2p1SWwpX5U

Then there was also this interview Business Insider published with Green last week. Here’s an excerpt:

Shields: Why has your going public gone so well?

Green: The reason we’ve done well is that we’ve convinced Wall Street we’re in it and we can win. We’re transparent.

Shields: Is this the end of the ‘black box’ era in ad tech, meaning companies that boast of proprietary algorithms and methodologies but nobody can explain how they work?

Green: I don’t think this is the end of the ‘black box’ period in ad tech. You see this with all the talk about ‘artificial intelligence.’ That’s something of a black box. I don’t think that’s going away. But the standard for transparency is higher. That’s become a much bigger issue in advertising. That means the era of 60% margins is over. Everybody needs to add more value than they extract.

BI: Why did that persist for so long?

Green: I don’t think it was ever OK. If marketers knew that’s what they were being charged they wouldn’t have gone for it. What created the room for that lack of transparency and the esoteric nature of the industry.

We need to get to business models that are sustainable. I worry about these bad headlines. All this consolidation is actually a great thing for the industry.

Read the entire interview at http://www.businessinsider.com/the-trade-desk-ceo-is-cheerin…

Anyway, went long about two weeks ago and ready to see where this takes us.

Matt
Long FB, GOOGL, TTD
MasterCard (MA), PayPal (PYPL), Skechers (SKX) and Square (SQ) Ticker Guide
See all my holdings at http://my.fool.com/profile/CMFCochrane/info.aspx

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He also helped me understand why there is a opportunity in the space beyond Facebook and Google, which I was dubious about before.

Hey Matt,

Would you mind expanding a bit more on this?
What gives you the confidence today?

Thanks,
AJ

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I have recently been inclined to start digging a bit deeper to decide whether to add TTD shares (already have a small position), buy some call options to play the next earnings release, or maybe both.

The Trade Desk had an investor day on October 4th and there are about 6 or 7 presentations available on their Investor Relations page (linked below). I have barely started perusing through these, but they probably have a lot of good info included which would nicely supplement the Motley Fool’s coverage (and be even closer to the source).

http://investors.thetradedesk.com/

Also, a slightly funny thing, if you simply type TTD in Google Finance and hit enter, Trinidad and Tobago’s currency comes up.

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