Bert just issued his take on TTD and I was a little surprised he didn’t touch on what I thought was the biggest takeaway from the CC. Revenue outside of NA right now is only 14%. Jeff Green thinks it will be 2/3 of their revenue in the future.
He mentioned going slow with China and Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, etc, and currently is publicly telling us that China will be immaterial to FY 2019.
I think he is both sandbagging a little and being very respectful to his partners in China (he kept saying it’s a long game he’s playing there and he indeed wants to earn their respect). By specifically saying he expects nothing from China in FY 19 I think it’s a delicate way of saying we’ll see how they like us and our product first before suggesting they actually will.
Somewhere in the CC it sounded like those companies come out of a beta testing phase with TTD’s product and will start to actually sell through those channels in March. Seems then that there’s a lot of year left for it to potentially become “material.” I’m not sure how slow it could be for things to actually ramp up there, but to think nothing is baked into guidance has me a little excited for the upside potential.
He said besides the big 3 above he’s working with many other companies there. I also like that he actually moved to Hong Kong to provide further legitimacy and commitment to the area. There’s some mistrust between western companies and China and he highlighted a unique position TTD could be in as a middleman that could be seen as a trusted partner for both sides.
If you were ever on the fence about TTD, actually listen to the CC and see if you can come away not excited about the company. It made some sense that the stock went up 30%.
Their China approach seems to be as follows: BAT (Baidu, Baba, Tencent) is saying we want to be walled gardens like fb, googl, amzn but western brands who are advertising are unsure of the metrics they get back from them. So, reluctant to increase spend. TTD is saying they will safeguard the brand’s data and keep BAT’s data separate and help increase spend which adds to their rev. So, they are trying to crack the walled gardens in China. Would be interesting to see if they start making some money from BAT. Note that BAT has a greater marketshare than googl, fb, AMZN here. This will be interesting to watch and means a lot for future growth.
both these post then tells me that material expansion in China is not to be expected for a while… thats ok, seems like TTD is growing a lot international ex-China so I am not too concerned or holding my breath on TTD success in China.
Funny how I pay good money for Bert’s service, but frequently find out about his thoughts here before actually seeing his thoughts delivered to my email inbox… I realize this is because I check these boards more frequently than I check my email, but passing along privileged info intended for his paying customers so rapidly undermines everything.
PLEASE refrain from posting privileged info from PAID services on these FREE boards. It is not fair to paying customers of those service and in the long run could jeopardize the good things being done here.
I am sure this article referenced will become freely available to the wide masses via seeking alpha in a few days time as is Bert’s normal course… until that time any info contained in these articles is exclusively for paying customers of his service. It cheats all the paying customers and can hurt Bert (i.e., why pay to get the info first if you can come here and get it for free…).
JLodie,
I apologize I realize no info from Bert was actually passed along other than stating that he had just published an update on TTD to his subscribers.
My Bad. I will shut up now and drift back into the background.
… again sorry… wish they had a delete my post button.
One can report your own post and ask for it to be deleted, but probably everyone will have read it by the time that happens since it is often slow on the weekends.
… again sorry… wish they had a delete my post button
If you feel strongly enough about it, you can always send an FA (Fool Alert) on yourself… and the Fool will delete the message… might take longer than normal, today being Sunday and all…
He didn’t disclose anything that is non-public aside from the fact that Bert just published an article. As others have noted, Bert could consider this to be free advertising.
That was an insightful post. Thanks for your contribution to the board.