TTD only 3rd party DSP on Fire TV now

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Unless I missed it, I don’t think this was mentioned here yet.

When Amazon opened up Fire TV to third party DSP’s both TTD and Dataxu were signed on. As of about a week ago, it looks like Dataxu (acquired by ROKU) has now been dropped and TTD is the only 3rd party DSP that can bid for Fire TV impressions.

I’m not sure if Amazon may be dropping Dataxu given that Roku is a direct competitor to Fire TV as two of the top platforms, or if it is unrelated. Either way, TTD being the only ones that can bid directly on even terms with Amazon’s own DSP, has to be good for the Trade Desk

https://adexchanger.com/digital-tv/amazon-to-drop-dataxu-fro…

Amazon Publisher Services (APS) will remove dataxu from its Fire TV third-party DSP service, according to sources with knowledge of the change.

APS opened its Fire TV inventory to third-party DSPs for the first time five months ago with integrations with The Trade Desk and dataxu. Less than two months after dataxu was acquired by Roku, it is slated to be removed from Amazon’s program…

…Those third-party DSPs, now just The Trade Desk, can bid on even terms with Amazon’s own DSP, and they can use their own deal IDs. So The Trade Desk can use its cookie-based Unified ID solution to target Fire TV impressions, and use the data for frequency capping and measurement across other video suppliers. That’s a huge differentiator from most other major addressable video platforms, except for Roku, which owns dataxu.

Which, of course, is the problem…

-mekong

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The bet on connected TV and advertisement dollars continues to be a two part basket; TTD and ROKU.

Great share Mekong. These are early days.

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RUBI + TLRA

Interesting merger happening on the SSP side of the equation. Mr Market seems to love it on both fronts.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191219005301/en/

Rubicon Project (NYSE:RUBI), the global exchange for advertising, and Telaria (NYSE: TLRA), the complete software platform that optimizes yield for leading video publishers, announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement to combine in a stock-for-stock merger. The transaction, which has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies, will create the world’s largest independent sell-side advertising platform, poised to capture growth in CTV.

Combined market cap will still be under ~$1B

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First post.

Either way, TTD being the only ones that can bid directly on even terms with Amazon’s own DSP, has to be good for the Trade Desk

I have only been lightly following TTD. It is on my watchlist but I haven’t figured out if I understand the company yet.

The comment above makes me see visions of WalMart and their suppliers. Amazon as a customer worries me. With TTD taking on the only position as a third part digital ad provider, then I would assume that Amazon would be a much larger portion of income. Once they are the main customer for too long, then they can squeeze the prices. I was a supplier to WalMart once upon a time and they tried to buy out all our supply two years running, but I had already learned from others making that mistake at the time.

Does TTD have enough other customers to keep Amazon to less than 10% of their income?

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Does TTD have enough other customers to keep Amazon to less than 10% of their income?

There are a ton of reasons why this is not a concern. Briefly, TTD’s largest customers are ad agencies, specifically three very large ones though those don’t represent typical concentration risks for reasons I won’t get into here. Amazon in this case represents the CTV space.

CTV is unlikely to be a winner take all market. Instead there will be many platforms and Amazon will be one of them. TTD will be looking to buy on all CTV platforms for their customers.

Instead of me attempting to summarize the relationship with Amazon, it was announced in the last quarter and discussed in detail in the prepared remarks and Q&A from that call.

Let me know if you have any questions.

A.J.

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There are a ton of reasons why this is not a concern. Briefly, TTD’s largest customers are ad agencies, specifically three very large ones though those don’t represent typical concentration risks for reasons I won’t get into here. Amazon in this case represents the CTV space.

Ok, I took a moment to skim through the conf call notes on Fool. I am still worried about Amazon, but maybe I used the wrong language.

I’ll back up…so brands pay TTD to distribute their ads…but TTD has to partner with the outlets that will show those ads. They are now the exclusive 3rd party ad company for Amazon. As I go through the conference call presentation and questions I find even more interesting bits to this.

How many platforms can TTD distribute ads on…according to the notes…I see just two named. Reading the text closely I see three others and an unspecified number that are ‘asking to work with us’. To me those are not platforms currently in TTD’s reach.

Disney just started (and even just started as a streaming service)
As you may have heard, we have also started to work with Disney as a preferred partner as they start to stream more of their premium costs.

Amazon is another partner that is obvious and part of this question.

Then the say -
Let me just pause a moment and reiterate these content providers are not our direct customers, they are our partners. More and more, they are asking to work with us. It’s not just Amazon and Disney, as if other major global providers worldwide including Channel 4 in England, ProSieben in Germany, TF1 in France, and pretty much every other significant network and content provider.

– I have seen that language before in many corporate presentations. Those are eggs that have not produced chicks yet.

What is interesting is that one of questions has them get more detailed on Amazon.
And so they’re starting with just the third-party content on it. So we’re not talking about Amazon apps, or Amazon Prime videos, we’re talking about things like Discovery Channel or Turner products or any of those sorts of things that are on the app that you, or on the apps that you would have on your Amazon Fire device.

– So they can only place ads on third party channels on the Fire stick. Not on Amazon’s videos. But it gets worse

we are able to show ads, assuming that the content owners have opted in to showing ads

– In other words not only do they not have ALL of Amazon, they only have a part of Amazon and those parts have to allow for ads.

So now we are down to just one and a half platforms in the USA that they currently put ads on? Is there a list or a link to other platforms that I am just not seeing literally called out in the conference call notes?

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dbuffy

We are interpreting the same information two different ways

Everything you describe above is true, but to me, this says that TTD has not even scratched the surface of possible TAM that is likely to exist for their services in the future. Despite that they are already growing tremendously.

I would argue this is a huge positive for The Trade Desk.

-mekong

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How many platforms can TTD distribute ads on…according to the notes…I see just two named

How many platforms? All of the “open internet”. Further, they have the best tools to drive ROI across the open internet.

On not having “ALL of Amazon,” you are correct. They won’t be a part of advertisements within the Amazon app and such. They will have availability to all 3rd parties that “have opted in to showing ads” through Amazon Fire. Of course, any 3rd party who partners with Amazon is going to “opt in” as they want to make money from their advertisements. Why else would they form the partnership?

A.J.

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