• by Wayne Friedman , May 9, 2024

Accelerating its already strong revenue growth, The Trade Desk, the largest demand-side advertising platform (DSP), posted a strong 28% quarterly year-over-year increase -- its sharpest rise since the third quarter of 2022.

Connected TV remains the DSP's fastest-growing channel, with all digital video (including CTV) maintaining a mid-40% share of its overall business.

“CTV continues to lead revenue growth and international revenue growth outpaced domestic for the fifth consecutive quarter,” said Michael Morris, media analyst for Guggenheim Securities.

Quarterly revenue was at $491 million versus $383 million in the year-ago period. Adjusted cash flow -- earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- climbed 49% to $162 million.

The company touts recent partnerships, including one with Walt Disney for Trade Desk’s open-source identity graph -- Unified ID2, a privacy-compliant graph leveraging encrypted emails and phone numbers --  which will add more growth. The Trade Desk said the identity graph helped Disney offer its advertisers match rates three to four times higher than non-UID2 media campaigns.

Recently, NBCU agreed to make its Olympics advertising inventory available to the Trade Desk’s programmatic platform. Also Roku, the big streaming app distributor, inked a deal with The Trade Desk where its advertisers now have direct access to Roku via a private marketplace where brands can benefit from Roku audience and behavior data.

Company executives now say 90% of the top 200 U.S. advertisers have run campaigns on the Trade Desk over the past 12 months. 

“We believe the majority of revenue growth came from existing client-base growing spend,” said Guggenheim Securities’ Morris. [This] underpins growth potential opportunity given untapped customer base.”

The company offered second-quarter guidance of “at least $575 million,” which would mean a 24% increase from the same period in 2023.