• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 7 hours ago

Hidden ad-tech fees for brands and media agencies and their clients? Sounds a major red flag.

But perhaps we are not looking closely enough -- especially when it comes to The Trade Desk (TTD).

The big demand-side platform (DSP) has been dinged over a highly public condemnation by media group Publicis because of a “failed” audit. Now Omnicom is doing an audit on The Trade Desk.

Reports suggest TTD reportedly applied its DSP fees to additional service charges and automatically opted clients into paid tools without explicit consent. The Trade Desk has publicly disputed Publicis' “failed” determination of their business.

The Trade Desk's major focus is its strong access to programmatic connected TV (CTV) inventory.

Brands have long complained that much of the broader CTV industry does not deliver full transparency -- for example, with granular data, where the advertising messaging in specific TV shows airs.

Touting its longtime position as an “open” DSP has helped the Trade Desk pull plenty of brands into the fold.

One veteran media-buying executive believes the concerns of media agencies are more about losing control than those hidden fees.

Media agencies are now more concerned that their clients will look to make deals directly with TTD and leave them out.

In theory, a media agency typically has oversight for its clients over all its media activities -- including ad technology, programmatic and measurement. They also do audits.

What is the bottom line? While the Trade Desk stock has had some significant hits -- it is down 10% over the last 30 days, and 50% over the last six months -- many brands are not heeding the advice of their media agencies. Instead, they are choosing to stay with TTD because of its massive reach in CTV.

CTV is key piece of the puzzle for Trade Desk. Far and away that remains their fastest-growing money media channel for the DSP, representing about 50% of their business.

That is because for many, The Trade Desk continues to be a big standard, favored operating system for the "open" internet when it comes to premium video inventory deal-making.

Brands, even with somewhat perceived higher fees, are likely to place an even higher value on transparency. The Trade Desk continues to have strong premium programmatic inventory deals with Walt Disney, NBCUniversal, Netflix, among others.

Trade Desk’s "open" identity graph Unified ID -- an alternative to the much-maligned digital media “cookies” -- also is part of the mix.

Telling brands to abandon all that -- in one major pullback -- would be a tough thing to do.