The Trade Desk & Alphabet
The Trade Desk and Google have a complex competitive and interoperability relationship in programmatic advertising. The Trade Desk's demand-side platform (DSP) buys inventory through Google's ad exchange (Google Ad Manager) and other supply-side platforms, making Google both a supplier of ad inventory and The Trade Desk's primary competitor for advertiser dollars. The DOJ vs. Google antitrust ruling (2024) finding Google guilty of illegal monopoly in search advertising increased regulatory pressure for Google to open its ad tech ecosystem, which directly benefits Trade Desk's access to premium inventory.
Why it matters: The Trade Desk has positioned itself as the independent 'Open Internet' alternative to Google's walled garden, using Unified ID 2.0 (UID2) as a privacy-preserving identity framework to replace Google's deprecated third-party cookies. As Google's own cookie deprecation timeline extended through 2024-2025, Trade Desk gained time to establish UID2 as the industry standard. The DOJ ruling requiring more Google data sharing and transparency is driving ad agencies to diversify spend toward Trade Desk, with Joint Business Plans accounting for 50%+ of TTD's business by end 2025.