A Marketer’s Guide To The Trade Desk

The Trade Desk is here to help marketers leverage programmatic technology to build compelling campaigns and generate business growth.

With its robust ad features and targeting options, brands can reach their audience more effectively and increase ad performance. Consumers and brands live in a digitally dominated world, and audiences expect brands to connect with them online.?

The Trade Desk provides businesses with advertising automation tools and insights to deliver marketing campaigns that build authentic consumer relationships and improve their brand's ROI.?

Keep reading this post to learn more about the Trade Desk and its advertising benefits.?

The Trade Desk provides a powerful platform for digital advertising.?

Before we delve into specifics, let's define the Trade Desk and explain why marketers should consider this advertising platform.

The Trade Desk is a demand-side platform (DSP) that uses data to help marketers make advertising decisions and target audiences more efficiently. Using programmatic advertising technology, marketers have access to various advertising inventories.?

The platform's AI tools allow marketers to pinpoint the best online locations for ad placements. The Trade Desk is the central hub, directing advertisements to various online platforms, including websites, videos, music services, and internet-connected TVs.

According to research by The Trade Desk, the platform can connect to over 150 million CTV households globally. So, brands wanting to develop more comprehensive digital and CTV advertising strategies must consider the Trade Desk.?

The platform allows businesses to partner with premium publishers, like Southern California News Group, to deliver their campaigns and reach a wider audience. The Trade Desk streamlines the process, guaranteeing that ads are delivered to the right places in the expansive digital landscape.

Gain insights into The Trade Desk and unlock its powerful features to drive high-quality lead generation.

The Trade Desk offers several excellent AI and advertising features to businesses wanting to segment and target audiences to generate high-quality leads and increase revenue.?

Here are five unique Trade Desk features every marketer should be aware of:?

1. Platform essentials

User interface basics: The visual graphics, trend lines, and performance metrics are all laid out in a way that's easy to understand. Plus, for those who want to dig in, the advanced settings are neatly organized for easy access. The Trade Desk's dashboard intuitively arranges visual graphics, trend lines, and performance metrics while conveniently grouping advanced settings for power users.

Campaign setup and management: Marketers have a step-by-step guide to help them create their campaigns, allowing customization of ad formats, bidding strategies, and budget allocation. The Trade Desk also provides forecasting tools to predict ad reach and impressions.?

2. Targeting capabilities

Audience targeting: Marketers can segment audiences based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. With the availability of third-party data, advertisers can rest assured that their ads will reach the most relevant audiences.?

Contextual and environmental targeting: The Trade Desk assesses web content for keyword relevance to match ads, considers environmental factors, and has partnered with WeatherAlpha to provide custom weather targeting capabilities for brands, expanding event-based targeting.

Geotargeting capabilities: The platform allows marketers to experiment with radius targeting around specific coordinates and combines demographic data with geolocation for more precise advertising implementation.

Cross-device targeting: To provide a unique ad experience, marketers can deliver personalized messaging across multiple devices throughout the buyer's journey.?

3. Cross-channel advertising

Unified Insights: The Trade Desk collects performance data from multiple channels, including social media, display, and audio. Using unified insights helps marketers understand the overall campaign performance and real-time optimization.

Channel versatility: From video to native ads, the Trade Desk consolidates reporting and analytics across all marketing channels.?

4. Real-time bidding (RTB)

Functionality: The Trade Desk evaluates each ad impression to provide individualized bidding, which helps maximize ad engagement.?

Benefits for advertisers: RTB evaluates website relevance, user behavior, and historical performance to ensure relevant and successful ad placement.?

5. Data management and integration?

Incorporating data: Marketers can merge their data with the Trade Desk, streamlining audience creation and targeting. This will ensure that marketers use the most relevant and current data.?

Integrated partners: The Trade Desk has partnered with leading data providers, tech solutions, and inventory sources, providing advertisers with various marketing tools, more data, and a wider audience reach.?

The distinctions between Trade Desk and Google Ads.

For marketers and advertisers, it's essential to understand the critical differences between the Trade Desk and Google Ads. Both platforms provide programmatic advertising capabilities, but each platform targets different needs and has unique features.?

Let's examine the differences between the Trade Desk and Google Ads.?

Platform Nature?

• The Trade Desk is a demand-side platform facilitating buying media inventory across channels, including display, video, audio, and CTV. It is meant for advertisers who want one place to manage their programmatic ad campaigns.?
• Google Ads provides a broader advertising platform, including search, display, video advertising, and more. Brands can use it to reach audiences across Google's vast networks, including search and YouTube.?

Targeting Capabilities

• The Trade Desk provides audience targeting based on demographics, behaviors, interests, and more. With its Unified ID solution, brands can also use cross-device tracking.?
• Google Ads allows marketers to target users based on their search history and browsing behavior. It also provides location-based, demographic, and retargeting capabilities.?

Inventory Access?

• The Trade Desk allows marketers access to a large ad inventory and does not put limitations on networks, which gives more ad placement flexibility.?
• Google Ads focuses on its ad inventory, including its search engine, YouTube, Google Display Network, and partner sites. Although advertisers have an extensive reach, your ad campaign will be limited to Google's network.?

Transparency & Control?

• The Trade Desk offers transparency and control over ad placements and helps with budget allocation.?
• Google Ads provides detailed ad performance metrics but offers less control over ad placements.?

Integration and Compatibility?

• The Trade Desk integrates seamlessly with data providers, tools, and platforms within the digital advertising space.?
• Google Ads integrates perfectly within its network but is not as compatible with external platforms or tools.

Discover the top six marketing strategies to maximize their impact with The Trade Desk.

Here are six best practices to help you implement successful ad campaigns with this unique platform to get the most out of The Trade Desk's advertising capabilities.?

1. Streamline Audience Segmentation:?

Understand your audience by observing their behavior and preferences. Utilize the platform's advanced filtering options to segment your audience. This customized approach guarantees that you connect with the right individuals at the right moment, maximizing the efficiency of your ad spending.

2. Regularly Review Campaign Metrics

Continuous optimization is crucial for the success of any campaign. By closely monitoring performance indicators, you can make immediate adjustments as needed. The Trade Desk's dashboard provides in-depth insights, facilitating the identification of trends and enabling strategic adjustments.

3. Utilize Lookalike modeling

You can use The Trade Desk's lookalike modeling to identify potential customers with behaviors and interests similar to your current audience. This method allows audience expansion without compromising relevance, enabling you to effectively target users with similar attributes and broaden your reach.

4. Stay Updated with Platform enhancements.

The digital advertising environment is constantly evolving. The Trade Desk regularly introduces new features to maintain a competitive edge. Staying abreast of these updates will maximize the platform's capabilities and ensure optimal performance.

5. Test, learn, and optimize?

Stay prepared to conduct experiments consistently. Try out various advertising formats, targeting techniques, and bidding methods. This process can help you gain insights into the effectiveness of different approaches and optimize your campaigns for maximum efficiency.

6. Prioritize User Privacy.?

In today's digital landscape, upholding user privacy is an ethical responsibility and a critical business priority. It is essential to fully adhere to regulations and leverage The Trade Desk's advanced features to prioritize user consent and safeguard data.

Partner with Southern California News Group to develop ad campaigns with The Trade Desk.?

If you want to learn about our advertising solutions, download the SCNG Advertising Media Kit here. For digital marketing and advertising questions, DM Daniel Maynard or Jeff Heiney .

Article written by Natalya Jaime .