TIVP031: THE TRADE DESK (TTD): HEIR TO THE PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING THRONE?

W/ SHAWN O’MALLEY & DANIEL MAHNKE

TIVP031: THE TRADE DESK (TTD): HEIR TO THE PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING THRONE? W/ SHAWN O’MALLEY & DANIEL MAHNKE

03 August 2025

Shawn O’Malley and Daniel Mahnke break down The Trade Desk (ticker: TTD), a pure-play bet on  the future of digital advertising, focusing specifically on supporting ad buyers who want to get the most value per impression across the so-called “Open Internet.” The Trade Desk has compounded its stock at 43% a year since its IPO almost a decade ago, and in that same period, it has grown revenues at an incredible rate of 50% a year.

In this episode, you’ll learn about where TTD fits into the programmatic advertising ecosystem, why the company has fewer conflicts of interest than its competitors, how The Trade Desk is positioned to take advantage of antitrust regulatory enforcement against Google,  what they’re trying to do to replace 3rd-party cookies tracking, and whether TTD is attractively valued today, plus so much more!

Prefer to watch? Click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to watch this episode on YouTube.

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IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

  • What is TTD’s niche in programmatic digital advertising 
  • Who are the major players in the digital advertising landscape
  • How advertising across the internet has evolved over time
  • What is the “Open Internet” and how it differs from “Walled Gardens”
  • Why TTD has built its own alternative to 3rd-party cookies 
  • Why regulators are taking action against Google’s ad management unit, and how TTD could benefit from that 
  • What needs to happen to realize TTD’s vision for the future of programmatic advertising
  • Whether Shawn and Daniel add TTD to their Intrinsic Value Portfolio
  • And much, much more!

TRANSCRIPT

Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.

[00:00:00] Shawn O’Malley: The thing about the Trade Desk is that they’re imagining a whole new world for the future of digital advertising, and they’re actually making it happen. While Google is tied up in lawsuits for competing on both sides of programmatic ad exchanges, the Trade Desk is filling that void, soaking up new business and becoming a trusted DSP for ad buyers.

[00:00:22] Daniel Mahnke: I mean, when you compound sales at 50% per year for over a decade, you must be doing something right.

[00:00:30] Shawn O’Malley: And the thing is, we are still in the early stages of what advertising across the internet can be. For goodness sakes, more ad dollars are gonna be spent on cable TV than streaming this year, and that just will not last forever.

[00:00:44] Shawn O’Malley: Many of those cable dollars will flow to digital advertising and into the pockets of companies like the Trade Desk.

[00:00:56] Intro: You are listening to The Intrinsic Value Podcast by The Investor’s Podcast Network since 2014 with over 180 million downloads, we’ve learned directly from the world to best investors. Now we are applying those lessons to analyze businesses and investment opportunities every week, helping you uncover intrinsic value. And now here are your hosts, Shawn O’Malley and Daniel Mahnke.

[00:01:27] Daniel Mahnke: Today we discuss whether the future of digital advertising will be on so-called wall gardens, like Amazon and Facebook, where individual big tech companies control the entire digital advertising ecosystem from top to bottom. Or whether the industry growth will come primarily from the so-called open internet where decentralized networks of publishers can tie the inventory into ad exchanges that advertisers competitively bid on.

[00:01:55] Daniel Mahnke: That is more or less the heart of today’s conversation. The Trade desk ticker, TTD is the company you are here to pitch, Sean, and they’re very much on the open internet side of this equation, acting as a neutral broker to facilitate the bidding process and corresponding data analysis behind the campaigns of marketing agencies worldwide.

[00:02:16] Daniel Mahnke: And that includes everything from demographic targeting to precise insights on the cost per impression and performance of an ad placement. Trade desk’s mission, as I understand it, is to empower ad buyers that want to purchase ad spots on the open internet outside of the purview of what gardens like Amazon, Facebook.

[00:02:39] Daniel Mahnke: Is that anywhere? Close to a good framing for today’s episode, Shawn.

[00:02:43] Shawn O’Malley: I think that’s pretty good, Daniel. Nice job. I’m excited to dig into this one. You, you captured it well, and ad tech can be complicated as we were talking about before the call a little bit, but we’ll, we’ll try to make everything as simple as possible to understand, and I’ll paint the picture for why the trade desk may be one of the biggest beneficiaries of growth in the digital advertising industry more broadly and how specifically they might benefit from some of the antitrust rulings against Google’s influence over digital advertising.

 

 

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