The Total Economic Impact™ Of The Trade Desk

Improved Media Performance Through Higher‑Quality Reach And Outcome Optimization

Evidence and data. Interviewees described how improving reach quality and optimizing for outcomes materially changed their media performance after consolidating their programmatic activity.

• “Before consolidation, we were buying across many publishers just to get scale,” said the senior director of brand marketing at a biopharmaceuticals firm. “With more precise targeting at scale, performance stabilized and our cost per qualified audience and cost per conversion consistently improved.”

• The director of digital commerce at an alcohol and beverage distribution firm said: “When we compared platforms, The Trade Desk delivered better efficiency even at much higher spend. We were seeing lower cost per conversion and stronger ROAS because the targeting and retail data were more effective.”

• “Using one platform reduced duplication across channels, which directly improved efficiency,” noted the head of retail media product and measurement at a retail firm. “When we consolidated buying, ROAS moved from high single digits into the low- to mid-teens and stayed there more consistently.”

• “Because campaigns could be optimized at scale and measured with external validation, we had much more confidence in the results,” said the senior director of brand marketing at a biopharmaceuticals firm. “Improved performance was attributable to higher-quality reach rather than noise in the data.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization runs a large-scale, performance-oriented programmatic media program focused on driving measurable business outcomes, such as incremental sales and return on ad spend.

• The baseline ROAS prior to consolidation reflects performance under a fragmented, multi-DSP and walled garden-centric approach; this is consistent with the interviewees’ experiences.

• Consolidation onto a primary DSP improves audience quality and outcomes-based optimization, resulting in a sustained percentage improvement in the incremental sales attributable to programmatic media.

• Improvements increase over time as optimization models learn, retail data usage expands, and consolidated workflows mature across campaigns.

• Incremental sales improvements apply consistently across the composite organization’s performance-focused campaigns and are translated into operating profit using a standard operating margin.

Risks. The value of this benefit can vary across organizations due to the following:

• Some performance improvement may be influenced by broader media and creative optimization initiatives rather than higher-quality reach and outcome optimization alone.

• Actual incremental sales lift may vary by campaign, category, or region due to changes in demand, competition, or market conditions.

• Improvements may be lower for organizations that have already optimized their programmatic strategies prior to consolidating media buying.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 5%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $18.5 million.

Reduced Media Waste Through Deduplicated Reach And Improved Supply Quality

Evidence and data. Interviewees highlighted how fragmented buying previously created significant audience overlap and waste; they noted that consolidation made reach deduplication and efficiency achievable.

• “When we were buying across multiple DSPs, we had massive audience overlap,” said the head of retail media product and measurement at a retail firm. “We were paying to reach the same people repeatedly, which increased costs without delivering incremental value.”

• The director of digital commerce at an alcohol and beverage distribution firm said: “Duplication was a real issue. The same audiences were being hit across different platforms, especially in CTV and display, and that created waste we couldn’t easily control.”

• “Without a single platform, it was hard to manage frequency across channels,” noted the head of media and analytics at a consumer health products firm. “We saw impressions delivered to audiences that had already been exposed elsewhere, which reduced overall efficiency.”

• The senior director of brand marketing at a biopharmaceuticals firm said: “Before consolidation, we didn’t have great visibility into overlap. It was difficult to know how often the same audiences were being reached across publishers, which made it harder to avoid wasted impressions.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization runs approximately $90 million in annual programmatic media spend that is subject to audience overlap and duplication across channels.

• Prior to consolidation, a portion of the impressions delivered through programmatic campaigns is duplicated or inefficient due to limited cross-platform visibility and fragmented buying.

• After consolidating media buying, the composite organization reduces duplicated or wasted impressions by approximately 17% in Year 1, increasing to 26% by Year 3; this is consistent with the interviewees’ experiences related to improved reach deduplication and frequency management.

• The reduction in duplicated impressions reflects the improved supply quality and more efficient reach rather than an increase in overall media spend or changes to campaign objectives.

• Avoided media waste represents spend that is redeployed toward unique reach or eliminated entirely rather than being reclassified as incremental revenue.

• Only avoided media waste attributable to improved deduplicated reach and supply quality is included in this benefit.

Risks. The value of this benefit can vary across organizations due to the following:

• Some reduction in media waste may depend on existing audience management and frequency controls already in place prior to consolidation.

• The level of duplicated impressions may vary by channel mix, campaign complexity, and reliance on direct publisher buys.

• Organizations with already centralized or highly optimized media buying approaches may experience lower incremental reductions in duplicated reach.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $42.4 million.

Improved Marketing Operations Efficiency Through Workflow Automation And Simplification

Evidence and data. Interviewees described how campaign management, reporting, and optimization were operationally intensive prior to consolidating workflows and increasing automation.

• “Reporting alone used to take hours every week,” said the director of digital commerce at an alcohol and beverage distribution firm. “Across the team, a lot of time was spent just pulling data together instead of focusing on strategy and optimization.”

• “As campaigns scaled, the operational load grew quickly,” noted the head of media and analytics at a consumer health products firm. “Even relatively small changes took time because workflows weren’t centralized.”

• The senior director of brand marketing at a biopharmaceuticals firm said: “Without streamlined workflows, managing dozens of campaigns meant a lot of manual effort. Teams spent more time executing than evaluating performance or testing new ideas.”

• “Automation helped reduce the day-to-day operational effort,” said the director of digital commerce at an alcohol and beverage distribution firm. “That freed up time for more value-added work instead of repetitive tasks.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization employs 20 media managers responsible for campaign management, reporting, and operational tasks.

• Prior to automation and workflow simplification, each media manager spends approximately 25 hours per week on reporting and operational activities.

• After consolidating workflows and increasing automation, the composite organization reduces reporting and operational time by approximately 30% in Year 1, 38% in Year 2, and 48% in Year 3; this is consistent with the interviewees’ experiences.

• Time savings are applied uniformly across in-scope media managers and represent productivity capacity freed rather than headcount reduction.

• Full-time employees (FTEs) are used solely as a normalization unit based on a standard annual workload to express capacity at scale; we converted hours saved into an equivalent capacity, reframed as capacity freed for higher-value work. They do not imply workforce changes.

• Productivity gains are translated into monetary value using a fully burdened annual salary for a media manager, consistent with TEI standard assumptions.

• Only time savings attributable to workflow automation and operational simplification are included in this benefit.

Risks. The value of this benefit can vary across organizations due to the following:

• Actual time savings may depend on existing levels of automation and process maturity prior to workflow consolidation.

• Operational efficiency gains may vary based on campaign volume and complexity across brands or regions.

• Organizations that rely heavily on external agencies for execution may capture a smaller portion of productivity gains internally.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 5%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1.7 million.

Unquantified Benefits

Interviewees described the following additional benefits associated with The Trade Desk that were not quantified as part of this analysis. These benefits were excluded from the financial model due to challenges in reliably isolating and measuring their impact as well as to maintain a conservative assessment of total economic value. The interviewees noted:

• Faster time to market for campaign launches and budget deployment. Interviewees said that consolidating programmatic operations and simplifying workflows enabled them to launch and scale campaigns more quickly across channels. This reduced the delays associated with coordinating multiple platforms and publishers and allowed teams to respond more rapidly to seasonal opportunities, shifting demand, or incremental budget approvals. While several interviewees described meaningful improvements in speed, the impact varied by campaign type and wasn’t quantified consistently enough to model.

• Greater confidence and trust in media investment decisions. Interviewees reported that improved transparency into reach, frequency, and outcome-based performance increased internal confidence in programmatic investments. Consistent measurement and external validation reduced uncertainty around results and made it easier to justify spend decisions to senior stakeholders, even when performance varied by campaign or channel.

• Improved collaboration and alignment across internal teams and partners. Interviewees noted that operating from a single primary platform created a shared view of performance across marketing, analytics, and agency teams. This alignment reduced friction among planning, execution, and measurement functions and helped organizations coordinate more effectively as campaign scale and complexity increased.

• An enhanced onboarding experience and ongoing support through a dedicated partnership. Interviewees emphasized the value of working with dedicated account and technical teams at The Trade Desk during their initial onboarding and ongoing use. Stable points of contact and hands-on guidance helped reduce disruption as capabilities evolved, supported faster issue resolution, and enabled teams to operationalize new functionality more effectively as campaign scope and complexity increased.

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement The Trade Desk and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

• Expansion into new formats and channels as media strategies evolve. Interviewees said that as budgets continue shifting toward connected TV and other digital formats, their organization expects to expand programmatic execution without introducing new platforms. This flexibility reduces complexity when testing or scaling new channels and allows future initiatives to leverage existing workflows, data, and governance.

• Deeper use of retail data and outcome-based activation. Several interviewees described plans to extend retail and purchase-based data activation into additional campaigns, brands, or regions over time. As commerce media capabilities mature, their organizations could use The Trade Desk to support more advanced incrementality testing, retailer-specific strategies, and cross-channel orchestration without requiring additional tooling investment.

• Increased automation and optimization over time. Interviewees noted that they expect automation capabilities to expand as platform features evolve and teams gain deeper experience. Over time, this could further reduce manual effort in areas like campaign setup, optimization, and reporting, enabling staff to focus more on strategic analysis and experimentation rather than execution.

• Greater responsiveness to market opportunities and demand signals. Interviewees said that the ability to launch and scale campaigns quickly creates more options for handling future demand spikes, seasonal events, or incremental budget approvals. This flexibility could enable their organization to respond faster to business opportunities that were previously difficult to capture due to platform and operational constraints.

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).