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Last month, Amazon.com (AMZN -1.33%) announced that it was partnering with both The Trade Desk (TTD 3.98%) and Dataxu to sell ad inventory on third-party TV providers' content through the Amazon Fire TV device.
The Trade Desk is an online advertising marketplace. Operating in a similar fashion to the stock market, it gives advertisers an accurate price and description of who they will be reaching with their ads. Dataxu, meanwhile, is a private software company that analyzes data to help marketing professionals improve advertising.
Image source: Unsplash.
What does this mean for The Trade Desk?
This new deal gives Trade Desk the ability to sell more connected-TV advertisements through its marketplace. Jeff Green, founding CEO of Trade Desk, described this partnership as the company's "most important initiative in [connected TV] to date."
Connected TV, or CTV, is television accessed online through devices such as the Amazon Fire TV or Roku. As of 2017, there were 168.1 million CTV users, and this number is expected to reach 194.4 million by 2021.
A study carried out by Extreme Reach earlier this year revealed that CTV has overtaken mobile devices in the number of impressions, growing 194% in 2018. In the same period, the average time spent watching these video ads grew 35%. Simply put, this advertising space has become incredibly valuable.
Due to more brands shifting their advertising spending to programmatic advertising through Trade Desk's platform, in Q1, Trade Desk raised its 2019 expected revenue 1.3% to $645 million. Revenue in the quarter grew 41% to $121 million.
Trade Desk stock rose over 9% the day of the announcement.
What this means for Amazon
Although advertising space can now be purchased through these third parties, Amazon will still be selling ad inventory through Amazon Publisher Services. Green addressed this, saying that this deal shows that Amazon is supportive of an open internet. Amazon's open approach is important in an era of antitrust among big tech companies.
Unlike The Trade Desk, companies such as Google (GOOG 0.34%) or Facebook (META -0.92%) do not give advertisers much insight into their reach, and therefore advertisers may not be getting the best value for their money.
With this deal, we may see more advertisers look to Amazon as a place to showcase their ads as they can see exactly what kind of engagement they will get and the price they have to pay for it.
Image source: MyWallSt.
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MyWallSt operates a full disclosure policy. MyWallSt staff currently hold long positions in Amazon and The Trade Desk. Read our full disclosure policy here.
