The Trade Desk Announces Major Overhaul of Digital Advertising Data Marketplace
Audience Unlimited Makes Third-Party Data Significantly More Performant and Cost Effective for Major Brands
The Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD) today announced plans to launch Audience Unlimited – a major upgrade to the marketplace for third-party data within digital advertising.
Third-party data helps advertisers optimize their campaigns and reach their target audience with greater precision, but advertisers have often been reluctant to deploy it because of both cost and the challenge of determining which data sources are likely to be most effective. As a result, many advertisers do not regularly use third-party data, and those that do typically invest nearly 20% of their media costs on it.
Audience Unlimited removes these two obstacles for advertisers. Audience Unlimited will leverage AI to score data segments by relevance to an advertiser's campaign, across thousands of curated segments from hundreds of trusted, privacy-conscious third-party data providers. Advertisers will then be able to add all the relevant data sources to their campaigns for a much lower, inclusive cost than traditional a la carte data pricing. With consistent pricing and seamless integration, advertisers can now activate precision targeting at scale with third-party data without the complexity of unpredictable costs or reconciliation challenges.
"Audience Unlimited is going to transform the way marketers think about the value and cost of third-party data. Brands that leverage third-party data to optimize their campaigns consistently see significantly improved performance. However, the complexity of the data marketplace to date has made the deployment of data somewhat anemic," said Samantha Jacobson, Chief Strategy Officer, The Trade Desk. "By securing bulk pricing for data, The Trade Desk can pass on savings to advertisers, and our advanced AI will help advertisers understand the relevance of all data sources to their campaigns and layer in as much as they need to optimize performance."
In order to help advertisers take full advantage of Audience Unlimited, The Trade Desk will introduce new Koa Adaptive Trading Modes, giving advertisers flexibility to adapt Kokai based on campaign strategy and requirements. Advertisers will be able to choose between two distinct modes, both powered by advanced agentic AI.
- Performance Mode: In Performance Mode, Koa acts as a full co-pilot, dynamically optimizing bids and allocation to maximize efficiency and performance. Advertisers set the overall strategy and guardrails, and agentic AI continuously finds the most value within them. All optimizations remain fully transparent, with visibility into the changes Koa makes and the ability to override bid factors at any time. Performance Mode also brings together the full power of The Trade Desk's innovations — including Audience Unlimited, Predictive Clearing, Identity Alliance, Prism, and free measurement — which are continuously optimized to work in concert.
- Control Mode: In Control Mode, traders manually manage bids, allocation, and optimizations, with full flexibility to structure campaigns according to their needs. Agentic AI still surfaces recommendations and opportunities, but traders decide when and how to activate them across individual tiles (e.g., Geography, Device Type, Ad Format, and more). Performance features are available and priced a la carte in this mode, giving advertisers the ability to select which capabilities to apply to each campaign. Control Mode is best for campaigns that must adhere to a detailed plan or strict pricing requirements.
To leverage Audience Unlimited, advertisers will pay tiered rates of 3.3% and 4.4% of impression costs within Control Mode. In Performance Mode, Audience Unlimited is included at no additional cost. In addition, advertisers will still be able to apply data with a la carte pricing if they so choose.
"The Trade Desk's Audience Unlimited represents a fundamental shift in how advertisers approach targeting," said Michael Beebe, CEO, Dstillery. "By embedding AI-powered audience selection directly into campaign strategy, it transforms data from an afterthought into a core driver of performance. With hundreds of thousands of marketplace and custom segments available, advertisers finally have the tools to unlock the full potential of data and AI to power smarter, more relevant targeting."
"Third-party data is an essential driver of growth, helping advertisers reach more audiences, uncover new insights, and make smarter marketing decisions," said Anne Acker, SVP of Commercial Partnerships, LiveRamp. "Solutions like Audience Unlimited help pave the way for the future of media buying, taking the guesswork out of finding and building high-quality segments from trusted data sources. With the added power of AI, marketers can drive even more value and efficiency from the third-party data that best fits their unique business needs."
Audience Unlimited and Koa Adaptive Trading Modes will be available for select agencies on the Kokai platform in late 2025, and to all users early 2026.
About The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk™ is a technology company that empowers buyers of advertising. Through its self-service, cloud-based platform, ad buyers can create, manage, and optimize digital advertising campaigns across ad formats and devices. Integrations with major data, inventory, and publisher partners ensure maximum reach and decisioning capabilities, and enterprise APIs enable custom development on top of the platform. Headquartered in Ventura, CA, The Trade Desk has offices across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. To learn more, visit thetradedesk.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250929471947/en/
Melinda Zurich
[email protected]