Can Gracenote's Integration Give TTD an Edge in CTV Advertising?

The Trade Desk TTD is strengthening its connected TV (CTV) advertising proposition through a new partnership with Gracenote, Nielsen’s content intelligence business. The collaboration brings Gracenote’s program-level content metadata, identifiers and standardized taxonomy directly into TTD’s demand-side platform (DSP), potentially giving advertisers much greater precision and transparency when buying CTV inventory.

Gracenote provides content IDs, metadata and standardized taxonomy that can help identify and categorize programming more consistently. Through the integration, advertisers using The Trade Desk will be able to incorporate this information into their CTV buying strategies. Advertisers could use more detailed programming characteristics to develop a curated inventory strategy, creating a more contextual approach to CTV advertising. Advertisers can also combine Gracenote's programming information with other signals available through TTD.

For The Trade Desk, the partnership strengthens its position in the increasingly competitive CTV advertising market. The company already provides advertisers with extensive capabilities for programmatic buying. By incorporating standardized show-level information, TTD can give buyers another signal to use when evaluating inventory. That could make its platform more attractive to advertisers seeking television-like contextual precision in a programmatic buying environment.

Total revenue reached $715 million in the second quarter, up 3% year over year. Double-digit growth in CTV and audio continued in the second quarter, with video including CTV—representing a low-50% share of TTD’s business. Moreover, TTD’s investments in EMEA and APAC are paying off, with CTV growth exceeding 50% year over year in both regions during the quarter.

Could CTV Growth Strengthen TTD’s Competitive Position?

PubMatic, Inc.’s PUBM disciplined investments have diversified its business, with CTV, mobile app and emerging revenues making up about 60% of second-quarter sales and driving profitable double-digit growth. CTV growth was led by the Americas, up 25% year over year, while global CTV revenue rose 13% and accounted for about 20% of total revenue in the quarter. Its growth in CTV and mobile apps is strengthening its data signals, while its AI-native infrastructure and NVIDIA partnership enable smarter, real-time ad decisioning. Driven by CTV, mobile app and emerging revenues, third-quarter revenue is guided at $75 million–$77 million.

Magnite, Inc.’s MGNI growth is driven by strong CTV and DV+ demand, with contribution ex-TAC from CTV up 36% year over year and accounting for 51% of total contribution ex-TAC in the second quarter. Growth accelerated across major media owners, while top 10 CTV accounts grew in the mid-to-high 40% range, highlighting strong momentum as programmatic becomes a preferred way to buy streaming TV. SpringServe remains central to MGNI’s CTV strategy, powering monetization beyond its original role as an ad server. SpringServe scored a major win with Samsung, powering premium smart TV home-screen ads and bringing the inventory to programmatic buying through MGNI’s DSP ecosystem.

TTD’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of TTD have declined 29.7% in the past month against the Zacks Internet Services industry and S&P 500 composites’ rise of 1.6% and 5.4%, respectively.

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TTD seems attractive, as suggested by the Value Score of B. From a valuation standpoint, TTD trades at a forward price-to-earnings of 26.78X, higher than the industry’s average of 20.32X.

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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for TTD’s earnings has been revised downward over the past 60 days.

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TTD currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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