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The Trade Desk (TTD +2%) is trading modestly higher following its Q1 earnings beat last night. This operator of a cloud-based online advertising-buying platform bounced back from an in-line EPS result in Q4 to get back to a normal-sized beat for TTD in Q1. Revenue also grew at a healthy clip, up 28.3% yr/yr to $491.25 mln, which was better than expected. TTD also guided Q2 revs above analyst expectations.

• A key theme on the call was continued growth in CTV. Even with its considerable size, TTD said that CTV continues to be its fastest-growing channel. Over the past few months, industry giants like Disney, NBCU, Walmart, Amazon, and now Roku and LG Electronics have all made deeper pivots into CTV. And many are in partnership with The Trade Desk.
• TTD notes that it offers the largest CTV inventory marketplace in the industry, giving advertisers access to premium content across major networks and ad-supported streaming services around the world. TTD also said that, because it does not compete in content or supply, it has built lasting relationships with premium publishers to help brands engage their audiences. Of note, Disney recently expanded its partnership with TTD for Disney Advertising's Real-Time Ad Exchange (DRAX). Also, NBCUniversal announced that, for the first time, the 2024 Paris Olympic Games inventory on Peacock will be available to buy programmatically via The Trade Desk.
• The company argues that the role of CTV should not be understated. For many people, movie, TV and audio consumption is a very important part of their daily lives. Consumers tend to spend significant amounts of time watching premium content. That is very different from how consumers engage with social media content, which is often short-form UGC video, such as cat videos. People spend much more time with premium content, such as streaming TV, than they do with UGC.
• TTD also said it's building support for Unified ID 2.0 (UID2), which provides targeting and measurement for an internet that's becoming more privacy-conscious. UID2 is an upgrade and alternative to third-party cookies. TTD noted that Times Internet, India's most prominent digital media conglomerate has become the first digital partner in India to adopt UID2. In January, DISH Media announced adoption of UID2 across its suite of traditional TV and OTT services.

Overall, this was another good quarter for The Trade Desk, led by its CTV segment. We are a little surprised the stock is not reacting too much despite the good results. It may be that the stock has been in a nice uptrend since mid-January, so a good result may have been priced in already. This has been a mixed earnings season for online advertising names, with META lower, but SNAP, PINS traded higher on earnings. Also, TTD's peer MGNI is up big today following earnings.