Trade Desk launches OpenAds to counter supply chain manipulation

The Trade Desk announced on October 2, 2025, a comprehensive response to recent changes in programmatic advertising infrastructure with OpenAds, a new auction platform designed to maintain transparency despite modifications to industry-standard transaction identifiers. CEO Jeff Green outlined the initiative in a public statement, describing it as necessary to preserve fair auction mechanics after Prebid.org disabled cross-exchange transaction ID functionality in late August.

According to Green, "This product will be known as OpenAds." The platform represents a direct challenge to supply-side platforms that have, in his assessment, prioritized obfuscation over transparency. The announcement comes weeks after transaction ID standards fractured the programmatic advertising ecosystem, eliminating buyers' ability to identify duplicate bid requests across different supply paths.

OpenAds will launch in two versions. The first targets large sellers and publishers through a server-to-server enterprise solution. The second offers a simplified implementation for smaller publishers, requiring only tags on pages or in content management systems. The Trade Desk plans to make OpenAds available to all OpenPath enterprise partners in October, with the simplified version following in subsequent months.

The company has branched Prebid's codebase to create what Green described as "an upgraded auction" that reflects Prebid's mechanics prior to the transaction ID modifications. "Going forward, we'll maintain this branch of Prebid and we will consider merging future changes from the main or other Prebid branches," Green stated. This approach allows The Trade Desk to preserve the original transaction ID functionality while evaluating future Prebid developments independently.

Transaction IDs previously enabled demand-side platforms to identify when multiple bid requests represented the same advertising opportunity. The IAB Technology Laboratory declared Prebid's modifications "materially violate the OpenRTB specification" on August 27, 2025. The change ensured each bidder receives different transaction identifiers even for identical auctions, eliminating the cross-exchange visibility that OpenRTB specifications originally intended.

Green characterized the modification as harmful to premium publishers. "This isn't about TTD. This is about publishers having the option to describe their quality content well and, in doing so, having the best chance of attracting the demand that their quality content warrants." He argued the changes benefit publishers and supply-side platforms that deploy what he termed "duplication and obfuscation strategies" while harming those focused on supply chain quality.

The Trade Desk reported that transaction ID coverage reached 59% of browser-based ads on the open internet before the Prebid changes. Coverage was higher on connected TV and audio inventory where The Trade Desk maintains significant market share. The company's Q2 2025 results showed 19% revenue growth, though shares declined 27% following the August earnings announcement.

OpenPath, The Trade Desk's direct publisher integration system, has expanded substantially in 2025. Publishers adopting OpenPath have demonstrated significant revenue improvements, with The New York Post reporting a 97% boost in programmatic display revenue and Hearst Newspapers achieving a 4x improvement in fill rates. According to Green, "OpenPath volume has grown many hundreds of percentage points this year alone."

The company will open source the underlying OpenAds auction code, allowing industry participants to inspect the auction mechanics directly. This transparency approach aligns with The Trade Desk's broader positioning as an alternative to what Green termed "walled garden monetization." The company also plans to allow other demand sources to bid into OpenAds, though with controls ensuring demand is "provably direct and transparent."

Green emphasized that OpenAds does not represent The Trade Desk entering yield management or the supply side of advertising technology. "We're giving data to sellers and publishers and some resellers so they can do yield management," he stated. The platform aims to enable more yield management through application programming interfaces rather than uniquely modified auctions.

The announcement included details about PubDesk, a new product providing publishers with automated insights about advertiser demand. The platform will show publishers which signals The Trade Desk values and suggest improvements for revenue optimization. Several major publishers already have access to PubDesk, with Green describing early feedback as "fantastic." The Trade Desk plans to share additional details at the Prebid Summit on October 14, 2025.

The Trade Desk's January 2025 acquisition of Sincera accelerated its supply chain optimization efforts. The company launched OpenSincera in Q2 2025, providing free advertising metadata to industry participants including competitors. The platform offers metrics on ads-to-content ratio, page weight, average ads-in-view, and ad refresh rates.

Green framed the supply chain conflict as primarily affecting resellers rather than direct publisher relationships. "This is a battle between different constituents of the sell side — those companies that obfuscate and duplicate versus those that do not," he stated. The announcement identified specific practices The Trade Desk aims to mitigate, including request duplication, illicit bid caching, secret hops, multiple hops, breaking frequency caps, and ID bridging.

Publishers have deployed various strategies to manage programmatic inefficiencies, with bid throttling emerging as a common approach to control duplicate requests. According to research cited on PPC Land, programmatic auctions create so many duplicate bid requests that the practice threatens the entire programmatic structure.

The programmatic advertising ecosystem has experienced significant tension around transparency standards throughout 2025. Raptive proposed encrypted transaction IDs in September as a potential compromise between buyer transparency needs and publisher privacy concerns. That proposal sought to create controlled data sharing mechanisms through encryption keys rather than universal transparency.

Green's statement positioned OpenAds as inevitable given market dynamics. "The resellers who duplicate and obfuscate (and flat-out lie) will be hurt more and more as the market bends toward efficiency," he stated. The Trade Desk expects buyers to increasingly demand transparent, efficient supply paths regardless of whether specific resellers prefer the status quo.

The company emphasized that publishers and sellers retain full choice regarding adoption. "With these innovations, sellers and publishers will have more choices than ever, as will buyers," Green stated. The platform does not require participation from any party, though The Trade Desk made clear it will pursue supply path optimization regardless of resistance from intermediaries.

For the digital advertising industry, OpenAds represents a significant development in ongoing supply chain conflicts. The Trade Desk's Kokai platform has faced adoption challenges throughout 2025, with growth slowing to 22.3% in Q4 2024 compared to previous quarters exceeding 25%. The company forced agencies to create new campaigns in Kokai despite initial assurances that legacy interfaces would remain available.

OpenAds combines The Trade Desk's existing OpenPath infrastructure with new auction mechanics designed to maintain transparency despite industry fragmentation. The platform builds on years of supply chain optimization work, including partnerships with major media companies. Spotify began testing OpenPath in October 2024, initially focusing on video inventory before expanding to audio advertising.

Green concluded his statement with a reference to Tennyson: "Back to innovating — to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." The phrase signals The Trade Desk's intention to continue pursuing supply chain transparency regardless of industry resistance. The company plans additional public discussions, with Green scheduled to appear on the AdTech AdTalk podcast to discuss the innovations and policy decisions.

The Trade Desk operates as an independent demand-side platform serving advertisers and agencies purchasing digital advertising programmatically. The company processed $12 billion in gross spend through its platform in fiscal year 2024 while maintaining customer retention rates exceeding 95%. Connected TV represents the company's fastest-growing channel, with video including CTV accounting for nearly 50% of total platform spend.

The developments signal continuing consolidation in programmatic advertising infrastructure. Direct publisher relationships appear increasingly favored over complex supply chains involving multiple intermediaries. Whether OpenAds gains widespread adoption depends on publisher willingness to adopt yet another platform amid an already fragmented ecosystem.

Timeline

• August 27, 2025: Prebid.org disables cross-exchange transaction ID functionality, eliminating buyers' ability to identify duplicate bid requests
• August 27, 2025: IAB Technology Laboratory declares Prebid changes violate OpenRTB specifications
• August 30, 2025: Industry debate intensifies over transaction ID fragmentation
• September 18, 2025: Raptive proposes encrypted transaction IDs as compromise solution
• October 2, 2025: Trade Desk announces OpenAds platform and Prebid fork
• October 14, 2025: Trade Desk plans to share additional PubDesk details at Prebid Summit
• October 2025: OpenAds becomes available to OpenPath enterprise partners
• Coming months: Simplified OpenAds version launches for smaller publishers

Summary

Who: The Trade Desk, led by CEO Jeff Green, announced OpenAds in response to actions by Prebid.org and supply-side platforms that modified transaction identifier functionality.

What: OpenAds is a new auction platform featuring forked Prebid code that maintains original transaction ID functionality, open-sourced auction code, and integration with OpenPath infrastructure. The announcement also included PubDesk, a publisher insights platform providing automated demand data.

When: The Trade Desk announced OpenAds on October 2, 2025, with OpenPath enterprise partner availability planned for October and broader rollout in following months. The announcement came five weeks after Prebid.org disabled cross-exchange transaction ID functionality on August 27, 2025.

Where: OpenAds targets the global programmatic advertising ecosystem, focusing on premium publishers and sellers seeking transparent auction mechanics. The platform will operate through The Trade Desk's existing infrastructure alongside OpenPath, which already connects publishers directly to the demand-side platform.

Why: The Trade Desk created OpenAds to maintain supply chain transparency after Prebid.org modified transaction identifiers in ways The Trade Desk argues benefit resellers deploying duplication and obfuscation strategies while harming premium publishers. The company seeks to preserve buyers' ability to identify efficient supply paths and detect auction manipulation despite industry fragmentation over transparency standards.