The Trade Desk (Nasdaq: TTD) Earnings Live: TTD Up Big After Avenging Last Quarters Rare Miss

The Trade Desk is soaring after earnings and managment is still conducting its conference call, but investors are positive on the outcome. The highlights so far:

Strong Customer Retention and Business Resilience

• The Trade Desk reported customer retention remained above 95% in the first quarter of 2025, a continuation of the company’s historically high retention rates.

  

• Despite recent headwinds, the company emphasized its position as the leading independent demand-side platform (DSP) and its ongoing commitment to innovation and client service.

Financial Performance and Market Context

• The company has faced a challenging start to 2025, with its stock price declining roughly 60% from its 52-week high, reflecting both broader market pressures and company-specific issues.

• In Q4 2024, The Trade Desk missed its revenue guidance for the first time in over eight years (excluding Q1 2020), reporting $741 million in revenue versus guidance of $756 million. This ended a remarkable streak of 33 quarters without a revenue miss.

• The Q1 2025 call addressed these issues, with management reiterating that the company’s fundamentals and long-term opportunity remain strong.

Causes of Recent Revenue Miss and Strategic Adjustments

• CEO Jeff Green attributed the Q4 2024 revenue miss to a series of “small execution missteps” and a slower-than-expected rollout of Kokai, the company’s new platform iteration.

• Green acknowledged that while these missteps were significant, they do not reflect a change in the company’s market opportunity or long-term strategy.

• The company is focused on learning from these execution issues and is making adjustments to ensure smoother future rollouts and operational excellence.

Growth Drivers and Industry Trends

• The Trade Desk continues to see strong momentum in key growth areas, particularly connected TV (CTV) and retail media, which are establishing a solid foundation for future expansion.

• International growth has accelerated, with promising results beyond the U.S. market.

• Management characterized 2024 as a “pivotal year” for the industry, with the premium open internet becoming the clear choice for advertisers seeking data-driven precision and performance10.

Outlook and Confidence in Future Performance

• While expressing disappointment in recent results, management remains confident in the company’s ability to resume accelerated growth and maintain its leadership in the open internet advertising ecosystem10.

• The Trade Desk is committed to helping clients leverage data-driven advertising to drive growth and brand loyalty, positioning itself for long-term success

The Trade Desk Inc. reported financial results for Q1 2025, with a 25% year-over-year revenue increase to $616 million. The company’s net income rose to $51 million, up from $32 million in the same period last year, resulting in a net income margin of 8%. The GAAP diluted earnings per share increased to $0.10 from $0.06. The Trade Desk’s strategic upgrades implemented in Q4 2024 have begun to pay off, contributing to this outperformance.

The company also announced the acquisition of Sincera, a digital advertising data company, and significant share repurchases amounting to $386 million. The Trade Desk continues to expand its support for Unified ID 2.0, enhancing its position in the data-driven advertising market. Looking ahead, the company projects Q2 2025 revenue to be at least $682 million with an adjusted EBITDA of approximately $259 million.

Insiders have made notable open-market acquisitions over the last month:

• Jeff Green (CEO):
  • Acquired 235,267 shares on Apr 15
  • Now owns 372,250 shares

• Laura Schenkein (CFO):
  • Acquired 82,378 shares on Apr 15
  • Ownership rose 12.1% to 762,855

• Jay Grant (General Counsel):
  • Acquired 82,378 shares on Apr 15
  • +50.3% increase

Key risks:

• Kokai rollout delays could hold back revenue growth

• Brand spend recovery might not be strong enough to offset agency weakness

• Retail media upgrades may not be adopted quickly enough to show up in Q1

• Current Price: $59.65 (+5.65%)

• Consensus Price Target: $83.92

• Implied Upside: 41%

TTD still trades at a premium (~55x forward EPS), but analysts continue to support the multiple based on long-term CTV leadership and platform leverage. While the Q4 miss rattled confidence, bulls are anchored to retail media expansion and brand-direct acceleration. Execution will need to match.

Investors are positioning bullishly on hopes that CTV strength and Kokai momentum reignite growth post-Q4 miss.

CEO Jeff Green has been blunt: “We turned over the ball too many times in this game, and that’s why we lost.” That self-assessment after TTD’s rare Q4 miss set the stage for today’s print.

The business still leans heavily on connected TV, which now makes up nearly half of spend on the platform. Green has emphasized CTV’s role as “the kingpin of the open internet,” noting that logged-in inventory — particularly via UID2 adoption — offers unmatched precision. OpenPath partners like Disney and Vizio have seen fill rates surge and CPMs lift, which investors will want to see reflected in Q1 revenue quality.

Retail media is also a big bet. TTD is revamping its retail offering to simplify adoption, with early case studies like Boiron seeing a 267% ROAS using Kroger data. Earnings will show if that momentum is spreading beyond one-off wins.

The Trade Desk has a long history of outperformance, but Q4 2024 marked its first top-line miss since going public. Despite strong CTV growth and rising spend from brand-direct clients, internal restructuring and delayed Kokai adoption contributed to softer-than-expected results.

Here’s how recent quarters stack up:

• Q1 2025 (Est.): $582.7M revenue | $0.31 EPS

• Q4 2024: $741.0M revenue | $0.59 EPS

• Q3 2024: $493.3M revenue | $0.41 EPS

• Q2 2024: $464.7M revenue | $0.39 EPS

Management has reaffirmed a long-term growth path, with FY 2025 guidance at $2.97 billion in revenue. Today’s print will help validate that trajectory.

Investor attention is firmly on The Trade Desk’s platform execution following last quarter’s revenue miss. The Kokai transition and restructuring efforts are expected to stabilize growth in the second half of 2025, but analysts want early proof of traction.

The connected TV segment remains a key growth pillar, with spend mix still trending above 45%. Strong OpenPath partnerships with Disney and Vizio will be closely analyzed for CPM improvement and fill-rate gains. Analysts are also watching retail media contribution and whether simplified integrations are showing up in spend velocity.

Consensus calls for $582.7 million in Q1 revenue and EPS of $0.31, with margin signals under the microscope as platform migration costs normalize.