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The Trade Desk has suffered another setback in its battle to win ad dollars from agencies and brands and to fend off companies like Amazon that are also competing for dominance in the ad-tech space.
Gokul Rajaram, a Trade Desk board member, resigned, and Publicis Groupe stopped recommending its platform after an audit found issues with fees, billing and the behaviour of its AI tool Kokai.
The holding company is telling clients that the audit it commissioned revealed multiple violations of the master service agreement it has in place with The Trade Desk.
The holding company is telling clients that the audit it commissioned revealed multiple violations of the master service agreement it has in place with The Trade Desk.
First reported by AdAge:
According to the Publicis communication to clients obtained by Ad Age, the violations were discovered by a third-party auditor. They include multiple fee charges beyond what the agreement between the holding company and The Trade Desk allows and instances in which clients were opted into features without their consent.
“We engaged a third-party consultant to audit The Trade Desk—specifically, the media and data spend as well as the fees charged by The Trade Desk to Publicis and our clients," Publicis wrote in its message to clients. “It was the third-party auditor’s determination that TTD failed the audit.” The audit was conducted by FirmDecisions, Publicis confirmed to Ad Age.
Publicis is also accusing The Trade Desk of charging its clients for “additional features (which were automatically opted into) and has not provided documentation to support the consent or authorization of these additional fees.”
Back in mid-February, it was reported that both Dentsu and WPP had pulled back on TTD due to OpenPath offering.
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