The numbers

$694 million: Revenue for Q2 2025, up 19% year-over-year, and above the company’s prior guidance of $682 million.

22%: YoY revenue growth for the first half of 2025. Growth was 27% during the same period last year.

-30%: The Trade Desk stock fell in after-hours trading. 

Three-quarters: The number of The Trade Desk clients using its core platform Kokai, with the bulk of spend running through it. Expects all clients will use it by the end of the year. 

Watercooler talk

Despite a solid quarter for The Trade Desk, its stock tanked because its rate of growth slowed compared to previous quarters.

Moving on from Wall Street’s histrionics, company CEO Jeff Green brushed off the growing competition coming from Amazon, whose improving ad business has drawn some advertisers to shift millions of dollars away from The Trade Desk.

“Despite their mixed messages, they are not trying to buy the Open Internet objectively. They can’t. They have way too much Prime Video supply to sell to ever honestly pitch large brands to objectively buy the Open Internet,” Green said.

Among notable leadership changes, The Trade Desk is bringing on Alex Kayyal, previously at Lightspeed Venture Partners, as chief financial officer effective Aug. 21, succeeding Laura Schenkein. The company also appointed Omar Tawakol, CEO of AI startup Rembrand, to its board of directors.

The Trade Desk also saw more use of CTV and OpenPath, its tool that connects advertisers directly with publishers. The company is also increasing its business working directly with brands, which Green said made up many of the 100 joint business plans it signed recently.

And after a slow start, The Trade Desk seems to be migrating clients over to its Kokai interface. Seventy percent of client spend is on Kokai, according to Schenkein.

Some sectors underperformed, including the home and garden vertical which makes up 8% of The Trade Desk’s business, and style and fashion, which makes up 4%.

Key quote 

Amazon is “more of a potential partner, honestly, than it is a long-term competitor,” Green said. He pitched The Trade Desk as a potential partner if Amazon opens Prime Video to external demand: “We believe we’d be an amazing partner to drive demand to them.”