The Trade Desk launches Deal Desk to offer transparency in programmatic advertising deals

New Delhi: Global advertising technology company The Trade Desk has announced the launch of Deal Desk, a new addition to its Kokai platform designed to support advertisers in managing their strategic one-to-one deals and upfront commitments with publishers.

Deal Desk is positioned to address long-standing concerns in digital advertising about the lack of transparency and performance insights in private marketplace deals. The new feature aims to offer advertisers and publishers improved visibility into deal health, pacing, and inventory quality. It also introduces options to explore alternatives in the open internet or premium marketplaces when deals underperform.

According to the company, the tool leverages artificial intelligence to analyse performance and provide recommendations, making it easier to optimise campaigns and make informed decisions.

“Deals have not kept pace with advances in AI and transparency that savvy media buyers and sellers have come to expect. Deal Desk represents a long overdue innovation for our industry and will help advance the strategic relationships between advertisers and their premium publisher partners,” said Will Doherty, SVP, Inventory Development at The Trade Desk.

Advertisers using Deal Desk will have access to Deal Quality Scores, which evaluate the value of specific deals and compare them with open market alternatives. Publishers, meanwhile, can submit deals with detailed inventory metadata via APIs or a user interface, and will be able to view the same quality scores seen by buyers.

Additional features include automation tools to streamline deal activation, pacing analysis, and optimisations, as well as options to expand or cancel deals depending on delivery outcomes. These changes are intended to support mutual accountability between parties.

“As more buyers shift toward biddable activation, we’re focused on ensuring they have the tools, access, and flexibility they need to drive results,” said Jamie Power, SVP of Addressable Sales at Disney. “We continue to put our advertisers first, and our relationship with The Trade Desk reflects our commitment to meeting advertisers where they are and evolving how we transact to deliver greater efficiency and performance.”

Major publishers such as Disney have adopted Deal Desk for use in private marketplace transactions.Deal Desk is expected to be available for beta testing in the third quarter of 2025.