The Trade Desk continued expanding its advertising, data, commerce, connected-TV, and artificial-intelligence partnerships during the second quarter of 2026, even as revenue growth slowed to 3% and profitability declined.
Quarterly revenue increased to $715.1 million from $694 million during the prior-year period.
The growth rate slowed sharply from 19% one year earlier.
Chief Executive Officer Jeff Green acknowledged that the quarter did not meet the company’s standards.
Management said it understands the factors that affected performance and is taking action to strengthen execution, improve the platform, and concentrate resources on areas offering the greatest value.
The financial slowdown contrasted with continued expansion of The Trade Desk’s strategic ecosystem.
Netflix joined The Trade Desk’s Sellers and Publishers 500+, giving advertisers programmatic access to the streaming company’s premium advertising inventory through The Trade Desk’s marketplace.
The addition strengthens The Trade Desk’s connected-TV offering and expands the inventory available to advertisers seeking audiences across major streaming platforms.
Samsung Ads also opened its premium home-screen inventory to programmatic advertisers.
The Trade Desk was among the first platforms granted access, allowing advertisers to coordinate creative, campaign activation, and measurement across Samsung’s connected-TV environment.
The company expanded its commerce-media ecosystem through integrations involving Booking.com, Agoda, Kayak, Priceline, Marriott, Uber, and United Airlines.
Those relationships give advertisers access to travel, hospitality, and mobility data signals associated with consumers demonstrating purchasing intent.
The integrations are intended to help advertisers activate campaigns and measure results across the open internet rather than within a single closed advertising platform.
Dentsu selected The Trade Desk as the first demand-side platform partner for New Stream Media, its end-to-end retail-data offering.
The relationship connects retail information with campaign execution and measurement, supporting The Trade Desk’s efforts to participate in the growing commerce-media market.
Databricks named The Trade Desk as a launch partner for CustomerLake.
The integration connects first-party customer data and agentic AI with media execution across the open internet.
The partnership could allow advertisers to use data stored within Databricks to inform campaign decisions without moving customer information into a traditional advertising-data silo.
Adobe also entered a new integration with The Trade Desk.
The relationship connects paid-media exposure information directly with customer profiles maintained through Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform.
That connection can help advertisers understand how advertising exposure influences customer behavior across campaigns, channels, and commerce activity.
The partnerships support The Trade Desk’s broader position that growing complexity in advertising increases the value of independent decisioning, measurement, and artificial intelligence.
Advertisers increasingly need to coordinate campaigns across connected television, retail media, travel platforms, publisher inventory, commerce data, and first-party customer systems.
The Trade Desk is attempting to serve as the technology layer connecting those fragmented environments.
However, the company’s second-quarter financial results show that partnership expansion did not immediately translate into strong revenue growth.
Adjusted EBITDA declined to $241 million from $271 million.
Adjusted EBITDA margin contracted to 34% from 39%, representing a 500-basis-point decline.
Non-GAAP net income declined approximately 22% to $158 million from $203 million.
Non-GAAP diluted EPS fell to $0.34 from $0.41.
GAAP net income declined approximately 29% to $64.4 million from $90.1 million.
Diluted EPS fell to $0.14 from $0.18, while net-income margin contracted to 9% from 13%.
The decline in earnings occurred as operating expenses grew faster than revenue.
Total operating expenses increased approximately 6% to $613.5 million from $577.3 million.
Platform-operations expense increased approximately 22% to $184.3 million, representing the largest year-over-year increase among the company’s operating-expense categories.
Sales and marketing expense increased to $174.4 million from $161.1 million.
Technology and development expense rose to $140.7 million from $134.3 million.
General and administrative expense declined to $114 million from $130.9 million.
Operating income declined approximately 13% to $101.6 million despite lower stock-based compensation.
Total stock compensation decreased to $109.6 million from $128.9 million.
The prior-year quarter included $19 million of stock-based compensation associated with a long-term CEO performance grant.
The second quarter of 2026 included no expense related to that grant, making the decline in operating income more significant than the reported expense comparison alone might suggest.
The company’s tax expense also increased despite lower pre-tax earnings.
Income before taxes declined to $113.1 million from $133.2 million, while the income-tax provision increased to $48.7 million from $43.1 million.
That produced an implied effective tax rate of approximately 43%, compared with about 32% one year earlier.
Customer retention remained above 95%, continuing a record that has lasted for more than a decade.
The strong retention rate suggests that the revenue slowdown was not caused by widespread customer departures.
The release does not quantify how much of the slowdown resulted from advertiser spending, campaign timing, customer execution, competition, or broader market conditions.
The Trade Desk also made several senior leadership and governance changes.
Nate Olmstead was appointed Chief Financial Officer.
Sarah Gavin joined as Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President, while Kristi Argyilan became Chief Commercial Officer and Executive Vice President.
Ron Lamprecht was appointed Chief Business Development Officer and Senior Vice President, and Vinny Rinaldi joined as Vice President of Client Strategy and Growth.
The company added Penry Price and David Haddad to its board of directors, bringing additional experience in advertising, AI, and global business expansion.
The scale of the leadership changes supports management’s stated effort to improve commercial execution and sharpen strategic focus.
The Trade Desk also spent approximately $78 million repurchasing Class A shares during the quarter.
The company had $269 million of remaining authorized repurchase capacity at June 30.
First-half repurchases totaled $241.3 million.
The diluted weighted-average share count declined to approximately 470 million from 495.8 million, a reduction of about 5%.
Operating cash flow reached $545.4 million during the first half, compared with $456.4 million one year earlier.
The increase was supported by a $548.1 million reduction in accounts receivable, partly offset by a $427.9 million decrease in accounts payable.
Cash and equivalents increased to $1.12 billion from $658.2 million at the end of 2025.
Short-term investments declined to $362.4 million from $644.9 million.
The company’s third-quarter guidance indicates that near-term pressure may continue.
The Trade Desk expects revenue of at least $650 million and adjusted EBITDA of approximately $160 million.
At the stated minimum, revenue would decline approximately 9% sequentially from the second quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA would fall roughly 34%, and the implied adjusted EBITDA margin would decline to approximately 24.6%.
The Trade Desk’s partnership activity shows that the company remains deeply connected to major changes in connected television, commerce media, first-party data, and AI-based advertising.
However, the financial results indicate that converting those relationships into faster revenue growth and stronger margins will require improved execution.
KEY QUOTES:
“This quarter did not meet the standard we set for ourselves, but it has reinforced our belief that we are focused on the right opportunities for the future.”
“Marketers are navigating a complex environment, but complexity increases the value of decisioning, measurement and AI.”
“We have a clear understanding of the factors that impacted our performance, and we are taking decisive action to strengthen our execution, upgrade our platform, and sharpen our focus on the areas where we can create the greatest value.”
Jeff Green, Co-Founder And Chief Executive Officer Of The Trade Desk
