The Trade Desk’s TTD growing joint business partnership (“JBP”) activity was a notable development during its second-quarter 2026 earnings call. The company had 217 clients with JBPs in the second quarter, up 38% year over year. Revenues under those plans grew at six times the company’s overall revenue growth rate.
Management described JBPs as “much more than commercial agreements”, emphasizing that they provide a structured framework through which brands, agencies and Trade Desk can jointly plan, innovate and measure success. Management believes this longer-term alignment is helping JBP customers grow faster than the rest of the business.
JBP performance takes on added significance given TTD’s current challenges. Second-quarter 2026 revenues increased 3% year over year to $715 million, reflecting macroeconomic pressures and execution challenges.
Trade Desk highlighted ongoing pressure in key verticals such as Food & Drink and Home & Garden as consumer-packaged goods (“CPG”) brands face geopolitical tensions, inflation and consumer softness. While automotive is an “area of strength overall”, it is also impacted by tariffs, added management. CPG and autos together account for about 25% of platform spend, increasing exposure to cautious enterprise budgets. The company also admitted execution gaps that contributed to the underperformance.
The Trade Desk Revenue (Quarterly)
The Trade Desk revenue-quarterly | The Trade Desk Quote
Against that backdrop, management called the JBP growth rate potentially the “most bullish” number shared on the earnings call and said the company sees significant opportunity from doubling down on these partnerships.
Beyond JBPs, Trade Desk is investing in areas such as connected TV (“CTV”), international expansion, retail media and agentic AI tools.
While these initiatives provide potential growth catalysts, weaker visibility, macroeconomic pressures and execution issues suggest that TTD's near-term growth trajectory remains challenging. For the third quarter, management expects revenues of at least $650 million and adjusted EBITDA of approximately $160 million.
Compounding the issues is the intensifying competition in the ad-tech space from the walled gardens like Amazon AMZN and smaller rivals like Magnite MGNI.
Mapping the Competitive Terrain
Amazon is a strong competitor to TTD in the ad space. At the center of Amazon’s ad business lies its DSP platform. AMZN’s DSP platform enables advertisers to plan, activate and measure full-funnel investments.
Advertising revenues jumped 26% year over year to $19.8 billion in the second quarter, with Sponsored Products remaining its key growth driver. Amazon is also witnessing continued growth and engagement in Prime Video ads and live sports, with inventory across the NBA, WNBA, Thursday Night Football and NASCAR selling out. The company is strengthening its advertising capabilities through AI-powered tools such as Ads Agent, which reduces campaign setup and targeting time.
Magnite’s core growth engine, CTV business, continues to deliver strong performance. Second-quarter 2026 CTV contribution ex-TAC of $97 million was up 36% year over year, now accounting for 51% of total contribution ex-TAC. Magnite noted that the top 10 CTV accounts grew in the mid-to-high 40% range. MGNI works with some of the biggest names in the industry, such as Roku, Netflix, VIZIO, Walmart and Warner Bros. Discovery. Momentum in its ClearLine platform and the SpringServe (CTV ad serving and SSP platform) bode well.
Magnite is also expanding its agentic AI capabilities. It recently unveiled Magnite Orchestration and believes the platform can become an infrastructure layer for agentic advertising. Magnite's existing AI suite includes seller agents that create inventory and audience packages and buyer agents that generate custom media plans and activate and discover audience opportunities.
TTD Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates
Shares of TTD have plunged 24.7% in the past month, while the Zacks Internet – Services industry is down 9.9%.
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In terms of forward price/earnings, TTD’s shares are trading at 11.91X, lower than the Internet Services industry’s ratio of 20.16X.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for TTD’s earnings for 2026 has been significantly revised downward over the past 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
TTD currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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