The Trade Desk is restructuring programmatic economics and your media budget is stuck in the middle.

For a lot of DTC brands, 15-25% of your programmatic spend currently disappears into supply chain fees before ads reach publishers.

You’re funding intermediaries, not impressions.

Trade Desk’s solution? OpenPath, a direct publisher connection that bypasses traditional SSPs.

Instead of the 10-20% SSPs charge, Trade Desk now takes 5% directly from publishers.

Sounds efficient. But here’s what they’re not emphasizing.

Margin consolidation – Trade Desk capturing more at every level: 5% from publishers via OpenPath, reduced payouts to data providers, tighter control over supply chain economics

Competitive pressure – Amazon DSP taking 10-20% share from endemic Trade Desk advertisers, forcing your brands to manage yet another platform

Performance opacity – OpenPath claims efficiency gains, but are your CPMs and conversion rates actually improving, or is Trade Desk just keeping more of the dollar?

Ask yourself this: Is their latest restructuring improving your unit economics, or is Trade Desk simply capturing margin that used to flow to other intermediaries while your results stay flat?

If you’re spending $500K+ annually on programmatic your team should be auditing OpenPath performance versus traditional supply right now.

Not next quarter…now.

Because this isn’t a pilot program anymore; adoption is accelerating across publishers facing traffic pressure from AI search and looking for any edge they can get.

So, let’s discuss what this means for your specific portfolio. If your CMO can’t explain how this affects your media efficiency, we should talk.

We’re running audits for PE-backed brands starting this month comparing OpenPath performance against traditional programmatic supply.

Drop me a comment or DM and let’s set one up. It could change your whole outlook on programmatic.