The Trade Desk is taking another step into the publisher stack with a new auction wrapper called OpenAds.
In a blog post last Thursday, TTD CEO Jeff Green said the product aims to “create the most fair and transparent auction the industry has ever seen.” But beneath that framing lies a deeper question about control.
While The Trade Desk positions OpenAds as a benefit to the open internet, some industry observers see it as a potential reshaping of who sets the rules of price discovery. Others see echoes of the dynamics that once helped Google consolidate its hold over programmatic infrastructure. And still others think the new wrapper is a response to Prebid’s controversial decision to remove universal Transaction IDs (TIDs), which buyers use to avoid auction duplication.
The OpenAds wrapper shares similarities with the DSP’s earlier OpenPath product, which allowed buyers to purchase ads directly from publishers. That product was seen by many in the industry as The Trade Desk’s first major foray into the sell side. OpenAds extends that vision further, giving TTD a role in running the auction itself.
OpenAds will launch in two versions: an enterprise-grade, server-to-server integration for larger publishers and a simplified tag-based version for smaller ones. Both versions are built on the open-source Prebid.js codebase. But they create a branched-off version of a Prebid-style auction, which The Trade Desk says restores auction behavior “as it functioned before recent breaking changes” to the TID standard.
Clearing the Fog: OpenAds and Auction Transparency
Publishers who saw the news are wondering: Will this change improve transparency and quality? Or will it introduce even more complexity to a publisher’s ad stack? Either way, publishers are watching OpenAds.
OpenAds is a double-edged sword, said Terry Guyton-Bradley, head of Retail Media, US, at Tata Consulting Services. On one hand, it “promises more transparency by cutting through layers of intermediaries and giving publishers and buyers a clearer line of sight into the auction mechanics,” he said. For publishers squeezed by opaque auction dynamics, bid shading and high SSP take-rates, clarity is a welcome relief, he added.
But Guyton-Bradley also warned that OpenAds introduces “yet another pathway, one more lane of traffic, that buyers and publishers must optimize against.”
Transparency is only helpful if it scales beyond one platform’s proprietary workflow, he said. Otherwise, it risks adding fragmentation rather than simplifying operations.
On the other hand, some publishers are optimistic that The Trade Desk can be a force for greater transparency across the programmatic ecosystem.
Emry DowningHall, SVP of Programmatic Revenue and Strategy at Unwind Media, believes OpenAds reflects TTD’s mission to clean up the open web. Still, he would rather TTD and Prebid collaborate.
“As a Prebid user and member,” he said, “my preference would be that we continue to build and develop tools that support the goals and functions of Prebid and everyone contributes directly to that effort. However, TTD’s announcement is consistent with their mission to elevate the open web, and clearly they believe that has been significantly impacted by TID changes.”
Is There a Correlation With Prebid’s TID Change?
Context matters: OpenAds arrived shortly after Prebid rolled out bidder-specific Transaction IDs in its version 10.9.0 update at the end of August. The move was criticized by The Trade Desk, which wanted to use the TIDs to screen supply and reduce bid duplication.
Previously, a single TID for each ad transaction was shared across exchanges, allowing buyers to identify duplicate bid requests and optimize supply paths. Prebid’s update now generates unique TIDs per bidder, enhancing publisher control but complicating deduplication and cross-platform transparency, critics say.
Jake Sullivan, senior director of Advertising Monetization at U.S. News & World Report, sees a clear link between Prebid’s TID change and the OpenAds launch. He pointed out that “TTD says in their announcement, ‘We’ve branched Prebid and created an upgraded auction (or more accurately an auction container, aka wrapper) that reflects the mechanics and standards of Prebid prior to the TID change.’”
And yet TTD’s SVP of Inventory Development, Will Doherty, in a recent chat with AdExchanger, denied that Prebid’s TID change was the main motivator for OpenAds. According to Doherty, the bigger play for OpenAds is about auction transparency, and the tool is simply a continuation of TTD’s work to promote fairer auctions for buyers and sellers.
While that pitch may convince some publishers to adopt the OpenAds wrapper, Sullivan noted that publisher adoption is not guaranteed. Generally speaking, he said, publishers want to work with fewer wrappers, not more, and the ones they prefer tend to be highly modular and DSP-agnostic, like core Prebid.js.
Sullivan added that maintaining a branched Prebid wrapper with few SSP adapters or data modules seems like a burden that would need clearer yield incentives before seeing meaningful publisher adoption.
Speaking of publisher adoption, not every publisher has gotten onboard with sharing TIDs in the first place. Prebid previously allowed publishers to opt into sharing TIDs in its version 8 update in 2023, and, as Green called out, TIDs were only included in 59% of browser-based open web ads.
However, some publishers consider sharing TIDs to be a way to foster closer relationships with the buy side.
Felix Zeng, SVP of Programmatic at The Weather Company, said he was a fan of how previous Prebid versions handled TIDs. He added that TWC passes TIDs to be open with buyers.
“When you can see which inventory is coming from us, what’s going through intermediaries and what fees are involved, it’s easier to have an honest conversation about value,” Zeng said.
So it’s entirely possible that some publishers will benefit from OpenAds sticking with universal TIDs.
But other publisher sources think the TID discussion is a distraction from the interoperability concerns created by the new wrapper.
Guyton-Bradley argued that OpenAds is less about TIDs and more about transaction-layer control. Prebid’s TID change disrupted an established norm by decoupling the Transaction ID from OpenRTB standards, which could threaten interoperability at the platform level.
“OpenAds doesn’t fix that,” he said, “but it shows demand for alternatives that preserve visibility.”
TTD = Google?
Whether you believe OpenAds is a direct response to Prebid’s TID change or a good-faith attempt to benefit advertisers and publishers, the announcement has sparked broader conversations about who ultimately controls the digital ad ecosystem.
The Trade Desk insists it is offering tools to support the open internet and provide fairer auctions. Critics, however, point to the similarities with Google’s historical strategies, where Google’s platform control on both sides of the ecosystem influenced pricing and limited independence.
According to Guyton-Bradley, publishers built Google into what it is today, and they have to be cautious not to put all of their eggs in one basket again.
And publishers can’t be distracted by any potential improvements in yield from TTD’s new wrapper, he said. After all, he added, Google positioned AdX and its server-side unified auction EBDA as efficient yield drivers while locking publishers into dependence.
“Consolidation can be efficient in the short term, but dangerous if it erodes leverage over time,” Guyton-Bradley said. “The opportunity is whether OpenAds becomes a true open standard, inviting other DSPs to plug in, or whether it evolves into a ‘walled openness’ that drives yield but leaves publishers dependent on one gatekeeper.”
According to TTD’s announcement, the plan is indeed to allow other DSPs and SSPs to bid into OpenAds. But whether that promotes fairness in the auction remains to be seen.
Still, TTD does not see itself as controlling the ecosystem as Google did. A person close to the TTD told AdMonsters that comparing OpenAds to Google’s product decisions was “lazy.”
“Google’s dominance came from tying together its ad server, exchange and demand,” they said. “What’s happening now is a broader market movement. Publishers are taking more control of their yield and supply paths, and every DSP is responding to that.”
DowningHall agreed that the comparisons to Google are unfair.
When Jeff Green claims to be always in service of the buy side, DowningHall said, “to me that reflects a mission to make the open web a marketer’s preferred destination for ad spend. As a publisher reliant on a thriving open internet, I’m supportive of that goal, because it’s the kind of thing that can lift all boats.”