US court case reveals ad tech giants Google and The Trade Desk coining it

Evidence is emerging about the vast sums made by ad tech middlemen, notably Google and specialist The Trade Desk as the antitrust case against Google in the US develops.

Ad analyst Brian Weiser wrote in his newsletter: “In total, these (Google) businesses generated $15 billion in booked revenue and $2.9 billion in net revenue with $255 million in operating income. For a reference point, during 2020, The Trade Desk had $4.2 billion in gross revenue with $836 million in net revenue and $150 million in operating income.”

Nice work if you can get it and both companies run efficient operations. But, bizarrely, as digital takes over the ad world (60% and rising in a global market heading to towards $1 trillion) there’s still a remarkable lack of evidence that real people see all these ads, let alone register them and take any kind of action.

No-one knows what conclusion the US authorities will arrive at and what action they make take (lots are betting that Google will try to settle out of court as the evidence become ever more embarrassing.) But advertisers should be asking big questions of their media agencies (who may be equally reluctant to provide answers.)