A CTV campaign leveraging United Airlines’ commerce media network, Kinective Media, reached over 250,000 net new households and drove 20% of sales for a luxury brand client, The Trade Desk revealed in a recent Beet.TV interview.
The campaign demonstrates how The Trade Desk is combining its traditional demand-side platform capabilities with new audience segments from retail and commerce partnerships. Jeff Daniel, GM of Retail Data Partnerships at The Trade Desk, shared the results during a conversation with Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan.
“They said, ‘Let’s test out this travel segment as something new,’” Daniel recalled of the luxury brand’s decision. “And within our audience planner tool, they were able to see that there was very minimal duplication. It was kind of this extra bubble.”
The success hinged on identifying an untapped audience. Despite having access to what the brand called a “pie of existing data providers,” they had never tested targeting the luxury travel segment until this campaign.
“The combination of a new segment and a CTV-type channel for the upper funnel helped expand the campaign into a full funnel approach,” Daniel noted. “That’s where we’re starting to see results of testing new segments paired with other channels.”
Beyond the DSP lines
The Kinective Media collaboration shows how The Trade Desk’s evolution is taking it beyond its core identity as a demand-side platform. The company has been developing creative capabilities and forging partnerships that challenge traditional boundaries in programmatic advertising.
“The evolution of omnichannel or full funnel advertising has really taken shape as The Trade Desk sees more and more advertisers lean into full funnel activation,” Daniel said.
However, he acknowledged a significant obstacle: “One of the things that we’ve seen is a little bit of a barrier to that full funnel adoption is creative resources.”
This recognition has prompted The Trade Desk to develop tools that allow advertisers to adapt existing assets into video spots and audio advertisements.
Storytelling as strategy
When asked whether creative tools fall outside The Trade Desk’s usual scope, Daniel emphasized the strategic importance of storytelling. “Storytelling is critical in our minds,” he stated, while maintaining that The Trade Desk “remains an objective independent DSP” not looking to sell creative services.
The company positions its creative tools as enablers for advertisers who want to activate campaigns across channels. “Don’t let creative resourcing necessarily be a barrier,” Daniel advised. “Ask your partners, how can you get some help to unlock some of these channels?”
One example is audio advertising. That’s steadily become an area where The Trade Desk’s platform helps advertisers create ads for platforms like Spotify. This capability becomes particularly valuable when combined with new audience segments from retail and commerce partnerships.
Premium partnerships’ power
The Trade Desk occupies what Daniel calls a “privileged position” with premium partnerships across CTV and audio platforms. By removing creative barriers, the company aims to help advertisers capitalize on these channels more effectively.
“We’re in the privileged position of having really premium open internet publication partnerships, especially within the CTV and the audio space,” Daniel said. “Our advertiser teams are constantly asking the question, how do we meet the consumer where they are throughout their everyday life?”
Redefining programmatic’s future
When asked whether programmatic advertising needs to be redefined, Daniel offered a thoughtful response. “If programmatic has to be redefined, I think there are so many options when it comes to this larger omnichannel strategy consumer journey,” he said. “It begs the question, who am I going to be focused on reaching first and foremost? And then the touch points kind of come after.”
Daniel outlined three areas shaping programmatic’s evolution. First, new data signals from retail and commerce media network partners. “I would encourage folks to again, lean into this, see this as additive and complimentary,” he emphasized. “This does not have to be a replacement strategy of maybe what feels like tried and true.”
Second, the convergence of creative and media placement. He stressed that advertisers shouldn’t let creative resourcing become a barrier but should seek help from partners to unlock new channels.
Third, artificial intelligence’s role in surfacing insights. “The Trade Desk, we hold ourselves again, very accountable to ensuring that our technology is surfacing new insights,” Daniel explained. These insights include audiences that advertisers wouldn’t have otherwise tested, with the platform automatically surfacing these opportunities.
Connecting AI to business outcomes
“AI in the spirit of ensuring that every dollar matters back to the business outcomes and is driving those outcomes, we need to be surfacing for all of our advertisers and agencies, those real-time signals, like ROAS, like in-platform incrementality as best we can so that people feel confident in how they’re spending their money,” he said.
The Kinective Media campaign’s success reflects broader changes in how advertisers approach their post-conversion strategies. Daniel emphasized the importance of looking beyond initial conversions to build lasting customer relationships.
“Take a pause, take a beat, and look at all of the audiences,” Daniel said. “Maybe you had multiple segments that you targeted within this campaign. Which ones performed the best? Which one drove a highly efficient conversion at the end of the day?”
His message underscores a shift in thinking about campaign success. As he put it, “Sometimes this is just the beginning of the end of the journey, if you will.”
You’re watching “The Flight to Cannes: Commerce Media Takes Off”, a Beet.TV Leadership Series, presented by Kinective Media by United Airlines. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
