![[Matter Header Twitter.png]]  [Remember this scene from The Big Short?](https://youtu.be/3hG4X5iTK8M?si=w_dheQ4KgOKClDY3&t=26) Watch and re-familiarize yourself before reading [this bit of reporting from from Adweek Daily](https://www.adweek.com/programmatic/publicis-tells-clients-dont-use-trade-desk/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_17326116_ADWEEK_Daily_260318&lctg=e67de24b-72ce-46d8-b058-46ef4f09fa07) (We assume all Matter readers have the proper cultural taste in movies to be familiar with [*The Big Short*](https://www.amazon.com/Big-Short-Adam-McKay/dp/B0G1LBCGFX). If not, a must watch for the weekend ahead) Key paragraph from AdwD: > “The Trade Desk appeared to be ad-tech’s untouchable star. Now, French advertising giant Publicis is advising clients to avoid working with the company... The Trade Desk failed an audit to vet the platform’s fee structures and media and data spend.*” In other words, they can’t verify ad purchasers are getting what they paid for in programmtic placements over their platform; particularly when it comes to Connected TV. That means dozens of agencies serving center-right political causes are getting... shorted. ![[Raccoon Stealing GIF.gif]] *“But this doesn’t affect me, right? I’ve never heard of the trade desk, and MY digital agency has a secret sauce...* ” WRONG. Many of the biggest digital agencies in politics; the ones that work for the committees and all the senators and they have that secret sauce? For years, the Trade Desk has been the secret sauce of many, if not most, of the major center-right placement operations. This is likely their process: 1. Take your money, mark it up; probably according to contract. 2. Send orders to the Trade Desk, possibly bundled with the orders of all their other clients, in exchange for a lower than wholesale rate; pocket the delta. 3. Trade Desk takes whats left of your money and tranches it up with a giant pile of other orders for programmatic inventory all over the internet. (Including the orders of other campaigns, from both parties.) 4. Bids are placed and met-automagically on as much available digital inventory as possible, with minimal restrictions on quality; because that drives up cost and variability 5. Your ads run in-determinate places, at prices determined by the lowest bids; which remain unknown to you. 6. A report is kicked back to your agency that does not specify where your inventory was run, and will sometimes cross reference other deployments. 7. Your agency puts their logo on said report and forwards you PDFs of results at two week intervals. Political pros: if you get “reports” back with a line item that says "*CTV"* or *"Programmatic"* and nothing else; you’ve probably been lumped into a massive buy, likely through the Trade Desk. Clients pay top dollar. Agencies buy bulk to maximize profit. What should have been millions in video impressions becomes millions in markup. Don’t believe your big name digital agency would do that? Ask them to put end-line vendors on their invoices and show you the receipts. [Or just hire us, and see the paper trail](https://bullhorncomms.com)