The Trade Desk connection

What it reads

For each connected advertiser, Growth Dept MTA reads spend, impressions and clicks by ad group and day, with campaigns and ad groups, which map to campaigns and ad sets. The Trade Desk's ad group reports are not split by creative, so there is no ad level. Spend is in the advertiser's currency. Dates are in UTC, because The Trade Desk reports in UTC whatever a campaign's time zone.

The Trade Desk's own conversions and revenue, counted across the advertiser's tracking tags, come in with each day's spend, and its impressions fill The Trade Desk's platform-reported column. Hourly spend is read too.

A pull runs about once an hour and re-reads the last 7 days, and a nightly pull re-reads the last 30. Each pull replaces the rows for its window, so days that The Trade Desk restates end up matching The Trade Desk. Spend is converted to the brand's currency as it arrives, at the European Central Bank rate for each day.

Connecting

The Trade Desk connects with credentials you paste instead of a sign-in screen.

1. The Trade Desk gives API access only under your contract, or your agency's. Ask your account manager to turn on the Platform API for the advertiser; there is usually a setup fee.
2. A user with access to the advertiser opens OpenTTD > Access Management, chooses the application Platform API, and generates a token. A token can last from one week to one year.
3. Sign in to Growth Dept MTA as an owner or admin of the brand's organization. Other members can see Settings > Connections but cannot change it.
4. Open Settings > Connections. On the The Trade Desk card, paste the advertiser ID into Advertiser ID and the token into API Token, then click Connect.
5. Growth Dept MTA checks them with one small read on The Trade Desk. If The Trade Desk accepts them, they are stored encrypted, the advertiser appears on the card, and a backfill starts over the brand's lookback window (Settings > Lookback window), up to the 365 days of daily data The Trade Desk keeps. If the check fails, the form shows the error and nothing is saved.

To replace the credentials, for example before a token ends, paste the new ones into the same form. The connection keeps its data and carries on with the new ones.

If you have been sending The Trade Desk spend through the spend API or a spreadsheet, remove those rows before you connect. They carry their own account ID, so they would be counted on top of the connected account's spend. Settings > Data Spreadsheets lists each upload. Once the connection is live, the spend API and spreadsheets refuse new The Trade Desk rows.

Tracking parameters

The UTM guide has no The Trade Desk entry. Where The Trade Desk ads link to your site, tag those links with the guide's template for other platforms, with utm_source=tradedesk and a paid medium such as programmatic, display or ctv, so the visits count as paid traffic from The Trade Desk.

utm_source=<platform>&utm_medium=<paid, email, sms, affiliate or influencer>&utm_campaign=<campaign>&utm_term=<ad set>&utm_content=<ad>

Limits

• Tokens cannot be refreshed. Paste a new one into the same form before the old one ends; otherwise pulls stop and the advertiser's row on the card shows the error.
• There is no ad level, no thumbnails and no view-through conversions.
• The Trade Desk keeps 365 days of daily data and 30 days of hourly data for this report, so nothing older can be pulled.
• The Trade Desk's conversions and revenue are its own credit and are not part of Growth Dept MTA's attribution.
• The raw event feed (REDS) is not read. The Trade Desk sets it up under a separate agreement, so the REDS card in Settings > Connections stays off.
• Growth Dept MTA only reads from The Trade Desk. It does not change campaigns, budgets or ads.

Disconnecting

Each linked account has its own Disconnect button in its row on the The Trade Desk card. Only owners and admins can use it. After you confirm:

• Syncing for that account stops.
• The stored API token is deleted.
• Data already pulled stays in your reports.

Connecting the account again later starts a new backfill.