The Trade Desk CEO and founder Jeff Green thinks that Google missed its chance to build an advertising product that works without using third-party cookies.
Google plans to kill third-party cookies that track how ads are targeted and measured this year from its web browser Chrome, and it started by killing 1% — equivalent to 30 million users — in January. To replace cookies, Google is pushing marketers to test cookieless ads with its own set of technologies called Privacy Sandbox.
According to Green, Google’s Privacy Sandbox initiative doesn’t satisfy advertisers’ need to target ads across the web.
“I believe that Google has missed an opportunity to build something better,” he said during The Trade Desk’s fourth-quarter earnings. “Increased complexity with decreased functionality is hardly a compelling offering.”
Google has stated that: “The Privacy Sandbox APIs provide building blocks that support business goals while preserving privacy for people. They are not designed to offer 1:1 replacements for third-party cookies or cross-site identifiers.”
But Green added that Privacy Sandbox is too complex, which will cause a poor user experience for Chrome users if they don’t see relevant ads on publishers’ websites.
“I think it’s not fully understood by more than ten people on the planet,” he said.
But Green is concerned about how publishers will adapt to Google’s changes. For publishers without first-party data like email addresses about their visitors, ad prices are likely to tank once third-party cookies go away. Green cited data that found some publishers’ ad prices dropped by 30% after Google deprecated 1% of cookies.
“Without either cookies or publisher authentication, advertisers won’t value those ad impressions nearly as much,” he said. “This is a wake-up call for publishers, and the math is obvious.”
Green’s comments are newsworthy because The Trade Desk is the largest independent adtech company that sells technology advertisers use to buy ads online. The Trade Desk wields significant influence in the digital ad industry, and Google is the company’s biggest competitor.
Green said that advertisers — The Trade Desk’s primary clients — are likely to be less affected by Privacy Sandbox than publishers. Advertisers are increasingly buying ads in places like streaming TV that collect email addresses from users. And advertisers have first-party data that can be used to target ads, he said.
“Fewer cookies doesn’t really matter a ton for us — it doesn’t stop our work because we’ve been busy with other open internet pioneers building something much better,” he said.
The Trade Desk pitches a cookie replacement solution called Unified ID 2.0.
Green said that The Trade Desk is also testing Privacy Sandbox.
“Yes, we’ve been fairly critical of it, and yes, I don’t think it’s a good product but we have to try,” Green said. “This may be the most iterated-on product that I’ve ever seen from Google, so they keep changing it a lot.”
Green has a long history of criticizing Google. He has pushed back on Google’s big ad business — particularly in recent years as Google faces antitrust concerns from regulators.
However, The Trade Desk also sells some ad tools for publishers, which some experts say replicates Google’s sprawling suite of ad products.
The Trade Desk reported $1.95 billion in 2023 revenue, a 23% year-over-year growth. The firm managed $9.6 billion in ad spend last year.
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