The Trade Desk’s third-quarter revenue fell 0.5% to $736 million, its first year-over-year decline since going public in 2016, but the result beat the floor of at least $650 million it had set in August by about $86 million. Midterm political ads accounted for a mid-single-digit percentage of revenue, according to CFO Nate Olmstead, and since spending of that kind was mostly missing a year earlier, the decline would otherwise have been steeper. Net income fell to $38 million from $116 million after the company booked $44 million in severance and other costs from cutting about 15% of its staff, which Olmstead expects to save over $100 million next year. CEO Jeff Green, who has called acquisitions a distraction in the past, said The Trade Desk is now looking at deals more than it used to.
