How The Trade Desk measures publishers: in discussion with Mike O’Sullivan
BY HAZEL BROADLEY, BEELER.TECH
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How does The Trade Desk actually measure your site once an ad is served? That question came out of a discussion in the Beeler.Tech publisher community, so for our latest Camp.Fire, Rob invited Mike O’Sullivan, co-founder of Sincera (now part of The Trade Desk), to explain.
The session covered how Sincera’s synthetic user gathers data, what can get in the way of accurate measurement, which signals have the most impact on value, and why PubDesk access is rolling out in stages.
Mike opened by stressing that Sincera shares its findings openly so publishers can validate and challenge them. In one case, a publisher questioned a five-second refresh metric and found a legacy deal still running on a handful of pages.
How the synthetic user works
Traditional crawlers fire thousands of lightweight requests without rendering pages. Sincera takes the opposite approach, using a full browser that behaves like a reader. It makes relatively few visits but typically spends six to seven minutes on each URL, scrolling and watching. This lets it detect real ad refresh intervals and calculate ads-to-content ratio (A2CR) across around 60 ad servers on mobile and desktop. Visits combine URLs that see Trade Desk ad traffic with independent browsing from different entry points, which helps expose heavier ad loads served only to certain traffic sources.
What can limit measurement
Very aggressive bot-blocking settings can reduce coverage. If that applies to you as a publisher, Sincera can declare its synthetic user agent for your property so you can allowlist it. Mike prefers to keep it undeclared by default, though, as it works best as a “secret shopper.”
Signals that drive value
Mike highlighted quality UID2 (Unified ID 2.0) identifiers, transaction ID, OpenPath, A2CR, ad refresh and multi-video playback (two or more videos playing at once, including SSP-added in-banner video). Transaction ID already covers roughly 85% of web inventory, so switching it on brings you up to par rather than delivering a big lift.
In CTV, coverage sits at 35-40%, so early adopters still have an advantage. It’s also worth auditing any vendor that generates UID2s or manages yield for you. IDs seen live for 28 hours straight or on data center IPs get devalued, as do duplicated bid requests, even when the publisher isn’t the one responsible.
Getting access to PubDesk
Around 70% of Trade Desk spend already goes to publishers using PubDesk. Support for technical sales houses such as Raptive and Mediavine is now in beta, including a 30-day “cooldown” when a property switches partners. If you think you should have access, Mike invites you to reach out directly. Meanwhile, existing users should try the Peekaboo feature, which shows the specific URLs behind a metric.
From the synthetic user and measurement hurdles to the signals buyers value and PubDesk access, the session showed how much publishers gain by questioning the data about their sites. Mike’s takeaway was simple. If something looks wrong, tell Sincera, because accurate data benefits everyone.
Watch the full Camp.Fire session above to hear Mike’s answers in his own words, including more detail on UID2 quality and multi-video playback.
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