The Trade Desk (TTD) Koa AI Improves Median CPA 21% in A/B Tests
Summary
The Trade Desk says its upgraded Koa AI cost-per-acquisition model improved median CPA by 21% across 62 campaigns versus the prior model; no revenue link was disclosed.
On 2026-11-09, The Trade Desk (TTD) said on its third-quarter earnings call that its upgraded Koa AI cost-per-acquisition (CPA) model improved CPA by a median of 21% in A/B tests across 62 advertising campaigns [1]. The result is measured on the advertiser side. The company did not tie it to its own revenue.
What Koa does inside the Kokai platform
The Trade Desk is a buy-side advertising technology platform. Agencies and brand advertisers use it to buy ads programmatically across open-internet channels such as connected TV, audio, mobile apps and the web. The company earns a platform fee based on the ad spend clients run through the platform.
Koa is the company's brand for AI products, and it is built into Kokai, the company's ad-buying platform. The company says Kokai "leverages AI to help them make sense of the roughly 15 million ad opportunities we see every second and the hundreds of variables associated with each one of them" [2]. After agency and advertiser traders set up a campaign, Koa scores and values each ad impression opportunity, forecasts performance, and automatically adjusts bids, budgets and frequency so the campaign runs against goals the advertiser sets, such as CPA, the ad spend required to acquire one customer. The application sits in the company's core business and directly determines whether clients' ad dollars are spent efficiently.
How the company's evidence for Koa narrowed to the AI itself
Across several earnings calls, the way The Trade Desk described Koa's effect gradually narrowed to the AI itself.
- On 2024-08-08, the company used campaigns that moved from its older Solimar platform to Kokai as the sample and said incremental reach for those campaigns rose by more than 70% overall. That compared two platform generations; Koa's own contribution was not separated out [2].
- On 2026-02-25, the company said almost 100% of its clients were running through Kokai [3]. With Kokai as the default platform, an old-versus-new platform comparison no longer had a reference group.
- On 2026-11-09, after a Kokai release called Zuma, the company switched the comparison baseline to Koa's own previous CPA model [1].
Why the 21% median CPA result carries weight, and its limits
The weight of the 21% figure comes from how it was measured. The test covered 62 campaigns and compared the upgraded model directly with the prior model, with no additional campaign setup changes required. Within the test, the CPA difference can therefore be attributed to the model itself [1].
The figure is a median, representing the middle of the improvement range across the tested campaigns. The company did not explain how the 62 campaigns were selected, so the result cannot be extended to a general improvement across all campaigns on the platform.
On the same call, the company said Koa's optimization features were enabled on 22% more strategies than before [1]. That points to wider usage, but the company did not give the base for the comparison.
From lower advertiser CPA to The Trade Desk revenue
An advertiser's budget decision sits between lower acquisition costs and The Trade Desk's revenue. The company's revenue moves with the ad spend clients run through the platform. If advertisers keep or raise their budgets on the platform because acquiring customers got cheaper, the platform would carry more spend and revenue could benefit.
The company presented all of these figures as campaign results. It did not attribute any change in revenue, margin or client spend to Koa, and it disclosed no data on the steps in between. The shorter time needed for core setup tasks, such as building campaigns and ad groups, disclosed in the same period, came from the Zuma release as a whole and cannot be credited to AI. A campaign-creation agent that is in testing has no quantified results yet.
What is confirmed so far
What can be confirmed is that the upgraded Koa model lowered advertisers' CPA in controlled tests and that Koa optimization is being used more widely. Whether this improvement turns into revenue growth for The Trade Desk has not been separately quantified by the company. More specific evidence would come if the company discloses how platform spend or renewals for advertisers using the new model change relative to other advertisers.
Application assessment
- Koa and Kokai AI Media Buying | Business position: core business | Deployment stage: pilot | Scope: limited | Value type: revenue growth
Sources
[1] Drillr · The Trade Desk, Inc. (TTD) · 2026-11-09 · Earnings call
"In A-B tests across 62 campaigns, the upgraded COA CPA model improves CPA by a median of 21% versus the prior model with no additional setup changes required."
[2] Drillr · The Trade Desk, Inc. (TTD) · 2024-08-08 · Earnings call
"Kokai helps them target those new audiences across the many thousands of destinations that comprise the best of the open internet, and it leverages AI to help them make sense of the roughly 15 million ad opportunities we see every second and the hundreds of variables associated with each one of them."
[3] Drillr · The Trade Desk, Inc. (TTD) · 2026-02-25 · Earnings call
"First, almost 100% of our clients are running through Kokai today."