The Trade Desk Data Monetisation

Sell your first-party segments into The Trade Desk (TTD) third-party data marketplace at a CPM rate. Zeotap creates the marketplace taxonomy element via the TTD Platform API, sets its data rate (CPM and/or percent-of-media-cost), and pushes segment membership to the TTD data server with a configurable TTL. This is distinct from the standard The Trade Desk destination, which activates first-party data against your own advertiser rather than offering it for purchase in the marketplace.

Prerequisites

• A Trade Desk data provider account approved to sell data in the marketplace
• A Platform API login (partner ID) and API key (password) with third-party data and data-rate permissions
• Your Provider ID (used both as ProviderId in the taxonomy and as DataProviderId for membership uploads)
• A data provider secret for HMAC signing of membership uploads to the TTD data server
• Warehouse columns carrying at least one supported identifier (TDID, UID2, EUID, or MAID)

Authentication

This destination uses two TTD API surfaces with a single credential set:

1. Platform API (https://api.thetradedesk.com/v3, sandbox https://apisb.thetradedesk.com/v3) — Zeotap exchanges your partner ID (Login) and API key (Password) at POST /authentication for a session token, then sends it as the TTD-Auth header on all segment and data-rate calls.
2. Data Server (https://<region>.adsrvr.org) — membership uploads are authenticated with a TtdSignature header computed as base64(HMAC-SHA1(request-body, data-provider-secret)).

Enter the API key, partner ID, and data provider secret when you create the destination in Zeotap.

Configuration

Target Settings

These fields are set when linking an audience and can be overridden per sync. Set a default CPM on the destination and override it per audience where needed.

Supported Operations

Sync Modes

The Trade Desk Data Monetisation is audience-only — standard data sync modes are not supported.

Audience Sync Modes

Add and Mirror push membership with a 180-day TTL. Remove pushes the same members with a TTL of 0, which expires them from the segment. Mirror relies on the current audience snapshot delivered by Zeotap.

Features

Required Mapping Fields

At least one of these identifiers must be mapped for every sync:

For each row, Zeotap uses the first present identifier in the order TDID, UID2, EUID, MAID.

How It Works

1. Create the taxonomy element — When the destination is saved, Zeotap authenticates with the Platform API and calls POST /v3/thirdpartydata to create (or update) the marketplace element under your ProviderId, using the Segment Name as both Name and FullPath and setting Buyable. If you did not supply a Provider Element ID, Zeotap derives a stable slug from the Segment Name so repeated syncs update the same element rather than creating duplicates.
2. Set the CPM rate — When a CPM price or percent-of-media-cost is configured, Zeotap calls POST /v3/datarate/batch to set the marketplace data rate for the element, using the configured Rate Type, currency, and amounts.
3. Push membership — For each sync batch, Zeotap builds membership items keyed by each user’s identifier, signs the request body with your data provider secret, and posts it to the TTD data server at /data/thirdparty. Add and Mirror runs use a 180-day TTL; Remove runs use a TTL of 0 to expire members.

Rate Limits

• Data rates: up to 5,000 rates per POST /v3/datarate/batch request.
• Membership uploads: approximately 10,000 items (≈2.5 MB) per /data/thirdparty request. Zeotap automatically chunks batches to stay within this limit.
• The Platform API enforces account-level rate limits on segment and data-rate operations. Zeotap surfaces HTTP 429 responses as failed batches and retries on the next sync run.

Troubleshooting

Authentication failed: invalid API key or partner ID

The partner ID (Login) or API key (Password) is incorrect, or the account lacks Platform API access. Verify both values and that the credentials are approved for third-party data.

Create element failed

The POST /v3/thirdpartydata call was rejected. Confirm the Provider ID is correct and that your account is approved to publish marketplace taxonomy elements. A duplicate or malformed FullPath can also cause this — check the Segment Name.

Set data rate failed

The POST /v3/datarate/batch call was rejected. Ensure the Rate Type is compatible with a buyable segment (TTD requires Hybrid) and that the CPM amount and currency are valid.

Data server HTTP 401 / signature errors

The TtdSignature was rejected. This almost always means the data provider secret is wrong. Verify the secret and that the Provider ID matches the data provider associated with it.

Wrong data server region

Signature or connectivity failures can occur if the Data Server Region does not match the region your data provider is provisioned in. Confirm the region with your Trade Desk representative and pick the matching option (US / EU / APAC).

Row missing tdid/uid2/euid/maid identifier

The source row carries none of the supported identifiers. Ensure your warehouse query or field mapping exposes at least one of tdid, uid2, euid, or maid for every row.

Members not expiring after Remove

Removal works by re-uploading members with a TTL of 0. If members persist, confirm the same identifier type is mapped as when they were added — a member added as TDID cannot be expired via a MAID upload.