Trade Desk shares jump after Google says it will keep tracking cookies until 2023
Google will be delaying its plan to phase out third-party tracking cookies from its Chrome browser until the second half of 2023, the tech giant announced early June 24, a move that gave a big boost to Ventura-based advertising technology company The Trade Desk.
Shares of The Trade Desk opened at $66.23 and shot up 13.5% by midday, to around $74.40. It was The Trade Desk’s biggest movement in a single day since November, according to stock analysis website Seeking Alpha. Other ad-tech companies saw similar gains.
The Trade Desk completed its 10-for-1 stock split on June 17. Since the split, shares have climbed more than 25%.
When Google first announced that it would be cutting off third-party cookies as early as 2022, on March 3, shares for The Trade Desk plummeted nearly 20% over the next two days.
Most analysts, though, said there was not a major long-term concern for the The Trade Desk, since the company has been preparing for years for the demise of tracking cookies.
Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green said in a March 4 blog post that “not much has changed. But what has changed, will ultimately prove positive.”
The Trade Desk has been working on a platform named Unified 2.0 that Green called “an alternative to third-party cookies.” It uses encrypted identifiers to allow people to sign in to websites and browsers using an email address, much like current Facebook and Google sign-ins. That places layers between advertisers and individuals, tracking users’ interests and behavior rather than personally identifying information. According to The Trade Desk, Unified already has more than 50 million users.
