Adtech company The Trade Desk lays off 15% of staff as it restructures into ‘smaller pods’

Adtech company The Trade Desk is downsizing.

In a note late Thursday, The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green informed staff it was laying off 15% of its head count.

In the announcement, which was also published on The Trade Desk’s news site, The Current, Green said the aim was to restructure the company into “smaller pods and smaller scrums, but with greater focus.” The company said in a February financial filing that it had 3,843 full-time employees as of December 31, 2025, meaning the restructure is estimated to affect more than 500 staffers.

The news comes on the heels of the company reporting disappointing quarterly performance last month.

Revenue grew by just 3% year-on-year, and it missed Wall Street expectations on earnings.

Green said at the time the company “did not meet the standard we set for ourselves” and that it was taking actions to strengthen its execution, upgrade its platform, and sharpen its focus.

The Trade Desk declined to provide further comment on the layoffs.

It’s been a rocky period for The Trade Desk.

Its shares have dropped by around 70% over the past year, and fallen nearly 90% from its late-2024 peak.

The company has experienced a high rate of executive turnover, including the recent departures of its chief finance officer, chief revenue officer, chief strategy officer, chief marketing officer, and four members of its board.

It has hired replacements for its CFO and CMO, as well as a chief commercial officer and two new board members.

It also entered a high-profile dispute with one of its large customers, Publicis Groupe.

In March, the French advertising group told clients it was no longer recommending The Trade Desk, following an independent audit into its fees.

The companies issued a joint statement in June saying they had settled their differences. “In the context of being one of the worst performing stocks in the S&P 500 for two years running, losing its entire C-level management team, and with expectations of 15% sales declines in 2H26, the head count cuts are no surprise,” said Richard Kramer, an analyst at Arete Research.

There had been signs that The Trade Desk could be preparing to cut its ranks.

On Thursday, analysts at Evercore ISI published a note recapping the firm’s “Rally in the Valley” bus tour.

The analysts wrote that The Trade Desk’s head of investor relations, Chris Roth, had said the company had “never significantly pared back its cost structure” and that there were likely “significant opportunities to address.” In his statement on Thursday, Green said the company was healthy, adding that it had about $1.5 billion of cash and no debt on its balance sheet. “Our aim is to position The Trade Desk team to move with greater agility, focus, ownership, and speed,” Green said.

The Trade Desk was once one of independent adtech’s biggest success stories.

The company, which offers a demand-side platform that helps advertisers automate and target their ad buys across websites, apps, and TV, soared in value after its 2016 initial public offering.

In recent years, it has faced some product adoption hiccups and intense competition, particularly from Amazon, which embarked on a yearslong effort to improve its own DSP and take share from The Trade Desk and Google.

This year, The Trade Desk, spearheaded by Green, has adopted a combative tone in its communications, targeting the media, Wall Street, and industry players who have questioned its strategy.

Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the company’s former senior director of financial planning and analysis with insider trading, while federal prosecutors separately charged him with securities fraud.

They alleged he made more than $338,000 in profits from trading The Trade Desk’s stock using material nonpublic information he learned through his employment at the company.