French advertising titan Publicis is advising its clients to avoid working with demand-side platform (DSP) The Trade Desk.
In an email sent Tuesday to select clients, obtained by ADWEEK, the company explained that The Trade Desk failed an audit conducted by a third-party consultant that evaluated the platform’s fee structures and media and data spend.
The Trade Desk “improperly applied their DSP fee to other fees” it charged and charged Publicis and some of its clients for tools that they were automatically opted into—without providing evidence that the holdco or its clients authorized the addition of those purchases, the audit found. Plus, the memo claims, The Trade Desk “did not provide our auditor with the information necessary to validate that the media and data costs were invoiced at cost, without mark-up as per our agreement.”
Publicis added in the memo that it “engaged the highest levels of leadership at TTD” and “have been unable to come to a satisfactory resolution pertaining to these audit findings.” It wrote: “Accordingly, we can no longer recommend The Trade Desk for our clients.”
A Publicis spokesperson confirmed the validity of the memo. “We have a responsibility to our clients to conduct thorough due diligence when it comes to our vendors,” the spokesperson said. “In this case, an experienced independent auditor concluded that The Trade Desk did not pass the audit.”
Publicis confirmed to ADWEEK that the auditor was FirmDecisions, a popular media and marketing contract compliance auditor. FirmDecisions, part of Ebiquity Group, declined a request for comment.
The memo was sent to clients transacting on The Trade Desk through Publicis’ Master Services Agreement. Some Publicis clients may have independent relationships with the DSP.
The Trade Desk squarely refuted the claims made in the memo. “Any notion that TTD failed an audit is not true,” a company spokesperson said in a statement shared with ADWEEK. The company said that the auditor requested data “that would violate customer and partner confidentiality agreements.”
The spokesperson added that The Trade Desk “proposed a range of options to Publicis,” and said it would continue to work with the advertising giant “to provide workable alternatives to this particular request.” The Trade Desk, the spokesperson said, is “committed to providing the highest level of industry transparency and strong controls in how we report and bill.”
Publicis denied that the company requested confidential data. “At no point in this process did Publicis ask for the disclosure of any data or information that went beyond the audit agreement in place with The Trade Desk. None of the options proposed by The Trade Desk resolved the issues raised by the audit. As a result of the audit findings we will no longer be recommending The Trade Desk as a solution for our clients,” Publicis’s spokesperson told Adweek.
ADWEEK previously reported that Publicis rivals Dentsu and WPP quietly exited The Trade Desk’s supply path solution OpenPath.
