The Trade Desk is pushing out another update to Kokai, its buying platform. But don’t expect the same uproar as its last major overhaul three years ago. Unlike then, this one leans on fixes agencies have been asking for rather than forcing them through a disruptive integration.When Kokai launched, buyers complained they were being forced onto a platform that wasn’t ready for how they actually worked. In turn, they started spending money they would’ve otherwise spent with The Trade Desk elsewhere. That frustration got blamed for the company’s revenue miss since going public, and its stock fell 33% on the news in Q4 2024.
With this update, the plan is to do the opposite.
“I would say UX is a key focus for the Zuma release of Kokai,” said Samantha Ross, senior director, product marketing at The Trade Desk during a press briefing. “As we’ve been listening to customer feedback over the last year or so, one theme has come up consistently, which is users appreciate the power of Kokai, but they want it to be easier to use, easier to find what they’re looking for, and ultimately easier to take action in, and that is exactly what the UX improvements are designed to address.”
That lines up with how some agencies describe Kokai’s evolution over the past year.
