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Why data providers win with the ACE framework

Data storage and collaboration platforms play a central role in how advertisers activate audiences and measure performance on The Trade Desk. When advertisers can onboard audiences, send conversion signals, and analyze exposure data in a single workflow, campaigns optimize more quickly and your platform can experience higher data usage and recurring compute volume. The Trade Desk’s ACE framework (activation, conversions, and exposures) is how that value can be unlocked.

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Advertisers rely on data partners to manage and activate first-party data, but when key signals, such as conversions or exposure logs, are not passed, campaigns often begin with limited context for optimization. Performance becomes harder to improve and harder to prove, which limits how often advertisers use your platform and how deeply they engage with its features.

The ACE framework provides a simpler structure to help advertisers measure impact across the entire advertising funnel. That clarity helps build confidence in campaign strategies, which can lead to increased programmatic activity, more data flowing through your platform, and stronger reliance on your platform over time.

Why the ACE framework matters 

Most advertisers want to use their own first-party data to drive performance, but campaigns often begin with limited context — or a “cold start” — that slows optimization and can make outcomes harder to prove. The ACE framework connects activation, outcome signals, and exposure logs in a single workflow. When all three signals flow, The Trade Desk platform’s AI can learn faster, adjust midflight, and measure lift with confidence.

For data providers, that means your platform becomes part of the continuous optimization loop — not just the audience onboarding step. 

More workflows run through your environment, and the value of your data becomes linked directly to measurable campaign performance.

Here is how it breaks down from advertiser and data provider perspectives:

ComponentAdvertiser benefitData provider benefit
Activation (data onboarding)Helps ensure campaigns reach the right customersMore audience building, enrichment, and segmentation workloads
Conversions (outcome signals)Seeds train faster and optimization improves midflightMore conversion joins, more optimization analysis, more recurring compute
Exposures (log-level IMPs)Clearer, causal performance insights across channels for attribution and lift analysisHigher value measurement use cases and ongoing reporting workflows

What’s in it for data providers

When advertisers activate and measure data processed in your environment, they can run more workflows more often, such as enrichment, modeling, attribution joins, and log-level analysis. Over time, data usage and recurring compute volume increase, which can make your platform more central to an advertiser’s performance strategy.

Enabling an ACE framework can help strengthen your position in four key ways:

  • Stronger customer relationships. When your platform supports full-funnel advertising, you become part of how performance is achieved, not just how data is moved.
  • More data usage and compute activity. Activation, conversion joins, and exposure analysis happen repeatedly, which can increase ongoing workloads in your environment.
  • Accelerated product adoption. ACE integrations open the door to new use cases, such as conversion APIs, log-level measurement, and real-time optimization, which can encourage advertisers to use more of your platform’s capabilities.
  • Differentiation in a crowded market. Providing a system that can help improve campaign outcomes and ROI helps position your platform as a performance partner in a privacy-conscious ecosystem.

How to get started

ACE is not just a framework. It’s a way to help ensure your platform participates in the full outcome cycle. By enabling an ACE framework, you can help your clients improve their campaign performance and you create a natural incentive for them to process more data, more often, through your environment.

If you’d like to explore how an ACE framework can fit your integration model and client segments, your partnership manager at The Trade Desk can help map your next steps. Documentation and implementation guidance are available to support your team.

This information is provided solely for background and is not a representation or guarantee of any future performance.