3 steps for raising your Decision Power Score

As a growing number of traders know, Decision Power Score plays a major role in how campaigns deliver and scale across The Trade Desk’s Kokai platform experience. This vital metric reflects how much flexibility your campaign has to evaluate impressions from the start. 

When leveraged strategically, it can be a campaign performance multiplier. 

Now, research confirms what we’ve long suspected: A campaign with a high Decision Power Score delivers better pacing and consistently drives stronger performance. 

What Decision Power Score tells you 

The Decision Power Score measures how much flexibility your campaign has to evaluate impressions in real time. The more inventory you consider, the more competitive your bid ranges, and the more scalable your audience strategies, the more you will benefit from the platform’s AI-powered optimization. 

While the Relevance metric focuses on precision, Decision Power reflects your campaign’s ability to scale and respond dynamically. 

• A high Decision Power Score means the campaign has room to optimize. 

• A low Decision Power Score means it has fewer chances to compete from the start. 

Why it matters: The (test) results are in 

New analysis of thousands of campaigns confirms what savvy Kokai traders have long observed: raising your Decision Power Score can directly improve pacing and performance. 

We studied campaigns that started with a low Decision Power Score (under 40) and then moved into higher ranges. As scores improved, so did outcomes. 

Higher Decision Power gives Kokai the flexibility to evaluate more relevant impressions and serve the most effective ones. 

These test results reinforce what many traders have already seen with Kokai tools like forecast snapshot and QA: In addition to being a setup check, Decision Power is a performance lever (which is also visible within forecast snapshot). 

How to raise your campaign’s score 

You can improve your Decision Power Score with these three intentional adjustments to your campaign setup: 

Step 1: Expand inventory.  

A larger consideration circle correlates with a higher Decision Power Score if everything else remains equal. The easiest way to expand inventory is to target the Sellers and Publishers 500+ marketplace. 

Step 2: Expand your bid ranges. A narrow bid threshold limits the campaign’s ability to compete. Use in-platform tools like bid guidance within the Base and Max Bid (Bb) tile to get data-driven insights into whether your bid levels are a likely constraint.

Step 3: Broaden your targeting. Overly tight filters limit your campaign’s reach and restrict the number of impressions the system can evaluate. Consider adding more relevant data to reach your target audience in more places across the open internet. If you don’t have a wealth of data, supplement your campaign seeds with audiences from our data marketplace. 

For more information about specific levers you can pull based on your own unique campaigns, read our interactive guide to unlocking better campaign performance with Decision Power and Relevance metrics. 

Ready for improved campaign performance? 

If your campaign is struggling with anything from scale to performance, check your Decision Power Score to indicate where the problem lies. 

Have you checked if your score is lower than the recommended 80? As aggregate campaign data shows, answering questions like this is not only one of the fastest ways to evaluate flexibility, it’s also one of the easiest ways to improve campaign performance. 

Ahead of your next launch, start by testing small setup changes in QA or Forecasting Snapshot or reach out to your representative at The Trade Desk for a Decision Power walk-through. 

Chances are, just a few small adjustments could help you get more from every impression.