A guide to upfront planning in 4 essential steps

Step 1: 

Request custom CTV insights from your account team at The Trade Desk 

The right insights can help you shape the ideal budget and publisher mix for your goals. 

• Your account team can guide you on how to split your budget between linear and CTV to drive the greatest reach as efficiently as possible. 

• They can also show you where your audience is spending time across major publishers to help you identify which partners deliver the most unique reach and where there’s overlap so that you can go into negotiations with a clear strategy. 

Knowing where your audience is and how each publisher contributes to your overall strategy better equips you to advocate for terms that align with your goals. 

Step 2: 

Run a custom CTV forecast in the platform 

To prepare for upfront conversations with your publisher partners, it’s important to have a baseline understanding of your expected reach and frequency. That way, you’ll know where to double down, where to ask for more or better terms, and how decisioning can help you get the most out of every media dollar. 

You can start by running a CTV forecast in the Forecasting (F) tile within the Kokai platform experience based on your target audience, preferred publishers, and budget. These insights can help maximize your potential reach across premium CTV inventory on the open internet. You’ll get a clearer picture of how much of your target audience you’re likely to reach with your planned budget. This will help you scale up where it counts and identify where additional flexibility (like decisioning) could unlock more value. 

If your forecast falls short, try expanding: 

• Targeted properties: Work with your streaming partners to spread your investment across a wider range of content and apps while prioritizing the inventory you care most about. 

• Audience segments: Broaden your targeting by using lookalike audiences or wider demographic criteria to reach more potential viewers. 

• Channel mix: Consider including desktop, mobile, or tablet streaming — not just CTV devices — to give yourself more flexibility and to access a broader pool of premium inventory. 

Pro tip: Once your campaign and deals are live, you can assess if the decisions you made can be refined further by using Decision Power Score in Kokai. 

Step 3: 

Ensure your publisher partners are aware of your preferences and key settings 

Make sure to communicate your preferences and nonnegotiables with your publisher partners. We also recommend including your team at The Trade Desk, as they can help you advocate for what matters most and ensure your strategy shows up how you intended. 

Here are some of the key details you’ll want to confirm: 

• Campaign goal(s) 

• Target audience(s) 

• Flight dates 

• Budget 

• Inventory preferences 

• Audience(s) 

• Ad frequency 

When negotiating, we recommend collaborating with publishers to get the most impactful ad placements that benefit your brand and the user/​viewer experience. Here’s what to ask for: 

1. Can all my programmatic spend count toward my upfront commitment? 
   Work with your publisher partners to ensure always-on and decisioned media count toward your commitment — ideally across both programmatic marketplace (PMP) and programmatic guaranteed (PG) deals without added restrictions. 
    

2. Will I get full access to premium inventory through programmatic? 
   Ensure your programmatic deals can access tentpoles, live sports, and sponsorships with the same (or better) priority as direct buys. 
    

3. Will I have flexibility across deals and channels?  
   Ask for the ability to shift spend between PG and PMP deals and between linear and streaming so your media strategy can adapt to performance and consumer behavior. 
    

4. Can I have more durable signals to ensure better outcomes?  
   Ask that networks prioritize authenticated inventory where persistent identifiers, like Unified ID 2.0 (UID2), are passed in the bidstream. This can help you connect your CTV buys more effectively to your omnichannel strategies. 
    

5. Can I have full transparency on content signals? 
   Request that key content details (like show, genre, pod position, etc.) are passed in the bidstream or reported post-campaign to verify where your ads ran. 

Step 4: 

Get ahead of the most common creative blockers early on 

While CTV campaigns might not activate until the fall, the typical upfront season (May) is the perfect time to get a head start on creative planning. Creative specifications and approval processes can vary widely by publisher. Waiting until the last minute can slow things down. 

Use this lead time to gather requirements, understand unique specs, and flag potential blockers early. Your account team can help you map out what’s needed so there are no surprises when it’s time to go live. Taking a few steps now can help ensure your creative is ready and your campaign stays on track once it comes time to activate. 

To ensure your campaign creatives are set up for success, use these creative-planning resources: 

1. Publisher creative specifications 

2. Common blockers 

When it comes to upfronts, planning is a crucial step toward activation success. Your account team is here to help throughout the entire process — from forecasting and campaign setup to in-flight optimization and troubleshooting. 

Decisioned upfronts give you control, clarity, and confidence. Not yet working with us? Contact us to get started.