When working with The Trade Desk data in Whatagraph, selecting the appropriate report types is essential for ensuring accurate and comprehensive reporting. This article explains how to retrieve accurate aggregated cost figures and specific metrics like Ad format and Device type.

To calculate the most accurate aggregated cost figures from The Trade Desk:

To include Ad format metrics in your report:

To add Device type metrics to your report:

Two settings cause most mismatches between The Trade Desk and Whatagraph: the date range and campaign name filters. Check both, because fixing only one often leaves a gap.

What you’re seeing

Your Whatagraph report shows “Last month” totals for impressions, clicks, or spend that don’t match “Last month” in The Trade Desk. Sometimes The Trade Desk number is higher, and sometimes a campaign appears in one platform but not the other.

Why it happens: the date range ends on a different day

Whatagraph’s “Last month” covers only the full calendar month, from the 1st to the last day. The Trade Desk records report ranges with an end date that is excluded from the data, so a full month appears as running to the 1st of the next month, for example, October 1 to November 1. Source.

If you set a custom range in The Trade Desk that ends on the 1st and expect that day to be counted, or if your campaign runs in a time zone other than UTC, data from the 1st of the next month ends up in the comparison. The Trade Desk reports in UTC regardless of your campaign time zone, so a campaign set to end at midnight Eastern Time will continue to show spend until 5:00 AM UTC on the 1st. Source.

Why it happens: campaign name filters include or exclude different campaigns

A Source filter applies to every Widget that uses that Source, and any Widget filter is added on top of it. If the filter uses “Contains”, every campaign whose name includes that text is counted, including campaigns you didn’t mean to report on. If the filter uses an exact match, any campaign with a slightly different name, such as an extra space or a different suffix, is left out. The Trade Desk shows whatever campaigns you selected there, so the two totals cover different campaigns.

How to make the numbers match

Step 1. In The Trade Desk, open your report and set a custom date range that starts on the 1st of the month and ends on the last day of that same month, for example, October 1 to October 31.

Step 2. In The Trade Desk, set the report time zone to UTC.

Step 3. In Whatagraph, open your report and click the date picker at the top of the report.

Step 4. Select “Last month”, or select a custom Fixed Period with the same start and end dates you used in The Trade Desk.

Step 5. Open the Sources drawer, find your The Trade Desk Source, and click the three dots next to it to check for a Source filter.

Step 6. Click the Widget you are comparing, scroll to the Filters section, and review every filter listed, including the Source filter shown at the top of the filter window.

Step 7. Check the operator on each campaign name filter, and switch from “Contains” to an exact-match operator if it is pulling in campaigns you don’t want.

Step 8. Add a Table Widget with Campaign name as the dimension, and compare the campaign list line by line with the campaigns selected in The Trade Desk.

By following these best practices, you can ensure your reports reflect accurate cost data and meaningful campaign metrics, tailored to The Trade Desk's wide range of performance data.