> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Wasted Spend, The Trade Desk > Wasted Spend for The Trade Desk stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Key Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Ad Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) ## At a glance > Spend on TTD placements (publisher domains, app bundles, audience segments, supply paths) that drove zero attributed conversions in the window, **including cross-device attributions**. **TTD's strict pre-bid IVT and superior cross-device attribution mean the wasted-spend figure is genuinely "wasted"**, not measurement-blocked. Acting on this card is more reliable than on peer DSPs. | | | | -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | **What it counts** | Spend (account currency) summed across publisher domains, app bundles, audience segments, and supply paths with zero `conversions` (incl. cross-device) and non-zero impressions/clicks. | | **Cost basis** | Whatever the campaign was bidding on (CPM, CPC, dCPM, Koa CPA target). | | **Currency** | Account currency. | | **Conversion attribution** | Click-through + view-through + cross-device. | | **Attribution window** | 30/1 default; 30/7 for CTV. | | **Bot / invalid traffic** | Pre-bid filtered (TTD's IVT is strictest in market). | | **Time window** | `30D`. | | **Alert trigger** | `>$0 (any zero-conv placement)`. Practical: act when wasted spend > 5% of total AND placements have >7 days activity. **The 5% threshold is tighter than peer DSPs because TTD's signal is cleaner; less of the card's "waste" is measurement noise.** | | **Roles** | owner, marketing, finance | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your The Trade Desk data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading. ## Worked example The same enterprise homeware brand. Window 02 Apr 26 to 01 May 26. Total spend \$128,000. | Placement | Channel | Spend (\$) | Impressions | Clicks | Conversions | Notes | | -------------------------------------- | ------- | ----------- | ----------- | ------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------- | | Premium publisher rotation | Display | 18,400 | 4.8M | 7,200 | 248 | Convertible | | nytimes.com | Display | 5,200 | 1.6M | 2,400 | 102 | Convertible | | Disney+ CTV (PMP) | CTV | 28,400 | 0.7M | n/a | 188 (incl. cross-device) | Convertible | | Hulu CTV (PMP) | CTV | 14,400 | 0.5M | n/a | 92 | Convertible | | Lamar DOOH (transit) | DOOH | 4,200 | 1.2M | n/a | 124 (cross-device) | Convertible | | **app: weather widget** | In-App | **620** | **800k** | **48** | **0** | **Wasted, click-fraud suspect** | | **regional sports streaming audio** | Audio | **480** | **160k** | **18** | **0** | **Wasted, audience mismatch** | | **niche programmatic display segment** | Display | **820** | **420k** | **620** | **0** | **Wasted, 18 days** | | Other (78 placements, all converting) | mixed | 55,460 | 8.6M | 5,398 | 528 | | | **Total wasted (this card)** | | **\$1,920** | **1.4M** | **686** | **0** | **1.5% of total spend** | What's interesting: 1. **1.5% wasted spend is exceptional.** Healthy DSP runs 4, 8%; under 2% suggests TTD's pre-bid IVT and Koa's auto-deweighting are working very well. **No structural issue**; the named placements are still actionable but small in absolute terms. 2. **The weather widget app (\$620)** is the standard click-fraud suspect, blocking is the right action. 3. **Regional sports audio (\$480)** is audience mismatch. 4. **Niche programmatic display segment (\$820)** at 18 days is borderline; Koa is exploring a long-tail audience segment that hasn't converted. Wait until day 30 before final action. 5. **Total potential savings \$1,920** is small absolute but worth the housekeeping; on TTD the savings tend to net out close to face value because Koa's reallocation is more efficient than peer DSPs. 6. **Compared to MediaMath wasted-spend example (\$2,660 / 3.7%)**: TTD's pre-bid IVT is doing more work upstream, which is why the surfaced waste is lower. Same brand, same audiences, lower waste percentage on TTD. Quick sanity tests: * Wasted % rising = inventory degrading; rare on TTD given pre-bid filtering quality. * Wasted % stable at 1, 4% = healthy; lower than peer DSPs. * Wasted % spiking on a single placement = audience mismatch; investigate. * High wasted % on in-app placements = bundle list needs curating; mobile gaming and weather widget are usual suspects. * Zero wasted spend = over-allowlisted, missed scaling. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with Wasted Spend | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [TTD Zero-Conversion Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/the-trade-desk/zero-conversion-spend) | Campaign-level twin. | | [TTD Total Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/the-trade-desk/total-spend) | Context. | | [TTD Spend by Campaign](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/the-trade-desk/spend-by-campaign) | If wasted concentrates on one campaign, the campaign config needs work. | | [TTD CTR by Campaign](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/the-trade-desk/ctr-by-campaign) | Wasted spend correlates with low CTR (click-fraud) or high CTR no conversion (audience mismatch). | | [TTD ROAS by Campaign](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/the-trade-desk/roas-by-campaign) | Wasted-hosting campaigns show poor ROAS. | | [StackAdapt Wasted Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/stackadapt/wasted-spend) | Mid-market peer; bundle overlap analysis. | | [MediaMath Wasted Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/mediamath/wasted-spend) | Migration peer. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in TTD:** [TTD Platform → Reports → Site/App Breakdown](https://desk.thetradedesk.com/) for the same window. Filter to placements with zero conversions; spend column should match this card to within sub-percent rounding. **Why our number may legitimately differ from TTD UI:** | Reason | Direction | Why | | ----------------------------------- | -------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Time zone** | Boundary days off | Advertiser TZ vs UTC. | | **Long-tail conversion** | Card slightly high until catchup | Placements may pick up late conversions (especially CTV cross-device). | | **Cross-device attribution toggle** | None | Both this card and TTD UI include cross-device by default. | | **View-through window changes** | Direction depends | Reflows. | | **IVT credit timing** | Marginal | Smaller than peer DSPs because TTD's pre-bid filter is stricter. | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [`stackadapt.sta_wasted_spend`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/stackadapt/wasted-spend) | Independent. The two DSPs share much of the same SSP inventory; bundles wasted on one often wasted on other. | Different allowlists. | | [`mediamath.med_wasted_spend`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/mediamath/wasted-spend) | Independent during migration. | TTD typically shows lower waste % on equivalent inventory. | | [`google_analytics.ga_sessions_by_source`](/nerve-centre/google_analytics/ga_sessions_by_source) | GA4 sessions on wasted placements should not show 100% bounce. | If healthy GA4 engagement, it's a conversion-tag issue not audience. | ## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **Why is my TTD wasted-spend % so much lower than StackAdapt?** TTD's pre-bid IVT filtering is stricter than peer DSPs; bad inventory is filtered before bidding rather than refunded after. The wasted-spend card therefore surfaces less measurement noise and more genuine audience-or-creative-mismatch placements. **Expect TTD wasted % to be 40, 60% lower than StackAdapt or MediaMath on equivalent campaigns**, this is not a campaign performance gap, it's measurement quality. **What's the "right" wasted-spend percentage on TTD?** 1, 4% on a healthy account. Below 1% suggests over-allowlisting; above 5% suggests audience-targeting issues despite TTD's pre-bid filtering. **Should I block immediately on TTD?** You can be slightly more aggressive than on peer DSPs because TTD's signal is cleaner. **Wait 10+ days (vs 14 on peers)** before blocking; the lower noise floor lets you act on smaller samples. **Why is in-app display still in the wasted list despite TTD's strict IVT?** Pre-bid IVT catches the worst click-fraud, but legitimate-but-low-quality inventory still slips through. Mobile gaming and weather widget bundles are known low-conversion audiences for most DTC categories, even when traffic is human. **My CTV PMP placement shows wasted spend, what's wrong?** Check view-through window first (1d vs 7d). Premium CTV PMPs (Disney+, Hulu) almost always convert via cross-device, so 1-day view-through misses most of the conversion path. Set view-through to 7 days. **Why do similar bundles waste on TTD and StackAdapt but not on Google?** DV360/Google Ads buys through Google's own AdX with tighter quality controls; TTD and StackAdapt buy through the broader programmatic ecosystem (Magnite, Pubmatic, OpenX, Index). Curate your bundle allowlist consistently across both DSPs. **My wasted spend dropped sharply but ROAS also dropped slightly, what happened?** You over-blocked. Aggressive blocks shrink the inventory pool Koa can choose from; the algorithm bids up on remaining inventory. **On TTD specifically, the over-block penalty is smaller** than on peer DSPs because Koa's reallocation is more efficient, but it still exists. Use bundle-level CPM caps for borderline cases. **Can I block specific URLs within a publisher (e.g. nytimes.com/sports)?** Better than peer DSPs. TTD supports section-level blocking on more publishers via custom inclusion/exclusion lists; not all publishers, but the coverage is wider than StackAdapt or MediaMath. **What's Koa's role in wasted spend?** Koa explores by design but de-weights low-converting placements quickly. Most "wasted" placements you see on this card are placements Koa is on the verge of de-weighting; the card surfaces them slightly before Koa's automatic action. You can either accept Koa will handle it (next 7, 14 days) or hard-block to accelerate. **How does this card differ from Zero-Conversion Spend?** Same as on every DSP: this card is placement-level; Zero-Conversion is campaign-level. Read both for full picture. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Wasted Spend* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across The Trade Desk and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.