What's wrong with TTD's Kokai UI/UX?

This is a guest post from Vlad Chubakov at Programmatic 101. He is doing “UI Breakdowns” of some of the most popular tools in advertising.

Previous break-downs are available here and on X:

• What’s wrong with TTD Kokai?

• It’s 2025, but DV360 still has the best UI/UX

• Amazon DSP Facelift: Exploring Its New UI/UX Experience  

In this article, I want to review what's going on with The Trade Desk’s user interface and why it sparked so many conversations and buzz on social media.

This is the second article in my series of DSP UI/UX breakdowns. The first one was about the Amazon DSP facelift, and you can check it out here - link.

I’ve already briefly reviewed TTD Kokai UI/UX in an X thread (you can read it here), but here I want to dive deeper into all of the aspects.

Fun fact: when I sat down to write this article and logged into TTD, it turned out that they updated their user interface (once again!), which, I think, makes this investigation more interesting since I can refer to my previous concerns.

Quick background

I started actively working with The Trade Desk when their UI was called ‘Megagon’ (what a beautiful name). In plain words, it was a ‘classical’ TTD interface that has already been traced back to the now-famous tiles. Here is a short fragment with Megagon UI from a video I found on The Trade Desk's official YouTube channel.

As you can see, the TTD Ad Group interface was already different from other DSPs. Interface had tiles, but they contained all targeting parameters (i.e., you open Ad Group and see what you are targeting) as well as AI (KOA) suggestions and insights, which was something really new in 2018-2019.

The next update was Solimar (in 2021), which offered a simplified and more streamlined user experience and interface. I think that Solimar became the classical TTD interface, combining deep customization, an easy-to-navigate hierarchy, and a streamlined workflow, which is beneficial for traders. However, Solimar also initially concerned some users.

Here are some examples of the Solimar interface:

The Solimar User Interface, at its core, was similar to other advertising platforms. It had a straightforward hierarchy, bulk changes directly in the UI, though the Ad Group view was slightly different from other DSPs. It had a ‘tile’ interface; however, each tile contained all of the information about a targeting parameter, making the workflow with TTD very similar to other DSPs.

But then, in the summer of 2024, TTD introduced a new version of their platform - Kokai, where they ‘reinvented’ their user interface and overall user experience.

Actually, they used their ‘tile’ approach from the previous versions (Megagon and Solimar) but implemented it across all structural elements - Advertiser, Campaign, and Ad Group - and called it “Programmatic Table” (with an obvious reference to the Mendeleev periodic table).

Here are the main elements of the ‘Programmatic Table’:

While Kokai brought a lot of useful features (interactive dashboards for bids/frequency, seeds, SP500+, etc.), the new Programmatic Table view and a few other changes significantly disrupted the regular workflow for traders, forcing users to use Solimar and slowing down the adoption of Kokai.

So, what is wrong with Kokai?

• Programmatic Table - the periodic table view turned out to be a less than ideal solution for the user interface. The biggest problem was that when you open an Ad Group, you expect to see all your targeting parameters (it makes the process of QA and optimization pretty straightforward), but in the case of Kokai, you were seeing just the names of targeting parameters, and you had to click on them (adding one more step, which, in a high-paced marketing agency environment, might be very critical) to check what you are targeting and then get back to the Ad Group. This, on first glance a very small detail, actually significantly disrupted workflows, making traders spend more time on very basic tasks. I used a small GIF from my YouTube video about TTD to show how this experience looked:

It is worth noting that they added a lot of really useful features, like the one demonstrated in the GIF above - ‘Base and Max Bid’ - that provides insights into base and max bids from other ad groups targeting similar GEOs, channels, and ad formats, helping you make informed bid pricing decisions. But unfortunately, this made the whole campaign management and optimization process more time-consuming.

• Very limited column customization on the Campaign level (Portfolio view) – when you are performing optimizations in the DSP, you don’t want to pull reports every time you want to check your campaign/Ad Group CPM/CPA/ROAS/etc. That’s why, usually, advertising platforms (and DSPs) provide customization of the Ad Group view, giving you a chance to customize columns to report the parameters you need, even providing the ability to create customizable metrics (i.e., custom CPA). Unfortunately, Kokai provides the following parameters for the Ad Groups: Decision Power, Relevance, KPI Performance, Forecast Underspend, Pacing, Budget allocation, Spend to Date. These parameters are important; however, you also need other metrics for your day-to-day optimizations. Here is a comparison of the same Campaign in Kokai and Solimar:

As you can see (part of the screenshot with Solimar), I’ve chosen Spend, Excess Potential, Max Bid, CPM, Frequency, ROAS, and Viewability in Solimar and now not only see those metrics but can also change them, which I unfortunately can’t do in Kokai. I can’t find any reason why this is impossible in Kokai (I hope yet), because this saves a ton of time, as you don’t need to pull reports/go to the reporting section/go to the specific tile to check a specific parameter, but you can do it directly in your campaign.

• Limited bulk changes in Portfolio view – as I just described in the previous point, you can’t make changes directly on the Campaign level. But also, you can’t make bulk changes directly in the UI. This is also a point that I can’t really understand, but this leaves traders with only one option: export spreadsheets, which sometimes isn't the best and fastest way to make changes. Here is what I am talking about (I recorded this process in Solimar):

Using this feature, you could change any parameter you need for all or some of your Ad Groups, which was really convenient.

But as I said at the beginning of this article, when I opened TTD to take screenshots, I got this message:

So, let’s have a look at the main changes!

• Refreshed table view - yes, finally, the TTD team updated the ‘tiles’ to reflect targeting parameters. Now, you can see your bids, audiences, devices, average frequency, viewability, recency, etc., directly on the Ad Group level, which makes the overall UI logic closer to Solimar. You can check the screenshot below and compare it with the GIF that I shared above (with a fragment from my YouTube video), and you can notice that the difference is huge, and TTD is on the right track. This is a great update that will make traders' lives easier.

• Optimization status - now, TTD will mark tiles with different statuses:

• Recommendation – with tiles that need to be checked/optimized ASAP (i.e., ‘Creative Selection’ on the screenshot above)

• User Optimized – marks tiles that are already being optimized by the user;

• Koa Optimized – marks tiles that have been optimized by Koa (TTD AI);

• Optimization available – marks tiles that don’t have any targeting/optimization configured.

This is helpful from a QA standpoint, so now all of the important things like a lack of creatives or language targeting might be noticed and addressed quickly.

• New QA tools - new view that aggregates different campaigns parameters that you can check in one place:

  

  Kokai new QA view

• Reporting enhancements - now you can analyze specific Ad Groups with customizable columns and charts,which is beneficial. However, it would be great to have this flexibility withing Portfolio view as well.

In general, this update is very helpful and I hope to see more improvements like this ine the future.

What is the overall User experience with TTD Kokai?

In my opinion, the overall experience is still mixed. While the TTD team is adding a lot of new great features (Bid, frequency dashboards, optimization status, etc.), it is hard to ignore the overall more complex UI and UX that requires traders to make more additional steps that previously took a few seconds to perform (i.e., check CPM and adjust bids). Steps like giving more flexibility in bulk changes, like giving back the ability to change all parameters via Bulk Edits directly in the UI on the Campaign level; and giving back the ability to customize columns and adjust parameters on the Campaign level would be really beneficial.

• Hierarchy - Advertiser → Campaign → Ad Group. There haven’t been changes in the hierarchy in general, but in Kokai, they introduced Portfolio and Programmatic Table views and made the Programmatic Table view accessible on the Advertiser, Campaign, and Ad Group levels, significantly changing the previous experience with the platform.

• Bulk edits - mixed experience. It wouldn’t be true if I said that there are no bulk edits in Kokai at all. Now, you need to choose a campaign, go to the Programmatic Table view, choose the targeting parameter that you want to adjust (i.e., Base and Max Bid), and only now can you see the Base and Max Bids for all of your Ad Groups in the campaign and adjust them (as well as Spend, CPM, Win Rate). But after ~9 months in the platform, I still think that the way it was executed in Solimar is more convenient, streamlining the workload in the platform. Speaking of Spreadsheets, TTD Kokai still provides the opportunity to download all settings and adjust them via spreadsheets and then upload them back. It gives you the opportunity to change all of the targeting parameters, which is beneficial. However, comparing it, for example, with Amazon DSP SDF, it provides a slightly more user-friendly experience, with drop-down menus and comments for the targeting parameters that can help you during the optimization process.

• Customization - after addressing the concern with the Programmatic Table, it remains the main concern from my POV. Giving more flexibility with columns and metrics, as well as providing more options for bulk changes, would be extremely helpful.

• Reports - The Trade Desk reporting has always been very detailed. It has ‘RTB Impressions’ for quick data pulls (i.e., basic campaign performance stats like impressions, clicks, conversions), as well as ‘Scheduled Reports’ for more complex reports (i.e., inventory, audiences, etc.). With Kokai, they strengthen TTD reporting capabilities by adding some reports directly in the Ad Group, which really helps during the optimization process.

  

  theTradeDesk reports

Here is the table I created to summarize the current state of TTD’s UI/UX:

Conclusion?

Despite adding many great new features and improving their current user interface (i.e., enhancing the Programmatic Table and adding Optimization status), there are still many things that need improvement. For all traders who work in the platform, I recommend sharing your feedback via the special window in the bottom right corner of the Kokai interface (or when you switch to Solimar) to share your concerns and help improve the platform.