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The Trade Desk Kokai Guide — 174-Page Handbook for Traders
NewIncludes the Kokai Zuma update — August 2026
The Trade Desk, explained by someone who actually uses it.
A 174-page working handbook for Kokai — every tile, six full campaign walkthroughs, the optimisation playbooks, and the troubleshooting decision tree. Written for people with a login and no colleague sitting next to them.
174pages
26chapters
6campaign walkthroughs
₹1,299instant download
Why the tutorials fail you
Most Trade Desk material describes a platform that no longer exists
Until 2023 the interface was called Solimar: a row of tabs across the top — Campaigns, Data, Inventory, Reports — and you clicked a tab to get to a section.
Kokai threw that away. The tabs are gone. In their place is the Programmatic Table: a grid of tiles, each with a two-letter code, each representing one decision. You don't navigate to a section; you open a tile, make a decision, and the tile shows you its effect.
Which means every guide, blog post, YouTube walkthrough and training deck written before mid-2023 — and a surprising amount written after — is describing navigation that isn't there. If a tutorial tells you to click the Data tab and select Audiences, it's describing Solimar. Stop reading it.
And then in August 2026, Zuma moved things again.
Chapter 26 · added 2 September 2026
The Kokai Zuma chapter
On 27 August 2026 The Trade Desk shipped the biggest change to Kokai since it launched — a release called Zuma. It landed six days before this edition. Chapter 26 covers it in full:
- The Programmatic Table is no longer the front door. Campaign pages now open on metrics, not navigation. Every path in this book still resolves — you just land somewhere different.
- Applied Settings — every targeting parameter in one list, colour-coded. Red means a setting may be blocking delivery; yellow is an agentic recommendation.
- Bulk edits that model the damage first, projecting impact across hundreds of ad groups before you apply anything.
- Koa Assistant and the agents — campaign creation, audience building, troubleshooting, performance insights, frequency optimisation. What's live, what's still beta, and what's opt-in.
- Audience Unlimited at 4.4% — with the arithmetic for working out whether the flat fee beats your current data spend.
- One-click Lucid and NielsenIQ lift studies, where setup used to take about a week.
- The 32% CPA claim — whose figure it is, and how to talk about it without sounding like you've read a press release.
Plus a chapter-by-chapter map of what to read differently across the other twenty-five.
What this is
Not a course. A manual you keep open on the second monitor.
Everything here was drawn independently for this edition — every diagram, table and illustration. There are no screenshots, because screenshots go stale in a quarter and the concept underneath almost never does. Where a setting has moved or been renamed, the book tells you to look for the equivalent control rather than the exact label.
Six campaigns are built end to end: Display, Online Video, Connected TV, Audio, Native/DOOH/Retail Media, and a true omnichannel campaign. Not "here's what a campaign is" — the actual sequence, in order, with the numbers worked through so you can check them.
Part 1 · FoundationsProgrammatic in plain English, why Kokai changed, the vocabulary you actually need
Part 2 · The platform mapYour first login, the Programmatic Table, how a campaign is put together
Part 3 · Data foundationsThe Universal Pixel, Seeds, every audience type and when to use which
Part 4 · Inventory & creativesWhere inventory comes from, PMP and PG deals, Deal Desk, every creative spec
Part 5 · Launching campaignsSix walkthroughs — Display, OLV, CTV, Audio, Native/DOOH, omnichannel
Part 6 · OptimisationPlaybooks by objective, granular bid control, the troubleshooting decision tree
Part 7 · MeasurementEvery report, attribution, incrementality, the Measurement Marketplace
Part 8 · Koa & going liveKoa and Kokai AI in full, a capstone campaign, working like a professional trader
Everything included
What you get for ₹1,299
- 174-page PDF, optimised for screen and print
- Six campaign walkthroughs, start to finish
- The Kokai Zuma chapter — August 2026 update
- Tile directory — one-page reference for every code
- Creative specification tables for every format
- The formula sheet — every calculation on one page
- Pre-launch checklist so nothing ships broken
- The weekly optimisation routine
- Eight self-test checkpoints with a full answer key
- Glossary of every term the industry uses badly
Get your copy
You'll spend more on dinner tonight
₹1,299 is one evening out. The difference is that this one is still useful on Monday.
₹1,500Dinner for twoGone by 10pm
₹1,200Two cinema ticketsGone in one evening
₹1,400Three food deliveriesGone by Friday
₹1,299This bookOpen on your second monitor all year
2026 edition · incl. Zuma
₹1,299
About ₹7 a page — for the manual the platform doesn't ship with.
174 pages · 26 chapters · 6 walkthroughsOne-time payment · Instant PDF download · No subscription
- 174-page designed PDF, ready to read or print
- Includes the Kokai Zuma chapter, added this week
- Six campaign walkthroughs and eight checkpoints
- Read on phone, laptop or tablet — yours to keep
₹1,299 + 18% GST · ₹1,533 total · delivered in seconds
Before you buy. This is an instant digital download, so all sales are final once the file has been delivered — see our Refund & Cancellation Policy. That's why the full contents, the Zuma chapter summary and the FAQ are all on this page: so you know exactly what you're getting before you pay.
The honest maths
₹1,299 against the money you're about to spend
Dinner is one number. Here's the one that matters more: this is a handbook for a platform where you spend other people's budgets, in real time, on inventory that can under-deliver.
One frequency cap set at the wrong level. One pacing setting left on default for a fortnight. One targeting stack so narrow it never spends. Any single one of those costs more than this book, on a campaign of any size.
That's the argument, and it's a different one from "it's cheap." A ₹5,00,000 monthly budget run 2% better is ₹10,000 a month. The book is 0.26% of that budget, once.
And if you're job-hunting rather than trading
Trade Desk experience is one of the more portable things on a programmatic CV, because far fewer people have hands-on Kokai time than have DV360 time. An entry-level programmatic role in India pays ₹4–7 lakh; analyst and media trader roles pay ₹6–10 lakh. Being the candidate who can talk fluently about Seeds, Deal Desk and now Zuma is not a small edge.
What ₹1,299 buys elsewhere
Roughly one hour of an agency's time. Or a marketplace course recorded against an interface that has since changed twice. Neither gives you a tile directory you can keep open while you work.
Three ways in
Who this is for
You've never used a DSP
Start at Chapter 1 and read straight through to Chapter 17. That's the arc: what programmatic is, what the platform looks like, how to prepare your data and inventory, then six campaigns built step by step. Do the checkpoints — four minutes each, and they're the difference between recognising something and being able to do it.
You've used another DSP
Skim Chapters 1 and 3, read Chapter 2 carefully — it explains why this platform is built differently — then go slowly through Chapter 4 and Chapter 7. Seeds have no equivalent in DV360 or Amazon DSP and they change how you set up everything downstream.
You're already trading and want depth
Go to Part 6. Chapters 18 and 19 are where the money is: optimisation by objective, and the granular bid controls this platform gives you and others don't. Then Chapter 10 for Deal Desk, Chapter 23 for what Koa is doing under the hood — and Chapter 26 for everything Zuma just changed.
The rest of the shelf
Interviewing, not just trading?
This is a working handbook. If you have an interview booked, these are question banks with worked answers.
Cracking the Programmatic Interview
122 real questions from real interview rooms. DV360, The Trade Desk and RTB.
CM360 & Ad Ops Interview Questions
The ad server. Trafficking, tags, discrepancies, the questions ad ops teams actually ask.
The Supply Side Interview Questions
Yield and the sell side. Where publisher revenue actually comes from.
The Ad Ops Interview Stack
The three interview handbooks — buy side, sell side, ad server. See all books →
₹2,499₹3,897
Before you buy
Questions people ask before buying
Is this current?
Yes — more than anything else you'll find. The book was written for Kokai, and Chapter 26 covers the Kokai Zuma release from 27 August 2026. Where something could not be confirmed against a live seat it is marked Check in seat, so you verify it in your own account rather than take it on faith.
I've never used a DSP. Is this too advanced?
No. Part 1 explains programmatic in plain English before the platform appears at all, and there's a reading route written specifically for people starting cold. The checkpoints tell you honestly whether it's landing.
I've used DV360 or Amazon DSP. Will I learn anything?
Yes, and Chapter 7 is why. Seeds have no equivalent in either platform, and they change how you build everything downstream. Chapter 19's granular bid controls are the other thing this platform does that the others don't.
Does it cover CTV?
A full walkthrough, plus Audio, Native, DOOH and Retail Media, and a true omnichannel campaign built across all of them.
Are there screenshots of the platform?
No, deliberately. Screenshots date within a quarter and can't be redistributed. Every diagram and table was drawn independently for this edition, and navigation is given as a path so it still resolves when a label moves.
Is GST included in ₹1,299?
No — Gumroad adds 18% GST at checkout for Indian buyers, so the total is ₹1,533. Gumroad collects and remits it.
Do I get updates?
Yes. The Zuma chapter is exactly that — added after publication and delivered free to everyone who already bought. The platform will keep moving; you shouldn't have to buy the book twice.
Can I get a refund?
Digital files can't be un-delivered, so sales are final — with the exceptions in our Refund & Cancellation Policy: non-delivery, a corrupted file, a duplicate charge, or the wrong product. Email us within 7 days.
Will this help me pass an interview?
It will make you fluent, which is most of it. But if you have an interview booked, Cracking the Programmatic Interview is the book built for that job — real questions, with the answers.
Is this affiliated with The Trade Desk?
No. The Trade Desk, Kokai, Koa, Solimar, Sincera, Unified ID 2.0 and OpenPath are trademarks of The Trade Desk, Inc., used here only to identify the platform this book describes. Independent study guide, not endorsed by or sponsored by them. See our Disclaimer.
Can I buy it for my whole team?
The licence covers one reader — see our Terms of Service. Get in touch for a team licence.
Go and build the campaign. This is the book you keep open while you do it.
Get instant access — ₹1,299Instant PDF · 174 pages · includes the Kokai Zuma chapter · ₹1,299 + 18% GST · ₹1,533 total
More on the platform in the free Trade Desk and programmatic archives.