NEW YORK—The IAB Tech Lab digital advertising technical standards-setting body has announced SupplyChain v1.1, a significant proposed upgrade to the OpenRTB SupplyChain Object, commonly known as “schain” that is designed to give advertisers and buyers a more complete view of how programmatic bid requests are generated and handled.

“This is one of the most significant transparency enhancements to the digital advertising supply chain in years,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. “Advertisers deserve to understand not only who participates in a transaction financially, but also who takes full control of a given request before it reaches a buyer. By expanding SupplyChain to include technical custody, we're providing the industry with a more complete picture of the programmatic ecosystem and creating a stronger foundation for trust, accountability, and investment in the open internet.”

IAB Tech Lab also invited the industry to participate in the public comment period until August 21, 2026.

The update, developed through extensive work by the Programmatic Supply Chain Working Group and guided by the Programmatic Supply Chain Commit Group, expands the role of schain beyond the traditional payment-flow view of the supply chain.

The change will allow buyers to see not only which companies participate in the commercial flow of a transaction, but also which entities take technical custody of a bid request as it moves through systems such as Prebid, ad servers, SSAI platforms, SDKs, wrappers, and other infrastructure.

The result, the IAB Tech Lab reported, is a more complete and accurate view of the programmatic supply path. The update is expected to help buyers improve supply-path optimization, reduce duplicative bid requests, and better identify all companies involved in the programmatic transaction.

In announcing the update, the IAB Tech Lab also released statements from industry leaders across the buy side, sell side, and advertising infrastructure ecosystem voicing strong support for SupplyChain v1.1. Those statements included:

• “OpenRTB exists to make programmatic advertising more interoperable, more scalable, and more trustworthy,” said Neal Richter, VP, Amazon Ads, and Chair of the IAB Tech Lab Board of Directors. “This update is an important step forward because it gives buyers a clearer understanding of how supply is actually created and transmitted. Greater transparency is how we build a healthier marketplace and give advertisers more confidence to invest in the open internet.”
• “The open internet should be the most transparent, accountable, and efficient place for advertisers to spend money,” said Paul Bannister, Chief Strategy Officer, Raptive. “This change helps make that possible. When buyers can see both the commercial path and the technical path of a bid request, they can make better decisions, reward high-quality supply, and reduce waste caused by opaque or duplicative infrastructure.”
• “Longer supply chains are not automatically worse supply chains,” said Rob Hazan, The Trade Desk. “A longer chain that accurately discloses the parties involved in the impression is better for buyers than a short chain that hides important information. With fully traceable supply chains, the industry can finally move beyond simplistic node-counting and toward a more sophisticated understanding of which supply paths best correlate to advertiser performance and outcomes.”
• “Advertisers should not have to choose between scale and clarity,” said Chris Kane, Founder, Jounce Media. “The best supply paths are the ones buyers can understand. By expanding schain to include technical custody, the industry gets closer to a world where efficiency is measurable, duplication is easier to identify, and value-added partners can be distinguished from unnecessary hops.”

The OpenRTB Working Group considered multiple implementation approaches and recommended a model that adds custody-taking entities directly to the main schain, using the hp=0 designation when an entity is not part of the payment flow.

This approach preserves the integrity of the existing schain model while giving buyers a fuller view of technical participation in the bid request lifecycle.

The Working Group also recognized that, in many cases, schains will become longer as transparency improves. To support adoption and minimize disruption, IAB Tech Lab will provide rollout guidance recommending that SSPs and DSPs coordinate staged testing, validate parsing behavior, monitor bid health, and progressively scale SupplyChain v1.1 traffic.

The proposed update also reinforces the open and collaborative nature of OpenRTB. The specification has long served as the common language for real-time bidding across the digital advertising ecosystem, and this change reflects months of discussion among companies across the buy side, sell side, and infrastructure layers.

SupplyChain v1.1 is intended to help buyers understand three critical dimensions of a bid request: how it originated, who took technical custody of it, and which parties participated in the payment flow. Together, those signals can improve trust, reduce ambiguity, and help the market direct spend toward the most efficient and highest-quality supply paths.

To review the guidance visit https://iabtechlab.com/supplychainv1dot1

NEW YORK—IAB Tech Lab has announced new Attributes to describe live content and a new Substitution Macro in OpenRTB.

It has also opened up public comments on them through May 28, 2026.

The updates introduce standardized bidstream signals that help define whether content is a livestream, real-time, or a first broadcast, along with enhancements that allow more explicit communication of pricing and discounting between supply and demand platforms.

"As more live events move into programmatic channels, a total shift in strategy is needed; buyers must condense weekly budgets into mere hours," said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. "By providing clearer signals, we're giving buyers and sellers the transparency they need to fully capitalize on ultra-premium, real-time inventory."

The update clarifies an existing field and adds two optional fields to OpenRTB and AdCOM objects that allow sellers to describe the "liveness" of content in the bid request. These fields distinguish between content that is occurring at the exact moment a bid is sent, content that is being streamed in real time but not necessarily live, and content that is in its first scheduled broadcast window. This added layer of signaling gives buyers more precise context about the nature and timing of the inventory they are evaluating.

In tandem, updates to substitution macros refine how price-related data is passed in the bidstream, specifically enabling clearer communication of discounts and net pricing back to demand-side platforms. Together, these changes improve how both content metadata and pricing signals are expressed within OpenRTB, reducing interpretation gaps between buyers and sellers.

These enhancements address growing complexity in programmatic environments, particularly with the rise of CTV and live event inventory supported by initiatives such as the Live Event Ad Playbook. As more live and near-live programming becomes available programmatically, differences in timing and format, from live sports to premieres to streaming channels, directly influence how inventory is valued. Clearer signals help buyers make more informed bidding decisions and support more efficient pricing and yield for sellers.

"Live content signals help us better understand the context of live inventory so we can deliver buyers' budgets effectively," said Rob Hazan, GM, Product Management, The Trade Desk. "This enables agencies and advertisers to better achieve their marketing goals and sellers to more effectively monetize their most valuable media assets."

The work was developed through the Programmatic Supply Chain Commit Group, with continued industry input encouraged during the public comment period, which remains open through May 28, 2026. Feedback will inform final specification updates and broader adoption across the ecosystem.

To learn more about the Attributes describing live content and the new Substitution Macro in OpenRTB and submit comments, please visit https://iabtechlab.com/openrtb/livesignals/

NEW YORK—With more than $200 billion in digital advertising now traded programmatically in the United States and automation increasingly shaping how media is bought and sold, the ad industry is working to bring greater transparency and governance to the digital advertising marketplace.

IAB Tech Lab, the global digital advertising technical standard-setting body, has announced the creation of the Programmatic Governance Council, a new industry body designed to bring together media buyers, media owners, and ad tech platforms to ensure that programmatic advertising's automation and AI reshape digital advertising.

"Programmatic advertising moves billions of dollars every day, but too often the people responsible for it are not sitting together to deal with the real operational problems," said Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab. "Programmatic grew incredibly fast, but the governance around how that market should operate hasn't kept pace with its scale, complexity, and automation. If we don't generate alignment quickly, we risk cementing these inefficiencies into the fabric of every transaction."

Initial participants include leadership from agencies, publishers, and platforms across the ecosystem, including organizations such as Dentsu, Omnicom Media Group, WPP, Disney, Magnite, PubMatic, Hearst, News Corp, Yahoo, Amazon Ads, The Trade Desk, Raptive, and Mediavine, among others.

The IAB Tech Lab noted that the first concrete outputs from the council will be a formal charter and workstreams, followed by an initial governance framework and recommendations connecting business expectations to the technical infrastructure of programmatic trading.

Over the next 6–12 months, the council aims to provide clearer guidance on auction transparency, more consistent handling of transaction signals, and stronger alignment between buyers, sellers, and platforms on what trustworthy programmatic execution should look like. This will help buyers direct spend to supply chain partners, providing clear value.

The move is designed to address the fact that programmatic advertising has long been described as complex and opaque. Fragmented infrastructure, inconsistent practices, and limited shared governance have made it difficult for advertisers and publishers to operate with full confidence in the system. Recent market discussions around transaction IDs, bid duplication, and auction transparency have highlighted how differences in programmatic signal handling and auction mechanics can create confusion and friction across the ecosystem.

The council aims to address those concerns by giving senior industry leaders a structured forum to align on how business expectations should connect to the technical standards that underpin digital advertising transactions.

"The scale of programmatic means agencies are responsible for navigating a massive supply chain on behalf of advertisers," said Ben Hovaness, chief media officer at Omnicom Media Group. "Our clients expect clarity about where their money goes and how media is actually traded. Sitting down with publishers and platforms to work through these issues together is how you move from talking about transparency to actually creating it."

As automation and AI-driven systems become more deeply embedded in digital advertising workflows, shared governance and clearly defined standards will play a critical role in ensuring the ecosystem remains transparent, accountable, and scalable for advertisers, publishers, and technology partners alike.

To learn more, please visit https://iabtechlab.com/working-groups/programmatic-governance-council/

NEW YORK—Paramount has announced a major upgrade to its streaming advertising offering by introducing live, in-game programmatic buying for select commercial ad units within marquee sporting events.

The effort will kick off with UFC's Paramount+ debut on January 24.

Designed to maximize Paramount's biggest tentpole sports moments for marketing partners, this marks the first time advertisers can secure a real-time, guaranteed placement in Paramount+'s lineup of premium sports properties, the company reported.

Paramount explained that programmatic inventory availability will complement the success of Streaming Fixed Units to deliver high-impact visibility built around Paramount+'s most coveted sports programming.

"This initiative underscores Paramount's commitment to media modernization, expanding opportunities for marketers to show up during the biggest and buzziest moments of scaled audience attention," said Jay Askinasi, chief revenue officer, Paramount. "By bringing guaranteed positions to the streaming sports stage, both directly and programmatically, we're widening the aperture for more advertisers to tap into the passion, energy and engagement of live sports with the agility, optimization and precision of digital."

Through partnerships with Amazon DSP, Google's Display & Video 360, The Trade Desk and Yahoo DSP, Paramount will offer private marketplace, biddable ad inventory for UFC's full slate of Numbered Events preliminaries and Fight Nights in the U.S. All Numbered Event main cards will exclusively be sold as Streaming Fixed Units.

Advertisers can also continue to activate campaigns spanning Paramount's digital portfolio of leading sports programming through Paramount Streaming content bundles across Paramount+ and Pluto TV.

NEW YORK—In an important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public comment.

The spec is important because it standardizes how SSPs and DSPs sync deals, cuts out manual entry errors, and brings real transparency into who is packaging and selling a deal across sellers, packagers, and curators. It is designed to fix the mismatches and under-delivery that have long held back high value private marketplaces and curated supply.

The API also gives the industry clear visibility into deal structure, improves collaboration between parties, and sets the stage for future discoverability so everyone in a deal knows where they sit and why. With deal-based monetization only growing across curation and streaming, the IAB Tech Lab believes that the new spec is a meaningful step toward a cleaner, more trusted programmatic supply chain.

"The Deals API sync capability directly addresses a key inefficiency in the programmatic supply chain for high-value, curated, private marketplaces," said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. "The ability to prove transparency to all parties involved in packaging and selling the deal, including curators, will improve accuracy and grow confidence in deal-based media transactions, which are a vital opportunity for publisher growth in a time of reduced traffic."

This new specification introduces a standardized method for communication of programmatic deals from origin systems, typically supply-side platforms (SSPs), to receiving systems, typically demand-side platforms (DSPs), significantly reducing potential for errors due to manual input in multiple systems and improving operational efficiency. The public comment period will remain open until January 31, 2026.

While deals are a cornerstone of programmatic advertising, especially in curation and streaming environments, where they serve as a primary monetization strategy, the manual nature of current deal entry often results in mismatches, under-delivery, and a lack of clarity around deal ownership.

This is often due to entry errors or misaligned expectations between parties. Magnite’s vice president, product management, Nick Allen, notes that “two-thirds of deals are configured with the desired supply, yet deliver no or very little revenue.”

Deals API v1.0 addresses these issues by introducing greater transparency into deal structure - explicitly identifying the business entities involved in the packaging of a deal, including the seller, packager, and curator, where applicable, the Lab reported.

This visibility helps eliminate confusion, foster accountability, and strengthen trust across all parties in the transaction chain.

“While much of the Deal Sync capability in this API formalizes long-standing needs around deal management between various parties, it sets the foundation the industry needs for innovation in deal management going forward, given the growing dominance and importance of deals,” said Anna-Maria Nalepa, senior technical product manager at Basis Technologies. “Beyond enabling better collaboration and allowing for cleaner data as deal volumes grow, the API...addresses curation by bringing transparency to deals including information about who is involved and in what capacity. It paves the way for a more transparent, deal-driven programmatic marketplace in an ecosystem historically challenged by complexity and intermediaries."

Future versions of the API will support discoverability for all participants in a deal, enabling all parties to see where and how they are included, and by whom.

“As the curation category matures, media buyers and their DSP partners should have basic line of sight into the companies that are packaging inventory,” added Chris Kane, founder of Jounce Media. “A standardized deal API is one critical step toward more trusted sell-side decisioning."

To participate in the public comment process or to review the full specification visit https://iabtechlab.com/standards/dealsapi/.

NEW YORK—In a major change for the ad industry, Comcast Advertising will unveil technology that enables agencies and brands to buy targetable, biddable ads on linear TV for the first time.

The change gives buyers access to traditional TV inventory within the Programmatic Private Marketplace (PMP), allowing them to bid on and target linear TV ad campaigns alongside digital inventory. The rollout is powered by FreeWheel, Comcast’s ad technology platform.

The program is currently in the beta phase with Comcast inventory. When completed, FreeWheel publisher clients will have the ability to enable their own inventory, giving advertisers greater campaign flexibility, targeting and reach, it said.

“One of the key pillars the advertising industry needs to deliver is simplicity for the marketer, and introducing biddable ads on traditional TV is a major step toward that goal, bringing ease, efficiency, and scale to programmatic campaign delivery,” Comcast Advertising President James Rooke said. “Buyers no longer need to patch together media plans. Now there’s a seamless way to buy, target, and optimize traditional TV alongside streaming media to hit what’s at the heart of advertising: reaching customers and driving outcomes.”

Key features include:

• Biddable, targetable linear inventory, making linear TV available via traditional PMP for what is believed to be the first time, making it biddable for buyers rather than executed on a spot basis. This inventory is also targetable on the buyer’s end, so buyers can bid based off the same segments they are buying on digital.
• Choice and control that enables buyers to set the mark on how they want to access inventory and audiences, whether through a managed IO (insertion order), PMP or PG (Programmatic Guaranteed) deal. Agencies and advertisers can also optimize their media buys.
• Simplicity and efficiency, allowing brands to purchase linear and digital inventory together in a straightforward way. Research shows that when TV is added to a digital campaign, overall performance dramatically improves.
• Incremental reach, with more than 11 billion impressions a month on premium linear inventory available. This creates a new, vast supply of content for advertisers that typically purchase programmatically.
• FreeWheel Buyer Cloud, the customizable buying stack, is leveraged for optimal campaign execution and management to add access to audiences beyond the traditional programmatic execution.

Comcast Advertising’s programmatic linear advertising solution is currently available to advertisers using FreeWheel’s Buyer Cloud.

More information is available on the company’s website.

PALO ALTO, Calif.— The size and reach of CTV advertising continues to grow, with Pixalate reporting that the global open programmatic CTV ad spend hit $3.2 billion in Q1 2023 and that 98% of internet-connected U.S. households are reachable via open programmatic CTV advertising. 

The new Q1 2023 Global Connected TV (CTV) Ad Supply Chain Trends Report from Pixalate also found that Roku still holds commanding market share among CTV devices (with 46% of the open programmatic ad spend occurring on Roku Devices in Q1, 2023), but Samsung (19% market share, up 23% YoY) and Amazon (9% market share, up 44% YoY) are both expanding their market share. 

Other key findings include: 

• APAC market saw 15% YoY growth in open programmatic CTV ad spend
• Invalid Traffic (IVT)—including ad fraud—rose in Q1,  with IVT in the open programmatic CTV ad supply chain rose back above 20% in Q1 2023. 
• This marked a rise from the second half of 2022, where IVT rates were 18%

 The full report is available here. 

DALLAS—AT&T has agreed to sell its Xandr global programmatic advertising marketplace to Microsoft. Financial terms of the deal, which is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory reviews, were not disclosed. The companies said that the agreement “builds on a decade-long relationship between Xandr, including its predecessor companies, and Microsoft for delivering global digital media solutions for advertisers.”

AT&T had been looking for a buyer for Xandr for more than a year, according to the Wall St. Journal. When the telco spun off its WarnerMedia Division in a $43B merger with Discovery Inc. earlier this year, AT&T elected to hold onto Xandr (formerly AppNexus), which it had acquired for $1.6B in 2018 as part of its $85B acquisition of TimeWarner.  

Microsoft said Xandr “can shape the digital ad marketplace of the future,” and that Xandr's technology “strategically complements Microsoft's current advertising offerings and will help accelerate delivery of digital advertising and retail media solutions for the open web by combining Microsoft's audience intelligence, technology and global advertising customer-base with Xandr's scaled, data-driven platform.”

"Microsoft's shared vision of empowering a free and open web and championing an open industry alternative via a global advertising marketplace makes it a great fit for Xandr. We look forward to using our innovative platform to help accelerate Microsoft's digital advertising and retail media capabilities," said Xandr's EVP and GM Mike Welch.

"With Xandr's talent and technology, Microsoft can accelerate the delivery of its digital advertising and retail media solutions, shaping tomorrow's digital ad marketplace into one that respects consumer privacy preferences, understands publishers' relationships with consumers and helps advertisers meet their goals," said Mikhail Parakhin, President of Web Experiences at Microsoft.

NEW YORK--SpotX has inked a deal with Syncbak to connect its digital advertising platform to Synkbak’s AdSync proprietary dynamic ad insertion (DAI) solution. Syncbak is also leveraging SpotX for its programmatic ad decisioning layer and ad serving technology.

“At Syncbak, we want to help local broadcasters monetize and make their content available to their viewers on any platform,” said Dean Mandel, vice president, Revenue at Syncbak. “SpotX industry-leading video monetization solutions allow us to present a whole new revenue stream to our users, and we’re thrilled to be partnering with them.”

Launched in May 2018, SBTV and its affiliate destinations allow viewers to stream live and on-demand local TV station content on any device. The SimpleSync platform lets local stations stream their content to any vMVPD, their own sites and apps, and Syncbak's direct to consumer app. SBTV is available on Apple TV, Roku, iOS, Android and the web.

[Read: Syncbak To Conduct 'First Ever' Live OTT Broadcast Using Local Dynamic Ad Insertion]

As a result of the partnership, SpotX is connecting advertisers directly to Syncbak’s premium, local, live, and on-demand video inventory which runs across the SBTV website, the SBTV app (web or mobile), linear TV stations, and Syncbak publisher websites and apps. Syncbak will also retain the ability to execute direct deals with linear advertisers.

“This is a massive opportunity for advertisers because when they access Syncbak inventory through SpotX, they will have the ability to reach two different audience segments simultaneously, viewers watching traditional linear TV and those tuning in via OTT,” said Benjamin Abbatiello, vice president, audience and distribution management at SpotX. “Syncbak has really been a pioneer in the OTT space, and we’re excited to help its content owners and creators earn more revenue.”

NEW YORK—A collaboration between the Television Bureau of Advertising and a Pearl TV-led working group is providing open access to version 1.0 of the “Broadcast Linear Television Programmatic Guidelines and Best Practices.” These guidelines were designed for the implementation of programmatic buying and selling of broadcast linear TV advertising.

“These guidelines will be maintained as an open and collaborative effort between broadcasters, advertising agencies, rep firms, aggregators and platform providers,” said Steve Lanzano, TVB president and CEO. “This document is expected to continue to evolve through successive updates, and is open to input from all companies and individuals who wish to contribute.”

The Pearl-led task force is made up of Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps, Graham Media, Hearst Television, Media General, Meredith Local Media, Raycom Media, Schurz Communications and Tegna. Broadcast industry representatives from Cox Reps, Fox Television Stations, Katz Television and Tribune Media collaborated with TVB in establishing the programmatic guidelines.

To download the full version of the “Broadcast Linear Television Programmatic Guidelines and Best Practices,” click here.