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
