OpenRTB Consortium

Industry standard-setter for real-time bidding protocols in programmatic advertising

The OpenRTB Consortium operates under the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and is responsible for developing and maintaining the OpenRTB (Real-Time Bidding) protocol specification. OpenRTB is the industry standard communication protocol that enables real-time bidding transactions between ad exchanges, supply-side platforms (SSPs), and demand-side platforms (DSPs) in the programmatic advertising ecosystem. The consortium brings together major AdTech companies, publishers, and technology providers to collaboratively define and evolve the technical standards that govern how bid requests and responses are structured and transmitted in milliseconds across the digital advertising supply chain. As a subsidiary of the IAB, the OpenRTB Consortium provides critical infrastructure standards that underpin billions of daily programmatic ad transactions globally. The protocol specifications cover various aspects including bid request/response formats, native advertising standards, video advertising, connected TV (CTV), and mobile app advertising. The consortium regularly updates the OpenRTB specification to address emerging formats, privacy requirements, and technological advances in digital advertising. The OpenRTB protocol has become the de facto standard for programmatic advertising, with virtually all major ad tech platforms implementing the specification to ensure interoperability across the ecosystem.