IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau)

Dominant and authoritative trade body for the digital advertising industry with no direct competitor in its role; recognized globally as the standard-setting organization for digital media and advertising technology.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is the preeminent trade association representing the digital advertising and marketing industry. Founded in 1996, IAB empowers the media and marketing industries to thrive in the digital economy by developing technical standards, conducting research, and providing legal support and public policy advocacy. Its membership includes over 700 leading media companies, brands, agencies, and the technology firms responsible for selling, delivering, and optimizing digital advertising campaigns. IAB is perhaps best known for developing and maintaining foundational industry standards such as the OpenRTB protocol, the IAB Tech Lab's Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF), ads.txt, sellers.json, and VAST/VPAID video ad standards. These specifications form the backbone of programmatic advertising infrastructure globally. The organization also produces influential research including the annual Internet Advertising Revenue Report (in partnership with PwC), which serves as the definitive benchmark for digital ad spend measurement. In the AdTech ecosystem, IAB occupies a uniquely neutral and authoritative position as a non-profit trade body. It convenes working groups across publishers, advertisers, agencies, and technology vendors to address emerging challenges such as privacy regulation, identity resolution post-cookie, connected TV measurement, and retail media standardization. Its subsidiary, IAB Tech Lab, focuses specifically on technical standards development and has become a critical infrastructure body for the global programmatic advertising industry.