OpenRTB Consortium

The universal industry standard for real-time bidding, implemented by virtually every major programmatic advertising platform globally

The OpenRTB Consortium is an industry working group operating under the IAB Tech Lab that develops, maintains, and evolves the OpenRTB specification — the foundational protocol governing real-time bidding (RTB) in programmatic advertising. Originally launched in 2010 as a collaboration between leading DSPs and SSPs, OpenRTB standardized the communication layer between buyers and sellers in automated ad auctions, enabling the explosive growth of programmatic advertising. The protocol defines the data formats, request/response structures, and auction mechanics that allow billions of ad impressions to be bought and sold in milliseconds every day. OpenRTB has become the de facto global standard for programmatic advertising infrastructure, with virtually every major DSP, SSP, ad exchange, and publisher platform implementing the specification. The consortium has released multiple major versions over the years, including OpenRTB 2.x (the most widely deployed) and OpenRTB 3.0, which introduced a more modular and extensible architecture. Complementary specifications such as AdCOM (Advertising Common Object Model) have been developed alongside OpenRTB to further standardize shared data objects across the ecosystem. As a standards body rather than a commercial entity, the OpenRTB Consortium does not generate revenue or sell products. Its significance lies in reducing friction, lowering integration costs, and enabling interoperability across the fragmented programmatic supply chain. The specification is freely available and openly licensed, making it accessible to any company building programmatic advertising technology. Governance and ongoing development are steered by IAB Tech Lab working groups composed of member companies spanning the full breadth of the AdTech industry.