IAB Tech Lab releases Deals API to streamline programmatic transactions

IAB Expertise Laboratory launched its Offers API specification model 1.0 for public touch upon December 5, 2025. The specification enters a remark interval extending by means of January 31, 2026.

In line with the specification documentation, the API streamlines operations by clarifying high-level phrases of every deal, decreasing handbook knowledge entry and supporting automated configuration. The framework enhances visibility into curated offers, providing transparency not at present current within the bid stream.

The specification goals to lower handbook entry of deal info throughout programs by offering a approach for deal phrases to be enter and despatched to the system that may ship the deal. The framework describes what the promoting system deal consists of at a excessive stage and identifies which events had been concerned in curating and promoting the bundle.

Hillary Slattery, Senior Director of Programmatic Product Administration at IAB Tech Lab, defined the motivation in a weblog put up. Media consumers sometimes handle 17 programs, 5 supply-side platforms, three demand-side platforms, and quite a few deal flows, in accordance with her December 5 evaluation. Every SSP names offers in another way, with their very own notations requiring what she described as telepathic decoding.

The standardized specification gives a standard language for offers as a substitute of a “Tower of Babel throughout your eleventy billion stacks,” in accordance with Slattery. One set of fields permits everybody to learn deal parameters the identical approach.

Technical implementation

The specification establishes an HTTP POST endpoint applied by receiving programs to simply accept knowledge pushed from origin programs. Configuration of push calls stays the accountability of the origin system.

Model 1.0 operates as a one-party design for origin programs to push info into receiving programs from the place offers had been created. This sometimes flows from SSP to DSP. The identical system can question the receiving system for deal standing after preliminary ship.

The framework doesn’t help differential overrides. This separate API operates exterior OpenRTB Request/Response and doesn’t embrace real-time info contained in bid requests or decide whether or not offers apply. Implementers ought to validate situations laid out by means of this take care of OpenRTB requests to make sure expectations are met.

The specification doesn’t help proposals, revisions, or negotiations in model 1.0. Future iterations could embrace discoverability options, bi-directional communications, or deal proposals and negotiations.

Object construction and attributes

The Deal object accommodates a singular identifier required within the origin’s namespace, together with advisable fields together with deal title, creation timestamp, and vendor standing. Standing values point out whether or not offers are energetic, paused, or archived.

Three key area fields outline transaction members. The origin attribute identifies the promoting system area receiving bid responses, sometimes the SSP internet hosting the API. The vendor attribute specifies the canonical area of the enterprise entity who offered the deal. The curator attribute names the entity that packaged stock, know-how, and knowledge.

In line with the specification steering, distinguishing these three entities gives important transparency. When a saleshouse sources demand, a curator packages the take care of knowledge suppliers, and an SSP hosts the deal entry, all three domains can differ.

The Phrases object specifies begin and finish dates, nations the place offers can be found, deal ground costs, assured standing, and pricing sort. Pricing sorts embrace dynamic public sale, first value, second value plus, and stuck value. For assured offers, the specification requires unit rely and complete value over the required interval.

The Stock object gives high-level details about included stock sorts, machine sorts, vendor identifiers, web site domains, app bundles, and content material classes. The specification limits this object to static stock units.

Curation transparency

The Curation object addresses a big hole in present bid stream info. This object identifies the curator area and specifies the price sort utilized for curation companies.

Payment sorts embrace proportion of spend, flat price, CPM, or no price for curation companies. In line with implementation steering, if a curator expenses a $5 CPM, the price sort worth equals 3 as a result of it represents CPM. If charging a $100 flat price, the worth equals 2 for flat price.

Three auxiliary attributes present further transparency. The auxdata subject signifies whether or not non-publisher knowledge layers are utilized with related charges and whether or not they might change after deal launch. The pubcount subject communicates whether or not offers span single or a number of publishing firms. The dinventory subject signifies whether or not stock could replace dynamically after offers go reside.

In line with instance situations within the specification, a writer packaging owned-and-operated stock and knowledge with out different events concerned would use particular mixtures of those values. A curation firm charging CPM charges to combination stock throughout a number of publishers with optimization companies and altering knowledge companions all through flights would use totally different worth mixtures.

Business context

Industry adoption accelerated following IAB Tech Lab’s December 16, 2024 announcement of formal curation requirements, although the framework had existed since early 2023. Main platforms together with Google Advert Supervisor, Microsoft Promoting, and numerous supply-side platforms built-in curation frameworks all through 2024 and 2025.

The Offers API specification works alongside different IAB Tech Lab APIs forming the LEAP framework for reside occasion promoting. These include Concurrent Streams API, Forecasting API coming in early 2026, and Biddable API arriving mid-2026. The specs work as sidecars to core OpenRTB, callable independently and asynchronously from essential planning and operations workflows.

In line with Slattery’s evaluation, the specs kind a robust basis whose entire is larger than the sum of components. Pre-event forecasting permits viewers planning. Phrases agreements create deal buildings. Actual-time concurrent streams present machine counts throughout occasions. OpenRTB delivers precise bidding.

The standardized strategy addresses transparency deficits which have plagued programmatic offers. Supply-side platforms maintain strategic advantages in curation companies on account of direct writer relationships and stock entry. SSPs can pre-qualify stock and consolidate focusing on parameters beneath single deal IDs, streamlining programmatic shopping for whereas preserving knowledge integrity.

Provide chain concerns

The specification emphasizes that some stage of belief is required when shopping for any deal ID. Patrons should examine info from the Offers API with info contained in OpenRTB bid requests to make sure expectations are met.

Deal standards supplied by way of this channel will not be assured to be precisely mirrored in bid requests containing related deal IDs. In line with the specification, consumers ought to at all times apply focusing on matching the phrases outlined in any deal on their aspect. If a deal covers US-only stock, consumers ought to embrace that focusing on of their DSP when trafficking campaigns.

Provide chain validation ought to at all times use the Provide Chain object from OpenRTB. If this info is unavailable, implementers ought to proceed with excessive warning understanding there isn’t any mechanism to know if a given path is allowed to promote stock.

The specification notes it’s not potential to validate that events promoting stock have been licensed with out together with app bundle or web site ID matching publishers’ adverts.txt recordsdata. Deal IDs receiving requests with out that info ought to be used not often and carefully monitored.

Implementation necessities

Authorization mechanisms and sending and receiving info protocols stay out of scope for model 1.0. Implementers could select to simply accept incoming webhooks to their API endpoints for occasions.

Model 1.0 doesn’t help deal revisions. Nonetheless, some attributes could also be topic to vary over deal flight. Conversations between implementers ought to deal with which attributes, if any, could change after offers go reside.

The deal.id from each sender and receiver ought to match the deal.id in OpenRTB requests when bidding. Implementers ought to use the deal ID from the origin system that did the push.

The standardized specification addresses known friction in programmatic transactions. Deal IDs allow advertisers to entry particular viewers segments or stock sorts whereas sustaining marketing campaign management. Relatively than open market bidding, curated offers present assured entry to outlined stock swimming pools with predetermined pricing or bidding parameters.

The specification gives matching steering for bid requests to offers. Deal ID matching ought to happen between the API specification and OpenRTB bid request deal IDs. Implementers ought to validate that bid requests containing deal IDs conform to deal standards outlined within the API.

Market significance

The Offers API represents a basic shift in how programmatic promoting infrastructure handles deal info. Programmatic advertising investment continues expanding, with 72% of entrepreneurs planning to extend programmatic spending in 2025, marking an increase from 62% in 2024.

Guide deal entry creates operational bottlenecks and error alternatives. Standardizing deal metadata transmission between programs reduces setup time, decreases mismatched offers and failed auctions, and permits sooner debugging when issues happen.

The curation transparency parts deal with an info asymmetry that has troubled the programmatic ecosystem. Patrons buying curated offers have lacked visibility into which entities carried out packaging, what charges apply, and whether or not knowledge layers could change. The specification’s structured fields for curator domains and price sorts present this lacking context.

IAB Tech Lab has maintained an active standards development program all through 2025. The group introduced its 2025 product roadmap on January 29, planning to ship 31 new specs or updates. The group accomplished 79 initiatives in 2024, developed with enter from over 800 member firms.

The Offers API joins different latest IAB Tech Lab initiatives together with Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation protocollaunched September 2024, Attribution Data Matching Protocol launched October 2024, and ID-Less Solutions Guidance launched July 2025.

Compatibility with current implementations was a design precedence. In line with Slattery’s evaluation, each subject within the standardized API both already exists in methods that don’t battle or represents new ideas just like the Curation object. Implementers will map their fields to specification fields. The comparatively small scope of model 1.0 facilitates adoption.

Timeline

Abstract

Who: IAB Expertise Laboratory, a nonprofit analysis and improvement consortium, launched the specification by means of its programmatic promoting requirements working teams. Hillary Slattery, Senior Director of Programmatic Product Administration at IAB Tech Lab, authored the accompanying weblog put up explaining the specification’s goal.

What: The Offers API specification model 1.0 establishes a standardized framework for transmitting programmatic deal metadata between promoting programs. The specification defines object buildings for deal phrases, stock particulars, curation info, and purchaser standing. The API permits origin programs to push deal info to receiving programs and question deal standing after preliminary transmission.

When: IAB Tech Lab launched the specification for public touch upon December 5, 2025. The general public remark interval extends by means of January 31, 2026. Future variations could increase performance to incorporate bi-directional communications, deal proposals, revisions, negotiations, and market discoverability options.

The place: The specification targets the worldwide programmatic promoting ecosystem, specializing in connections between supply-side platforms and demand-side platforms. Implementation will happen inside programmatic infrastructure operated by exchanges, SSPs, DSPs, and different promoting know-how suppliers taking part in real-time bidding markets.

Why: The specification addresses operational inefficiencies and transparency gaps in programmatic deal administration. Guide entry of deal info throughout programs creates errors, delays, and inconsistencies. Curated offers lack visibility into which events carried out packaging, what charges apply, and whether or not stock or knowledge could change. Standardizing deal metadata transmission reduces setup time, improves accuracy, and gives consumers with transparency into deal construction and members that present bid stream info doesn’t present.