• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, 9 hours ago

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has updated the industry's 25-year-old digital ad agreement terms through a collaboration with brands, agencies, publishers, ad tech, and legal experts. The updates should improve performance.

Brands, agencies, publishers, ad tech, and legal experts collaborated with the IAB on the updated terms. In fact, 276 IAB member companies participated in redefining the terms.

Some include major holding companies such as Omnicom and Publicis, as well as independent agencies such as Butler/Till and Canvas Worldwide, brands such as Unilever and Bayer, and publishers Hearst and NBCUniversal.

The goal is to bring the document and processes into the 21st century and prepare for a future of high tech and innovation, while helping to prepare the ad industry for what’s to come. Some of the changes will include faster and direct media purchases done programmatically or through a series of agentic agents.

“The speed of growth and change in our industry has made way for multiple disconnected frameworks,” Shenan Reed, global chief media officer, General Motors, and Chair, IAB Board of Directors, stated in the release.

Standard terms and conditions (T&Cs) for digital advertising media buys have not kept pace with changes in technology, transaction types, or platform capabilities — forcing teams to renegotiate from scratch and increasing both the time invested and the legal burden on all sides.

The updates create a baseline, standardizing how the industry approaches advertising agreements, says Christy Loftus, senior vice president of data logistics at Canvas Worldwide.

The terms follow formats that aim to reduce negotiation times and legal costs based on core principles that apply across different deal structures, and minimize discrepancies and inefficiencies by standardizing processes.

It supports invoices, payment schedules, and liability structures, defines responsibilities for service execution, reporting, and deliverables, and provides clear guidelines on handling sensitive business and consumer data, and much more.

The modular framework supports a range of digital transactions. It standardizes the foundation for most deal types, making it easier for buyers and sellers of ad inventory to make transactions.

The foundation for the update provides easier engagement with different vendors that support digital ad transactions, such as measurement and ad verification providers, according to the release.

The updated terms will remain open for comment through July 21, 2025.