IAB Tech Lab has introduced its first "Programmatic Standard Practices," a new set of shared rules and norms intended to bring greater consistency, efficiency and transparency to programmatic
transactions.
Programmatic Standard Practices v1 became available for public comment on Wednesday and will remain open until October 16, 2026.
Industry feedback will inform any changes
as the Council continues to collaborate and improve programmatic governance.
The work from the Programmatic Governance Council establishes shared business rules, norms, and principles and is
also intended to reduce unnecessary transaction costs, and increase trust and transparency between buyers and sellers of digital media.
Ben Hovaness, executive vice president of Omnicom,
believes public comments give the industry an opportunity to test foundations to ensure the guidance reflects how programmatic transactions work in practice.
Programmatic Standard Practices v1
outlines how buyers and sellers should use existing standards in programmatic transactions to support a healthy digital-media ecosystem.
The practices address business and
governance challenges that can add unnecessary transaction costs and reduce efficiency across programmatic advertising, the announcement explains.
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Instead of engineering entirely new protocols
from scratch, the core objective of the council is to align the industry on how to implement existing programmatic standards to curb marketplace friction, eliminate
multibillion-dollar inefficiencies, and restore structural transparency across the digital media ecosystem.
By establishing shared rules, norms, and principles for how buyers and sellers use
existing standards in programmatic transactions, the work is intended to create greater consistency, mitigate risk, and strengthen trust and transparency across the ecosystem.
IAB Tech Lab established the Programmatic Governance Council as a standing, senior-level forum for cross-industry collaboration on business-driven governance issues in programmatic
advertising.
“Programmatic advertising depends on buyers and sellers having a common understanding of how transactions should work,” stated Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. “These practices are about making that understanding clearer and giving the industry a practical framework for using the standards that already
exist.”