In 2016, the Header Tag Task Force assembled within the IAB Tech Lab to determine the appropriate scope for standards development in header bidding. Considering the recent growth of header bidding yield management strategies, the IAB Tech Lab Board of Directors determined a need for baseline open protocol for integrating header tag technology with an ad server.
The “Standard Header Container Integration with an Ad Server” standardizes how header tags and containers interact with ad servers. This will allow for header bidding to scale with industry consensus on the process within the ad server. The expected audience for this standard includes technical leads and product owners at sell-side and at intermediary partner companies. Non-standard setups, yield management strategies, and current market adoption rates are outside the scope of this document.