Tag Archives: realtime_bidding

Migration to OpenRTB, deprecation of the Authorized Buyers Real-time Bidding Protocol

To align more closely with industry practices and embrace OpenRTB as the standard protocol, Authorized Buyers Real-time Bidding protocol will sunset February 15th, 2025. Following this date, bid requests will no longer be sent to endpoints configured to use the Authorized Buyers RTB protocol. After this time we will support the OpenRTB protocol only. We strongly recommend that you transition to either the JSON or Protobuf formats of the Authorized Buyers OpenRTB protocol implementation as early as possible to avoid interruptions to your bidding integration.

As a first step in migrating to OpenRTB, we suggest that you read through the OpenRTB migration guide. The guide highlights differences between the Google RTB protocol and the supported OpenRTB formats, identifies how Google RTB protocol fields map to OpenRTB, and provides instructions for complex mappings. We will continue updating our developer content as we approach February 2025 to provide additional guidance, and to ensure a smooth migration.

For any questions or feedback you have concerning the transition to OpenRTB, please contact us using the Authorized Buyers support forum, or [email protected].

- Mark Saniscalchi, Authorized Buyers Developer Relations

Removing support for old OpenRTB versions

Starting today, Google’s OpenRTB implementation will be updated to only include fields and messages for the latest supported version, OpenRTB 2.5. This will affect the OpenRTB protocol and any APIs or tools used to configure bidder endpoints.

OpenRTB protocol changes
As a result of supporting only the latest version, the following fields are deprecated and will no longer be populated:
  • BidRequest.imp[].banner.hmax
  • BidRequest.imp[].banner.hmin
  • BidRequest.imp[].banner.wmax
  • BidRequest.imp[].banner.wmin
Additionally, the following fields may now be populated for all bidders:
  • BidRequest.device.ext.user_agent_data
  • BidRequest.device.geo.accuracy
  • BidRequest.device.geo.utcoffset
  • BidRequest.imp[].banner.api: This will support the value MRAID_3.
  • BidRequest.imp[].banner.format
  • BidRequest.imp[].banner.vcm
  • BidRequest.imp[].metric
  • BidRequest.imp[].native.api: This will support the value MRAID_3.
  • BidRequest.imp[].video.api: This will support the value MRAID_3.
  • BidRequest.imp[].video.companionad.api
  • BidRequest.imp[].video.companionad.format
  • BidRequest.imp[].video.companionad.vcm
  • BidRequest.imp[].video.linearity
  • BidRequest.imp[].video.maxduration
  • BidRequest.imp[].video.placement
  • BidRequest.imp[].video.playbackend
  • BidRequest.imp[].video.skip
  • BidRequest.site.mobile
  • BidRequest.test
  • BidRequest.wlang
If a newer OpenRTB specification is published, Google may upgrade the current supported version to match it. Previously deprecated fields that are removed from the specification will also be removed from the protocol. Non-deprecated fields that are removed will be marked as deprecated in the protocol, and eventually removed following a brief deprecation period.

Authorized Buyers Real-time Bidding API changes
The behavior of the bidders.endpoints resource will change. The following enum values for bidProtocol will be deprecated:
  • OPENRTB_2_2
  • OPENRTB_2_3
  • OPENRTB_PROTOBUF_2_3
  • OPENRTB_2_4
  • OPENRTB_PROTOBUF_2_4
  • OPENRTB_2_5
  • OPENRTB_PROTOBUF_2_5
New enum values for bidProtocol will be added to represent the latest supported OpenRTB version in either JSON or Protobuf formats:
  • OPENRTB_JSON
  • OPENRTB_PROTOBUF
If you have existing endpoints with their bidProtocol set to any of the deprecated values above, they will automatically be migrated to either OPENRTB_JSON or OPENRTB_PROTOBUF depending on the format specified by the original value. Additionally, any modifications to your endpoints that would set bidProtocol to the deprecated values will instead set it to OPENRTB_JSON or OPENRTB_PROTOBUF.

Feel free to reach out to us via the Authorized Buyers API support forum with any feedback or questions you may have related to these changes.
- Mark Saniscalchi, Authorized Buyers Developer Relations

Announcing the release of the Authorized Buyers Marketplace API

The Authorized Buyers Marketplace API has been released. You can use the Marketplace API to manage clients, users, and auction packages, and to negotiate proposals with publishers. This new API is intended to replace the following Marketplace resources included in the Ad Exchange Buyer II API:
Although the Ad Exchange Buyer II API is not deprecated at this time, we recommend that all Marketplace integrations adopt the new API to receive the latest updates going forward. New features will only appear in the Marketplace API.

The Marketplace API introduces the following features:
  • Programmatic support for auction packages.
  • Deals are now a sub-resource of proposals.
  • The finalizedDeals resource helps you manage deals.
  • The rtbMetrics field of finalizedDeals provides performance data.
Given that the Marketplace API is distinct from the existing Real-time Bidding and Ad Exchange Buyer II APIs, please note that you need to enable the Authorized Buyers Marketplace API in your Google Cloud Console project. Additionally, you need to update your existing OAuth 2.0 credentials and workflows to include a new API scope:

https://www.googleapis.com/auth/authorized-buyers-marketplace

For any questions or feedback about this API, please contact us via our support forums.

- Mark Saniscalchi, Authorized Buyers Developer Relations

Reminder: Ad Exchange Buyer API Sunset

As announced previously, the Ad Exchange Buyer API is set to sunset by the end of Q2, 2021. We will begin the process of phasing the API out on June 1st, where a small percentage of API requests will begin to return an API error response that includes details about the impending sunset. You can expect API errors to progressively increase leading up to the sunset date. Note that this sunset does not include the Ad Exchange Buyer II API, which is not deprecated at this time.

The Real-time Bidding API is the replacement for the Ad Exchange Buyer API, and we encourage you to migrate before the sunset date in order to avoid interruptions to your integration. To learn more about the Real-time Bidding API, you can read the migration guide, reference documentation, and the new resource guides. Additionally, samples for several programming languages are available to assist you with your migrations.

If you encounter any issues, or have any questions we can assist with, please contact us via our support forums.

- Mark Saniscalchi, Authorized Buyers Developer Relations