WTF is pod bidding?

By Tim Peterson • December 12, 2022 •

The lead image is an illustration of a robot watching TV.

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Streaming advertisers got an early Christmas gift this year when IAB Tech Lab released OpenRTB 2.6. The updated protocol for programmatic advertising included support for “pod bidding.”

Pod bidding allows advertisers to bid on specific ad slots within a multi-ad break, or pod — an option that has been available to traditional TV advertisers for, well, ever. OpenRTB 2.6 also added support for dynamic pods, which allow streaming services to recalculate the number of ads in a pod on the fly in order to accommodate more advertisers without extending the length of an ad break.

For a fuller breakdown of pod bidding, check out the video below.