What do bcat, badv, and bapp do in a bid request?
Answer
They are the publisher's blocklists, applied request-wide. bcat blocks advertiser categories, expressed in the taxonomy named by BidRequest.cattax (default 1, IAB Content Category Taxonomy 1.0). badv blocks advertisers by domain, for example ford.com. bapp blocks apps by their app store IDs: bundle or package names for Google Play, numeric IDs for the Apple App Store. OpenRTB 2.6 also adds acat, an allowlist of advertiser categories; a request should contain acat or bcat, not both. Bidders that return creatives violating these lists get their bids filtered or their traffic clawed back.
Go deeper
More questions on openrtb basics and the bid request
- What is OpenRTB? OpenRTB is the IAB Tech Lab standard that defines the JSON messages ad exchanges and bidders use to buy and sell impressions in real time.
- How does a real-time bidding auction work end to end? A user loads a page or app, the publisher's ad system asks an exchange to sell the impression, and the exchange sends an OpenRTB BidRequest over HTTP POST to many bidders at once.
- What's the difference between OpenRTB and Prebid.js? OpenRTB is a wire protocol; Prebid.js is a piece of software.
- Is header bidding the same as OpenRTB? No.
- What's the difference between an SSP, a DSP, and an ad exchange? From the protocol's point of view there are only two roles: the supply side sends OpenRTB bid requests and runs the auction, and the demand side receives them and bids.
- What is a bid request in programmatic advertising? A bid request is the JSON message an exchange sends to bidders to offer one or more impressions for sale.
All 93 questions are listed in the OpenRTB FAQ.