No-Bid Possibilities

[chompi]

Original author: [email protected] (July 22, 2011 21:29:41)

The bid array (Section 4.3.2) is specified as required as is its parent. This makes sense, since a no bid can be expressed as a completely empty bid response. Our experience in integrating bidders to our OpenRTB Mobile compliant exchange, however, is that some send empty responses, some send an empty seatbid array or no seatbid array, some send seatbid objects without bid objects. We found that it is acceptable simply to interpret the absence of any of these essentials as a valid no-bid. There’s really nothing else for the exchange to do; if it doesn’t have the essentials for a bid, then it’s a no bid.

Based on this, the bid and seatbid arrays are not technically required since the bidder is not required to make a bid. I would update the spec to reflect this, but I would also recommend adding a “Best Practice” statement indicating that the preferred means of expressing a no-bid is the bandwidth friendly empty response.

Original issue: http://code.google.com/p/openrtb/issues/detail?id=33