About Ads.txt File

Announced by the IAB Tech Lab, Ads.txt initiative is a public record of Authorized Digital Sellers created with the mission to prevent the proliferation of counterfeit and unauthorized ad impressions transacted via domain spoofing across the digital advertising market. For more details, see About Ads.txt.

Description Ads.txt itself is a plain text file that should be placed in the domain root folder of publisher's site and represents the list that names all the partners (can be either ad networks, SSPs, or exchanges) who have permission to sell their inventory.

The Ads.txt file contains 3 parts:

the domain of the advertising system used by a partner
the seller account ID (channel ID)
the publisher's relationship with the account.

Example

adtelligent.com, (channel ID), RESELLER

yourdomain.com, (channel ID), DIRECT/RESELLER

DIRECT type of relationship with the publisher should be added only if you use Domain White Labeling and work with direct publishers. The second, RESELLER, confirms that the domain can also be resold through an authorized partner with channel ID XXXXX.

Thus, Ads.txt is a simple, flexible, and secure method for publishers and distributors to declare who is authorized to sell their inventory, improving transparency for programmatic buyers.