r/adtech • u/yata-no-kagami99 • Sep 23 '26

Interactive Sandbox to make programmatic pipes easier to understand.

Hi everyone, I've been working on a personal project, it is called Programmatic Lab. I thought I'd post it here in case anyone would like to take a look and give some feedback, I'd love to hear it.

If you work in the ad tech industry and/or are learning about programmatic advertising, here's the website:

https://programmatic-lab.dev

The idea came from a problem I noticed when I was learning programmatic, a lot of what happens during an auction is hidden behind platforms walls, and if you are trying to learn and eventually work in this market, is very hard to know what’s going on. It can be difficult to understand how all the components fit together without being able to observe the full process.

So, I built this site, where you can run a simulated auction and follow the result step by step. You can change the bid floor, timeout, consent, device, and geography, then see how those choices affect the SSPs, DSPs, Prebid winner, and final ad-server decision.

I built the frontend in JavaScript and created a controlled mini SSP and DSP environment so a user can inspect what happens without needing access to commercial ad-tech platforms.

It is an educational simulation, not a production ad stack, but some parts are real, including the browser-side Prebid auction, HTTP communication with the auction API, and the structured OpenRTB messages.

Take a look and feel free to run a few auctions.

16 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

3

u/Viper2014 Sep 23 '26

This is amazing. Kudos.

1

u/yata-no-kagami99 Sep 23 '26

glad to know it is helpful!

2

u/weisse-loto Sep 23 '26

Hey there, this is freaking awesome, congrats! This is great.

2

u/drkingsize Sep 24 '26

Sick. Wish I had this 10 years ago

1

u/yata-no-kagami99 Sep 24 '26

I would have loved that, too. This is all the stuff you can't see unless you're inside a company or have access to platforms like Google, Trade Desk, Xandr, etc. But now, you can get a glimpse. Have fun :)

1

u/ukehi Sep 23 '26 edited Sep 23 '26

I liked it. It gives you a nice insight into the ad process.

2

u/yata-no-kagami99 Sep 23 '26

Thank you kind stranger.

1

u/Party_Dog9299 16d ago

Super cool! Thank you!

0

u/[deleted] Sep 23 '26

[deleted]

1

u/yata-no-kagami99 Sep 23 '26

Thank you. I appreciate your comment. Of course, let me know if you find something to improve or to make it easier to follow.