IAB Tech Lab Develops Agile and Scalable Ad Tech Solution for Publishers with Fastly Compute

Key Results

• Allowed Publishers to regain control over data and monetization while improving page performance by removing third-party JavaScript.

• Enabled global deployment in three seconds to accelerate development cycles.

• Ensured secure, granular ID sharing with Fastly's KV Store to enhance data control over cookie syncing.

• Reduced latency, sped up DNS lookups, and optimized server distribution with edge deployment.

The challenge

Publishers face a critical problem: they've lost control over their content monetization. For years, publishers have struggled with excessive JavaScript tags firing on their pages—sometimes 200 or more—creating performance issues and preventing them from managing their own data sharing relationships. 

IAB Tech Lab works across multiple components of the ad tech ecosystem, but the organization needed a flexible, modern platform to build Trusted Server, a solution designed to give publishers back control of their content and monetization. Jason Evans, Architect for Trusted Server at IAB Tech Lab, saw an opportunity to address these challenges, and sought after a solution that could adapt quickly to feedback from all parties in the ad tech ecosystem without requiring heavy upfront investment or rigid product definitions.

The solution

Evans was familiar with Fastly from previous experience, but Compute was new territory. "I didn't know much about Compute," he said. "I found it to be phenomenal. It was extremely fast, extremely easy to use." The ability to deploy globally without setting up origins, security firewalls, or complex cloud infrastructure made Compute the clear choice for Trusted Server's proof of concept.

The speed of deployment proved essential for IAB Tech Lab's collaborative approach. "We didn't want to come in with a very rigid defined idea and just say, we've built this, check it out," Evans explained. "We needed something that was super flexible, that didn't require a ton of initial investment upfront, that we could iterate on quickly and easily." Building code locally and deploying it globally in seconds made rapid iteration possible in ways that weren't feasible five years ago.

Removing third-party JavaScript for better performance

Moving publisher monetization logic from client-side JavaScript to Fastly's edge delivers immediate performance benefits. When publishers remove heavy third-party JavaScript that runs under domains they don't control, they regain authority over DNS lookups, TLS connections, and server distribution. "By taking back control and putting it on an edge compute platform that's globally distributed, you start to get back some of that control," Evans said. "Page performance in general is much faster."

Serving creative assets and content from a first-party context through Fastly eliminates unnecessary network overhead. Publishers see reduced latency from TCP/IP optimizations and faster DNS lookups. "There's a lot of natural performance improvements that happen when you move things back to the first party context," Evans noted.

Managing identity at the edge with KV Store

Identity matching presents a complex challenge for publishers and advertisers who need to sync IDs without relying on third-party cookies. IAB Tech Lab implemented Fastly's KV Store to provide a framework for secure ID sharing. "We're trying to build a framework for ID vendors or publishers, advertisers directly to have a way to still sync those IDs," Evans said.

KV Store gives publishers granular control over who accesses their data. Unlike traditional cookie syncing where publishers have limited visibility into downstream data sharing, Trusted Server on Fastly allows publishers to create IDs specifically meant for individual vendors that can only be read in certain runtime environments. "You can start to have IDs that are specifically meant for another vendor that can only be read from in a certain situation or runtime sort of environment," Evans explained.

Building with modern languages on an open platform

Trusted Server is written in Rust and runs on WebAssembly, giving developers the opportunity to work with modern technologies. "It's a good chance for developers to learn new technologies and experiment with edge computing if they've never done that before," Evans said. The open-source nature of the project encourages experimentation—developers can fork the code into Go or other languages as needed.

The team designed Trusted Server to avoid vendor lock-in by separating cloud-independent core functions from provider-specific features. "We separate out things that are Fastly specific, Cloudflare specific, AWS specific," Evans explained. "And then we have the core functionality that's just rust code." This approach gives publishers flexibility to integrate their preferred partners and build their own technology stack without worrying about proprietary dependencies.

Key takeaway

IAB Tech Lab chose Fastly Compute to build Trusted Server because traditional cloud setups would have been too expensive, complex, and inflexible for their iterative development process. "This would not have been possible five years ago," Evans said. "The technology wasn't there. The fact that you can build code, compile it on your local machine, and deploy it globally in three seconds is insane." Working under the standards organization umbrella with Fastly's support allows IAB Tech Lab to focus on building something that improves the entire ad tech ecosystem. "It's nice to be able to be supporting the entire community without always worrying about sales numbers," Evans reflected.