About AdTechToolkit

Mission

AdTechToolkit is a free, browser-based collection of utilities purpose-built for the advertising technology industry. The toolkit exists to help the people who build, operate, and troubleshoot digital ad systems move faster with less friction. From VAST tag validation to redirect tracing, every tool is designed around a single job so you can go from question to answer in seconds rather than minutes.

The project serves a wide audience within the ad tech ecosystem. Quality-assurance engineers use AdTechToolkit to verify that video tags conform to IAB specifications before campaigns go live. Operations teams lean on the redirect resolver and URL decoder to diagnose delivery issues in real time. Software engineers reach for the JSON and XML formatters to quickly inspect API payloads or VAST responses during development. Product managers and technical writers reference the glossary and guides to stay current on terminology and best practices.

Our mission is straightforward: provide the ad tech community with reliable, privacy-respecting tools that require no installation, no signup, and no payment. We believe that fundamental workflow utilities should be freely accessible to everyone in the industry, regardless of company size or budget. By keeping the tools browser-based and open, we reduce barriers and let practitioners focus on the work that matters.

Why We Built AdTechToolkit

Advertising technology sits at the intersection of video, data encoding, HTTP networking, and privacy regulation. Despite the complexity of these overlapping domains, there has historically been a significant gap in dedicated tooling. Engineers and ops teams have traditionally relied on a patchwork of general-purpose utilities — generic JSON formatters, standalone Base64 decoders, command-line redirect tracers — none of which understand the specific context of ad serving workflows.

That gap creates real costs. A QA engineer debugging a VAST wrapper chain might need to decode a URL, format the resulting XML, validate it against the VAST 4.2 schema, and trace the wrapper hops — all within the same investigation. Switching between four or five disconnected tools slows the process and increases the chance of error. AdTechToolkit was built to consolidate those steps into a single, cohesive environment where each tool is aware of the ad tech context surrounding it.

We also noticed that many existing online tools quietly upload user input to remote servers, which is problematic when you are working with production ad tags, tracking URLs, or consent strings that may contain sensitive campaign data. AdTechToolkit was designed from day one to process data locally in the browser wherever possible, eliminating that concern and making the toolkit safe for everyday production use.

Our Approach

Every decision we make when building and maintaining AdTechToolkit is guided by three core principles: privacy first, browser-based processing, and alignment with industry standards.

Privacy First

We do not collect, store, or transmit user input unless a tool explicitly requires a server-side request — for example, following a redirect chain to an external URL. Even in those cases, the data is processed in transit and never persisted. There are no analytics trackers harvesting input fields, no hidden uploads, and no third-party scripts with access to the data you paste into a tool. Our privacy policy explains this commitment in detail.

Browser-Based Processing

The majority of AdTechToolkit's utilities run entirely within your browser using client-side JavaScript. JSON formatting, XML pretty-printing, Base64 encoding, URL decoding, regex find and replace, and many other tools never send your data anywhere. This architecture means the tools work offline once the page is loaded, perform instantly regardless of server load, and keep your data under your control at all times.

Standards Alignment

Ad tech is governed by a rich set of industry specifications. Our VAST tools validate against the official IAB VAST XSD schemas. Our consent-string decoder follows the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework specification. URL encoding and decoding follow the relevant RFC standards. XML processing respects W3C rules for well-formedness and namespace handling. By anchoring every tool to the authoritative spec, we ensure that the results you get from AdTechToolkit are trustworthy and interoperable with other standards-compliant systems.

What Makes AdTechToolkit Different

There is no shortage of online developer tools, but AdTechToolkit differs in three key ways. First, it is focused exclusively on advertising technology. Rather than being a generic Swiss-army-knife utility site, every tool was conceived to solve a problem that recurs in ad tech workflows. That focus means the tools include ad-tech-specific context — such as VAST version awareness, macro detection, and consent-string parsing — that general tools simply do not offer.

Second, the core toolkit is and will remain free. We do not gate features behind paywalls, limit usage with quotas, or require account creation to access the primary utilities. The tools are funded and maintained by CosmicQuest Studios LLC as a contribution to the ad tech community.

Third, we do not collect your data. Most online tools make money by harvesting usage data or displaying invasive advertising. We chose a different path. AdTechToolkit has no interest in what you paste into the tools. Your VAST tags, tracking URLs, consent strings, and API payloads are yours alone. This commitment to privacy is not just a feature — it is a foundational design constraint that shapes every architectural decision we make.

Who Uses AdTechToolkit

AdTechToolkit is used daily by professionals across the advertising technology landscape. The toolkit was designed to be approachable for non-engineers while still powerful enough for senior developers.

• QA Teams — validate VAST tags against IAB schemas, preview video creatives, and verify tracking pixel placement before campaigns launch.
• Ad Operations Teams — decode redirect chains, inspect consent strings, and troubleshoot delivery issues without waiting for engineering support.
• Software Engineers — format JSON and XML payloads during development, diff API responses, and encode or decode Base64 tokens in seconds.
• Product Managers — reference the glossary and guides to stay aligned on terminology when writing specs or reviewing requirements with technical teams.
• Technical Writers — use the formatting and conversion tools to prepare code samples, validate example payloads, and ensure accuracy in documentation.
• Support and Customer Success — quickly reproduce and diagnose issues reported by clients by pasting tags and URLs into the relevant tool without needing a local dev environment.

The Team

AdTechToolkit is built and maintained by CosmicQuest Studios LLC, an independent software studio based in the United States and registered in the state of New York. The studio specializes in practical, developer-focused tooling for media and data workflows, with a particular emphasis on the advertising technology sector.

The team behind AdTechToolkit brings years of hands-on experience in ad serving, video delivery, programmatic infrastructure, and front-end engineering. That operational background informs every tool we build — we have lived the pain points that AdTechToolkit addresses, and we design solutions based on real-world workflows rather than theoretical use cases.

We are a small, focused team by design. Staying lean allows us to ship quickly, respond to community feedback without bureaucratic delays, and maintain the quality bar that users depend on. Every feature request and bug report is reviewed by the people who write the code.

Our Commitment

We are committed to keeping the core AdTechToolkit utilities free and accessible for the long term. The tools exist to serve the ad tech community, and restricting access would undermine that purpose. As the industry evolves — new VAST versions, updated consent frameworks, emerging privacy regulations — we will update the toolkit to stay current.

Ongoing development is guided by the community. User feedback drives our roadmap, and we actively encourage suggestions for new tools, improvements to existing ones, and corrections to our guides and glossary. If you encounter a gap in the toolkit or a workflow that could be smoother, we want to hear about it through our contact page.

We also commit to transparency. When a tool requires a server-side request, we document that clearly on the tool's page. When we update our privacy policy or terms of service, we communicate the changes openly. Trust is earned through consistent behavior, and we intend to keep earning it with every release.

Standards We Follow

AdTechToolkit is built on top of well-established industry specifications. Anchoring to authoritative standards ensures that our tools produce reliable, interoperable results.

• IAB VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) — the core XML specification for video ad tags. Our VAST Inspector validates against official VAST 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2 schemas.
• IAB TCF (Transparency and Consent Framework) — the consent-management standard for GDPR compliance. Our consent-string decoder parses TCF v2.0 and v2.2 strings into human-readable fields.
• RFC 3986 (URI Syntax) and RFC 4648 (Base Encodings) — the authoritative standards for URL encoding and Base64 encoding that govern how our encoding and decoding tools operate.
• W3C XML Specification — the foundational standard for XML well-formedness, namespace handling, and document structure that our XML formatter and validator follow.