In this article

An overview of the solution and steps to get set up with Standard Cohorts for Advertiser Activation. 

Permutive is committed to publishers, and to growing your data-driven success. As we build infrastructure to power the responsible era of digital advertising, we’re focusing on tools to help you make all-important connections to growing buy-side demand. To this end, we’ve partnered with Xandr, leveraging their Curate tool to allow you to make Standard Cohorts available at scale for advertiser activation.

Within the Audience Platform, it is now possible to connect to Permutive’s Xandr Curate seat, enabling your Standard Cohorts, in order to unlock incremental Permutive-connected demand.

Standard Cohorts in the Audience Platform

Standard Cohorts are interest-based publisher cohorts, that can be generated automatically for you within the Audience Platform, based on your first-party data. They use consistent, standardized behavior inputs and map to IAB Audience Taxonomy 1.1.

You can already make Standard Cohorts available through your Audience Platform to advertisers you have a relationship with, via direct sales. Now, you can also enable Standard Cohorts in preparation for additional demand from Permutive-connected advertisers, as it becomes available.

This functionality:

• Offers a sustainable alternative to the dwindling third-party data Open Marketplace, but protects your status as rightful data and audience owners
• Helps you seize demand using your own first-party data which truly represents and addresses all of your audience. 
• Provides your buyers with clarity and transparency around audience composition and definition, standardized across publishers. 
• Allows you to supplement your direct deal revenue with indirect media sales
• Helps you identify opportunities to propose direct buys with tailored data offerings.
• Protects your value, with data siloed per publisher and never exposed to buyers or third parties.
• Protects user data with a privacy-preserving approach to targeting, just like all publisher cohorts built via Permutive.

At any time, you can opt in or out of Standard Cohorts for this demand source, and choose which Standard Cohorts to offer.

How to enable Standard Cohorts for Advertiser activation

To allow Permutive-connected advertisers to transact, there are 4 required steps - see below. These steps should be carried out by someone who owns/is responsible for managing your organization’s Standard Cohorts.

1. Enable Prebid Config for Real-time Data Submodule

Note: This step is only necessary if you have not yet enabled Permutive’s RTD Submodule in Prebid. 

As a prerequisite, Publishers must ensure that they have configured Permutive’s RTD Submodule in Prebid.  This submodule reads cohorts from Permutive and attaches them as targeting keys to bid requests. A publisher must use this module if it is to enable a Permutive-connected demand on Standard Cohorts.

If this step has not already been completed → see the instructions here. 

2. Ensure Prebid GDPR rules are configured

Permutive does not operate within TCF, as all data collection is on behalf of the publisher and based on consent the publisher has received from the user. Therefore, consent is provided to Permutive on the SDK level, rather than through the TCF framework. This process still ensures that if user consent isn’t given, no cohorts will populate. 

In order for the Permutive RTD module to load, and because Prebid utilizes TCF vendor consent, the following actions need to be taken: 

Instructions

1. Publisher enables GDPR rules within Prebid. 
2. Label Permutive as an exception, as shown below. 

[
  {
    purpose: 'storage',
    enforcePurpose: true,
    enforceVendor: true,
    vendorExceptions: ["permutive"]
  }, 
  {
    purpose: 'basicAds',
    enforcePurpose: true,
    enforceVendor: true,
    vendorExceptions: []
  }
]

Before making any updates to this configuration, please ensure that this approach aligns with internal policies and current regulations regarding consent.

3. Enable Standard Cohorts

Note: Steps 1 & 2 above must be completed to enable Standard Cohorts.

The acbidders config in the Permutive RTD module allows publishers to determine which SSPs will receive standard cohorts via the user.data ortb2 object. Cohorts will be sent in the p_standard key-value.

There are two ways to assign who will receive Standard Cohort information via the Audience Connector (acbidders) config:

Option 1 - Automated  

Xandr may be added to the acbidders config directly within the Permutive Platform using the instructions below. 

Tip: Permutive can do this on your behalf. Simply contact your Permutive CSM with strategicpartnershipops@permutive.com on cc, indicating which bidders you would like added.

Create Integration

In order to update acbidders via the Permutive dashboard,  it is necessary to first enable the prebid integration in the integrations page (settings).

Note on Revenue Insights:  The prebid integration includes a feature for revenue insights, which is not required for the purpose of updating acbidders config. Please see this document for more information about revenue insights.

Update acbidders

The input for the “Data Provider config” is currently a multi-input free text. A valid “bidder code” needs to be entered in order to enable Standard Cohorts to be passed to the desired partner. 

To add a desired partner, identify the correct bidder code from the prebid integration page, and add it into the “Permutive RTD Bidders” field. 

Tip: Use the search functionality to find the bidder code

Note:  Acbidders can be added or removed from the list using this feature, however, this will not impact any acbidders that have been applied using the manual method below.

Option 2 - Manual  

As a secondary option, new demand partner bidders may be added manually. 

To do so, a Publisher may define which bidders should receive Standard Cohorts by including the ID of any bidder in the acBidders array.  Bidder IDs can be located on the prebid integration page. 

Note:  If a Publisher ever needs to remove a manually-added bidder, the bidder will also need to be removed manually.

4. Add Permutive Standard Cohorts - Xandr as a connection

In order for ‘Permutive Standard Cohorts - Xandr’ to receive your Standard Cohorts, a connection needs to be made within the Audience Platform. This ensures that your Standard Cohorts are never made known to an Audience Platform buyer without your consent.

To do this, follow the steps below.  If you have questions, contact your CSM, with strategicpartnershipops@permutive.com on cc. 

1. If you are responsible for managing your organization’s Standard Cohorts, visit the Connections tab in the Platform and Click '+Add Connection
2. You will then be prompted to enter an organization ID: d564f72e-f80f-4eb8-9253-86550a50fd8b
3. To the right of ‘Standard Cohorts’, toggle the switch on so that it turns green.
4. To the right of ‘Insights’, toggle the switch on so that it turns green.
5. Click 'Create'. Permutive Standard Cohorts - Xandr will now be visible in the list of available connections. Your Standard Cohorts are now enabled for activation by Permutive-connected advertisers. All cohorts will be toggled ‘off’ by default at this point, but controls are available to change this per your preference.
6. To review the Standard Cohort taxonomy in full, select Standard Cohorts on the left-hand side of the page. Here, you have controls to make individual cohorts available or unavailable. Click the ‘Active’ toggles to opt-in, on a per-Cohort level. You can use the same toggles to opt individual cohorts out again. If you would like to opt-in to all your Standard Cohorts, we can do this on your behalf upon receipt of your written instruction.
7. Please confirm the connection by emailing your CSM, with strategicpartnershipops@permutive.com on cc. They will follow up with the final steps once we have generated your unique Key-Values. Information will be shared to enable Xandr to batch-curate Deal IDs on your behalf.

Note: Due to the nature of this indirect media transaction, the definition and composition of cohorts must be standardized to allow buyers to transact at the scale they require (across several publishers). Therefore only Standard Cohorts can be permissioned to Permutive Standard Cohorts - Xandr and other cohort types & options (Matched/Modeled Cohorts, Insights) are not available via this channel.