In this article

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

Permutive has partnered with trusted SSPs to help you further monetize your audiences at scale. As we build infrastructure for the responsible era of digital advertising, we have continued to expand opportunities for you to connect to growing buy-side demand partners, including SSPs.

Within the Audience Platform, it is now possible to connect & enable trusted SSP partners on your Standard Cohorts in order to unlock incremental demand across their advertisers & demand sources, all while maintaining control and ensuring your data and inventory are never decoupled.

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 to individual Audience Platform advertisers that you have a relationship with. Now, you can also make Standard Cohorts available directly to trusted SSPs to source new demand & revenue from them.

This functionality:

• Unlocks demand across trusted SSP partners and their respective advertisers, in addition to the demand from Permutive-connected advertisers seeking privacy-safe & publisher-permissioned audiences.
• Protects publisher data & value via robust controls on publisher-siloed data, therefore preventing the decoupling of data from inventory.
• Streamlines indirect demand for upsell opportunities on direct buys via custom offerings.
• Provides consistent & transparent audience definitions for buyers seeking sustainable alternatives to dwindling Open Marketplace offerings.
• Protects user privacy with a publisher cohort-based approach to targeting, just like all publisher cohorts built via Permutive.

You can opt-in or out of Standard Cohorts for any particular SSP, and choose which Standard Cohorts to offer.

How to enable Standard Cohorts for Demand Partner Activation

To allow an SSP on the Audience Platform to transact on Standard Cohorts, 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.

Current SSPs available:

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 an SSP’s 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 demand partners (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 which demand partner bidders (e.g. SSPs) will receive Standard Cohort information via the Audience Connector (acbidders) config:

Option 1 - Automated  

New demand partner bidders may be added to the acbidders config directly within the Permutive Platform using the below instructions.

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. The prebid integration page contains instructions and a link to a list of possible bidder codes.

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 SSP as a connection

In order for a designated SSP to receive your Standard Cohorts, a connection needs to be established within the Audience Platform. This ensures that your Standard Cohorts are never made available to an Audience Platform buyer without your consent.

To do this, follow the steps below.  If you have questions, contact your CSM, at 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. Select the designated SSP organization ID from above, and enter the ID.
3. To the right of ‘Standard Cohorts’, toggle the switch on so that it turns green.
4. Click 'Create'. The SSP’s name will now be visible in the list of available connections. Your enabled Standard Cohorts are now permissioned for Demand Partner activation by the SSP.
5. 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. 

Note:  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.

Note: Only Standard Cohorts can be permissioned to SSP Demand Partners at this time. This means that other cohort types & options (Matched/Modeled Cohorts, Insights) are not available via this channel.