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This page provides an overview of the typical Permutive implementation journey. Your Technical Services team will guide you through each phase, but this overview helps you understand what’s involved and where to find detailed documentation.
We strongly recommend deploying changes to a staging environment first, so your Technical Services team can verify the implementation before production rollout.

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Prerequisites

Before beginning implementation, ensure you have:
  • Workspace credentials: Your Organization ID, Workspace ID, and API keys (provided by your Customer Success Manager)
  • Dashboard access: Login credentials for the Permutive Dashboard
  • Technical resources: Development access to deploy code to your web, mobile, or CTV properties

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Implementation phases

A typical Permutive implementation follows these phases:

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1. Planning

Before any code is deployed, your Technical Services team will work with you to define what data you’ll capture and which identifiers you’ll collect. This planning phase shapes the deployment itself.

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Event schema design

Your Technical Services team will help you define the event schemas that capture your user behavior and contextual data. This includes: Standard events (Collectors):
  • Pageview: Page metadata such as article category, author, publish date, content type
  • Engagement: Time on page, scroll depth, and interaction signals
  • Video: Play, pause, complete, and quartile events for video content
Custom events: Business-specific events such as subscription actions, search queries, or e-commerce activity. Your Technical Services team will design schemas that capture the properties needed for your targeting use cases.

Events Concept

Learn more about events and how they power segmentation

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Identity planning

Determine which identifiers you’ll collect and how they’ll be passed to Permutive:
  • First-party IDs: Authenticated user IDs from your login system—requires calling permutive.identify() in your deployment
  • Third-party IDs: Partner identifiers like UID2, ID5, or RampID—may require additional SDK configuration or server-side integration
  • Device IDs: IDFA (iOS) or AAID (Android)—requires deploying the appropriate provider module in mobile SDKs
  • Household IDs: For CTV environments—typically imported via Connectivity from your data warehouse
Identifiers are configured in the Dashboard under Settings → Identity, and your Technical Services team will advise on the technical requirements for each.

Identity Concept

Learn more about identifiers and identity management

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2. SDK deployment

With your event schemas and identity requirements defined, deploy the Permutive SDK to your properties. The SDK runs on-device to capture events, process cohorts in real-time, and activate audiences.

Web (JavaScript)

For desktop and mobile web properties

iOS

For native iOS applications

Android

For native Android applications

CTV

For connected TV applications
Deployment includes:
  • Adding the SDK snippet or package to your codebase
  • Configuring your Workspace ID and API key
  • Implementing event tracking according to your agreed schemas
  • Adding permutive.identify() calls for any first-party or third-party identifiers
  • Configuring consent handling for your regions (see below)
  • Placing the SDK early in your page/app lifecycle to ensure cohorts are available for ad requests
Verification: Use the Permutive Chrome Extension (web) or SDK logging (mobile/CTV) to verify events fire correctly with expected properties. Your Technical Services team will perform a full verification before signing off on production deployment.
API Direct deployment: In some environments where SDK deployment isn’t possible (e.g., certain CTV or server-side contexts), Permutive can be integrated directly via API. If this applies to your use case, your Technical Services team will guide you through an API Direct deployment approach.

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3. Cohort creation

Once your SDK is deployed and data is flowing, build audiences using the cohort builder in the Permutive Dashboard. Cohorts can be based on:
  • Behavioral rules: Users who performed specific actions (e.g., “read 3+ sports articles in 7 days”)
  • Contextual signals: Page content classifications, keywords, or affinity scores
  • Imported data: Audiences from your data warehouse or third-party providers
Your Customer Success Manager can help you define cohorts that align with your commercial strategy.

Cohorts Concept

Understand cohort types and how they work

Creating Custom Cohorts

Step-by-step guide to building cohorts

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4. Activation

Connect Permutive to your ad servers, SSPs, and other platforms to activate cohorts for targeting. Common activation destinations:
TypePlatforms
Ad ServersGoogle Ad Manager, FreeWheel, Xandr, Equativ
SSPsPrebid, Magnite, PubMatic, Index Exchange, OpenX
DSPsThe Trade Desk, DV360
Data WarehousesBigQuery, Snowflake, AWS S3
Activations are configured in the Dashboard under Settings → Integrations, and your Technical Services team will help ensure cohorts flow correctly to each platform.

Integrations

Browse all available integrations
 Permutive supports flexible consent handling to comply with GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy regulations. Consent configuration is part of your SDK deployment. Typical configurations:
RegionConfiguration
GDPR (opt-in)Set consentRequired: true; call permutive.consent() when CMP grants consent
CCPA (opt-out)Set consentRequired: false; call permutive.consent({ opt_in: false }) if user opts out
No consent requiredSet consentRequired: false

Consent & Privacy

Learn more about consent handling

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Getting help

Throughout your implementation, you have access to:
  • Customer Success Manager: For strategy, cohort planning, and commercial alignment
  • Technical Services: For technical setup and configuration
  • Support: For troubleshooting and help

API Reference

Technical API documentation