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MGID

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MGID

MGID is a global native advertising platform. For Permutive publishers, MGID functions as the ad server for native placements on their own inventory, serving and monetizing native ad units with audience-targeted campaigns.

Setup

Troubleshooting

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Overview

MGID is a global native advertising platform. For Permutive publishers, MGID functions as the ad server for native ad placements on the publisher’s own inventory — campaigns sold by the publisher are executed and served by MGID, and this integration makes Permutive audiences available for targeting those campaigns. This integration is a Destination and uses a single activation method:
  • Server-side identity-based activation: Permutive delivers cohort memberships to MGID keyed by the MGID user ID. The MGID user ID is collected on the publisher’s site via a cookie-based identity sync performed automatically by the Permutive Web SDK (every 24 hours per user, gated on consent for MGID). Activated cohorts become targetable audiences in MGID’s platform.
Use cases include:
  • Activate Permutive first-party audiences for targeting in native advertising campaigns served by MGID on your own inventory.
  • Fulfil advertiser briefs that require audience targeting in MGID without third-party data.
  • Target campaigns with custom, lookalike (modeled), and classification cohorts.

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Environment Compatibility

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Prerequisites

  • Permutive Web SDK — deployed on the pages where MGID serves your native placements. The MGID identity sync is performed by the Web SDK and requires no additional publisher code.
  • MGID account — an active relationship with MGID serving native placements on your inventory.
  • Consent for MGID — for traffic in GDPR scope, MGID must be included in your CMP’s vendor list. The identity sync only fires for users who have granted consent for MGID (or where GDPR does not apply).
  • Integration enablement by Permutive — the MGID connection (delivery destination and identity configuration) is managed by Permutive. Contact your Customer Success Manager to enable the integration for your workspace.
  • Segment coordination with MGID — MGID does not support automated taxonomy updates currently. The mapping between Permutive cohorts and MGID targeting segments is coordinated directly between your team and your MGID account manager.

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Setup

1

Request Integration Enablement

Contact your Permutive Customer Success Manager to enable the MGID integration for your workspace. The integration’s delivery destination and identity configuration are managed by Permutive.
2

Confirm the Identity Sync is Active

Once the integration is enabled, the Permutive Web SDK begins syncing MGID user IDs automatically under the ID name mgid. There are no publisher code changes required. Each user is synced at most once every 24 hours.You can verify mgid collection in two ways:
  1. On-Page Verification: Load a page with your Permutive SDK deployed and check the browser’s network tab for a request to cm.mgid.com. If you see a request to that domain, an MGID user ID has been requested and sent to Permutive.
  2. Identity Insights Verification: In the Permutive Dashboard, navigate to the Identity menu item on the left. Then, click the Insights tab in the Identity page. Lastly, select the Time Series view and ensure that mgid is selected as an identifier. This graph will allow you to see the total number of mgid matches over time.
3

Activate Cohorts to MGID

In the Permutive dashboard, activate the cohorts you want available in MGID:
  1. Navigate to the cohort you want to activate
  2. Open its activations and enable the MGID sync
Custom, lookalike (modeled), and classification cohorts are supported. Contextual cohorts are not applicable to identity-based activations.
4

Coordinate Segment Taxonomy with MGID

Agree the cohort-to-segment mapping with your MGID account manager. Audience files reference cohorts by their Permutive cohort ID. MGID will configure the corresponding targeting segments on their side.
5

Verify Delivery

Cohort memberships are delivered to MGID daily. Confirm with your MGID account manager that audience data is arriving and segments are populating.Expect segment sizes to ramp over the first days after enablement: a user becomes addressable in MGID only after they have visited your site and the identity sync has run for them.

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Data Types

Permutive sends cohort membership data to MGID on a daily basis. Each activated cohort becomes a targetable audience in MGID, referenced by its Permutive cohort ID.
  • Sync frequency: Daily
  • Updates: Users entering a cohort are reflected in the next daily delivery.
  • Exits: Users leaving a cohort are handled by MGID-side audience expiration — memberships that stop being re-sent lapse automatically in MGID. No delete records are sent.
  • Identity: Deliveries are keyed on the MGID user ID collected via the Web SDK identity sync.

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Troubleshooting

Symptoms: No request to cm.mgid.com appears in the browser’s network tab.Solutions:
  • Confirm the MGID integration is enabled for your workspace (managed by Permutive — check with your CSM)
  • For traffic in GDPR scope, verify the user has granted consent for MGID and that MGID is present in your CMP’s vendor list — the sync intentionally does not fire without consent
  • Remember the sync fires at most once per user every 24 hours — a user who synced recently will not sync again on subsequent page views
  • Verify the Permutive Web SDK is deployed and initializing on the page
Symptoms: Activated cohorts appear in MGID but with low or zero audience counts.Solutions:
  • Allow time for identity coverage to ramp: a user is only addressable in MGID after visiting your site post-enablement and completing the identity sync, so segment sizes build over the first days and weeks
  • Cohort memberships are delivered once daily — recent activations appear after the next delivery, not immediately
  • Confirm the cohort is activated for MGID in the Permutive dashboard
  • Check that consent rates for MGID are as expected — the addressable audience is limited to consented users in GDPR-scope markets
Symptoms: Activated cohorts don’t appear as targeting options in MGID.Solutions:
  • MGID has no taxonomy API, so segments do not appear automatically — the cohort-to-segment mapping is configured manually by MGID. Confirm the cohort IDs with your MGID account manager
  • Allow for the daily delivery cadence: a newly activated cohort reaches MGID with the next daily delivery
Symptoms: Users who have left a cohort in Permutive still appear targetable in MGID.Solutions:
  • This is expected in the short term: exits are handled by MGID-side audience expiration rather than explicit removal, so a lapsed membership persists in MGID until their expiration window passes
  • If exit timing matters for a campaign, discuss the expiration behavior with your MGID account manager

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Changelog

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September 2026

  • Launched the MGID integration: server-side identity-based activation with automatic MGID identity sync in the Permutive Web SDK, including support for custom, lookalike (modeled), and classification cohorts
For detailed changelog information, visit our Changelog.