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Overview

Identity Insights provides analytics dashboards that visualize your identity graph and help you understand how first-party and third-party identifiers are performing against each other. The product features three main dashboard components that enable you to analyze identity data overlap, monitor data ingestion patterns, and assess cross-domain user stitching effectiveness. Identity Insights is available to all publisher accounts and is primarily used as a debugging tool to understand the scale of identifiers, their relationships, and to troubleshoot identity data collection issues.

Why Use Identity Insights?

Visualize Identity Graph Performance — Understand how different identity vendors are performing, from a scale perspective, relative to each other through overlap analysis. Debug Identity Data Collection — Monitor daily volume patterns to identify and troubleshoot drops in identity data collection. Assess Cross-Domain User Stitching — Evaluate how successful your user stitching is across different domains.

Concepts

Definitions

  • Identity Graph: A collection of identifiers (IDs) that Permutive uses to recognize and link users across sessions and domains.
  • Identifier (ID): A unique identifier type that can be collected and stored in your identity graph (e.g., AppNexus ID, RampID, UID2, hashed email).
  • Identity Overlap: The percentage of users (Permutive IDs) who have both of two different identifiers, showing how identifiers relate to each other.
  • Identity Data Ingestion: The process of collecting and storing identity data from your site or app. This process can be done via Connectivity Imports and/or the /identify endpoint.
  • Domain Overlap: The percentage of users who appear on multiple domains within your organization, indicating cross-domain identity resolution success.

Workflows

Viewing Identity Overlap

The Slicer tab displays overlap between different identifier types in a pivot table format. This helps you understand which identifiers are commonly found together and assess the scale of your identity graph. The table shows both percentage overlap and absolute values, allowing you to identify relationships between different identity vendors.

Monitoring Identity Data Ingestion

The Time Series tab displays identity data ingestion per day over a 7-day or 30-day period. This workflow helps you monitor the health of your identity data collection and identify any drops in data ingestion that might indicate integration issues or vendor problems.

Analyzing Cross-Domain User Overlap

The Domains view shows user overlap across different domains in your organization. This helps you assess the overlap of users across domains, which is important for cross-domain audience targeting and measurement.

Guides

Step-by-step instructions for working with Identity Insights.

Troubleshooting

There are a few reasons why an unexpected identifier might appear in your Identity Insights reports:
  1. You stopped sending the identifier to Permutive, but it’s still on the Identity Graph allow-list (Settings > Identifiers). In these cases, you might see a small amount of data (10s of users) associated with the identifier. This can happen because of old, cached information on some users’ devices.
  2. The identifier is related to an integration you’re using, but you might not recognize it. For example, an identifier like ‘ddp’ supports an integration between Permutive and Google’s DSP (DV360), but it may not be clear from the identifier name itself that it’s supporting an important function for your business.
Solution: Review your Identity Graph allow-list in Identity > Identifiers and remove any identifiers you no longer want to collect. Note that Identity Insights reports on Past 7 and Past 30 Days, so there will be a temporary period where it continues to show identifiers you removed if data was collected from those identifiers in those time ranges.
If you notice a drop in data ingestion in the Time Series tab, this could indicate an issue with identity data collection.Solution:
  1. Check the Time Series tab to identify when the drop occurred
  2. Review any recent changes to your site or app that might affect identity collection
  3. Verify that identity vendors are still properly integrated
  4. Contact Support if the drop persists or if you need assistance identifying the cause
Domain overlap is calculated once per month on the first of the month due to query cost considerations. Custom date ranges are not supported for this view.Solution: Wait until the first of the next month for updated domain overlap data. The view will automatically refresh with new data points at the beginning of each month.
The Slicer tab pivot table reads top-to-bottom rather than left-to-right, which can be counter-intuitive for some users.Solution: Read the table by looking at the top row identifier first, then reading down the column to see overlap percentages with other identifiers. For example, if AppNexus is in the top row, reading down shows what percentage of users with each identifier also have AppNexus.

Environment Compatibility

Core Product

FunctionalityWebiOSAndroidCTVAPI Direct
Identity Insights DashboardYesYesYesYesYes

Dependencies

DependencyRequiredDescription
Permutive SDKRequired to collect identity data that powers Identity Insights reports.
Identity GraphIdentity Insights analyzes data from your Identity Graph, so you must have identifiers configured and collecting data.
Workspace AccessYou must have access to a Permutive workspace to view Identity Insights dashboards.

Limits

Feature Limits

FeatureDescriptionLimit
Date Range SelectionAvailable date ranges for Ingestion tab7 days or 30 days only
Domain Overlap RefreshFrequency of domain overlap data updatesOnce per month (on the 1st of each month)
Identifier Overlap AnalysisNumber of identifiers that can be analyzed simultaneouslyUp to 10 identifiers

Performance Limits

MetricDescriptionLimit
Query Execution TimeTime for Identity Insights queries to completeA few seconds
Data Processing WindowTime window for data to appear in reportsPast 7 days and Past 30 days

Usage Limits

SKUDescriptionLimit
Identity InsightsAccess to Identity Insights dashboardsAvailable to all publisher accounts

FAQ

Identity overlap (Slicer tab) and time series data are updated daily. Domain overlap is calculated once per month on the first of the month and cannot be customized to different date ranges.
No, custom date ranges are not supported. See Troubleshooting above for details on the domain overlap update schedule.
This is a common situation with a few possible causes. See Troubleshooting above for a full explanation and steps to resolve this.
The pivot table reads top-to-bottom. Start with the identifier in the top row, then read down the column to see what percentage of users with each identifier also have the top-row identifier. You can also view absolute values by selecting the sum view option.
Use the Ingestion tab to identify when the drop occurred, then review recent changes to your site or app. Check that identity vendors are still properly integrated. If the issue persists, contact Support for assistance.
Yes, Identity Insights is available to all publisher accounts. It was made generally available (GA) in August 2024.

Changelog

2024

August 2024
  • Identity Insights made generally available (GA) to all publisher accounts
April 2024
  • Identity Insights (Beta) released with three main dashboard components: Slicer tab, Ingestion tab, and Domain Overlap view
For detailed changelog information, visit our Changelog.