Overview
Planning enables publishers to respond efficiently to campaign briefs by creating plans to store campaign opportunity information and build targeted audiences with instant insights. The product provides a collaborative workspace where teams can combine existing cohorts using boolean logic, analyze audience reach and composition, and generate targeting expressions for ad servers. Publishers can create plans for each campaign opportunity, build audiences from multiple cohorts, and access detailed insights about audience reach, overlap, devices, and domains—all within a single workflow designed to accelerate brief response times.Why Use Planning?
Centralize campaign opportunity management — Planning provides a single source of truth for campaign opportunities, enabling teams to store advertiser information, RFP deadlines, budget details, and audience configurations in one place that can be easily shared with colleagues. Find the most relevant cohorts for your campaign with AI — Find the right cohorts using AI-powered recommendations and search (if enabled), or search manually across all of your cohorts to identify cohorts that overlap with your target audience. Build audiences with flexible boolean logic — Combine cohorts using ANY (OR), ALL (AND), and NONE (NAND) logic across multiple groups to create precisely targeted audiences that meet campaign requirements. This allows you to re-use existing cohorts to respond to custom requirements, making it easier to quickly create insights and run inventory forecasting. Get instant insights for brief responses — Access detailed Plan Insights including reach metrics, overlap analysis, device breakdowns, and domain distribution to quickly respond to briefs with accurate audience information.Concepts
Definitions
- Plan: A container for campaign opportunity information including advertiser details, RFP deadline, budget, and one or more audiences. Plans serve as the central workspace for responding to campaign briefs.
- Audience: A combination of cohorts connected using boolean logic to define a target audience within a plan. Each audience generates real-time metrics and can include up to 15 cohorts across 3 groups.
- Plan Insights: A set of analytics tabs (Overview, Overlap, Devices, Domains, Categories, Activity) that provide detailed metrics and visualizations for audiences within a plan.
- Audience Expression: The targeting logic generated from an audience’s cohort combination, formatted for use in ad servers. GAM360 users can copy expressions directly to line items.
- Boolean Logic: The operators used to combine cohorts within and between groups—ANY (OR), ALL (AND), and NONE (NAND) within groups; OR and AND between groups.
- Unique Users (UU): The number of distinct Permutive user IDs that meet the audience criteria within the last 30 days.
- Pageviews (PV): The number of pageview events registered by users in the audience within the last 30 days.
- Overlap: The percentage of users in an audience who are also members of a comparison cohort.
- Index: A measure comparing the overlap of an audience with a cohort versus the overlap of all users with that cohort. An index greater than 1 indicates the audience over-indexes for that cohort.
Workflows
Creating a Plan
Publishers create plans to capture campaign opportunity information. Each plan includes required fields (Plan Name, Advertiser, RFP Deadline) and optional fields (Agency, Budget, Countries, Domains) that help organize and filter campaign data.Building an Audience
After creating a plan, publishers build audiences by combining cohorts using boolean logic. The audience builder provides real-time metrics showing unique users and pageviews as cohorts are added and logic is adjusted.Viewing Plan Insights
Once an audience is saved, publishers can access Plan Insights to analyze reach, overlap, device distribution, and domain breakdown. These insights help you respond to brief requirements with accurate audience data.Activating Audiences in Ad Servers
To activate audiences, publishers copy the individual cohort IDs or targeting expressions from the audience and apply them to line items in their ad server. GAM 360 users can copy GAM-specific expressions directly.Key Features
Plans
Plans store campaign opportunity information and serve as containers for audiences.Plan Fields
| Field | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Plan Name | Yes | A descriptive name for the campaign opportunity |
| Advertiser | Yes | The advertiser associated with the campaign |
| RFP Deadline | Yes | The deadline for responding to the brief |
| Agency | No | The agency managing the campaign |
| Budget | No | The campaign budget |
| Countries | No | Country filters that apply to all metrics and visualizations |
| Domains | No | Domain filters that apply to all metrics and visualizations |
Plan Management
- Sorting: Sort plans by Name, Advertiser, RFP Deadline, or Created Date
- Sharing: Share plans with colleagues via unique URLs
- Auto-save: Audiences are automatically saved when created
Audiences
Audiences combine cohorts using boolean logic to define users for campaign targeting.Boolean Logic Structure
Audiences support up to 3 groups with up to 5 cohorts per group (maximum 15 cohorts total).| Logic | Within Groups | Between Groups | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| ANY | Yes | - | Users must be in at least one of the cohorts (OR logic) |
| ALL | Yes | - | Users must be in all of the cohorts (AND logic) |
| NONE | Yes* | - | Users must not be in any of the cohorts (NAND logic) |
| OR | - | Yes | Users meeting criteria of either group |
| AND | - | Yes | Users meeting criteria of both groups |
NONE logic is not available for the first cohort group—it can only be applied to subsequent groups.
Real-time Metrics
As you build audiences, the following metrics update in real-time:- Est. Unique Users: Estimated distinct users meeting the audience criteria (last 30 days)
- Est. Pageviews: Estimated pageviews from audience users (last 30 days)
Cohort Discovery Methods
| Method | AI Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Recommendations | Yes | AI-powered suggestions based on advertiser and plan information, including trending cohorts with recent user growth |
| AI Search | Yes | Natural language search to find relevant cohorts based on audience descriptions |
| Cohort Library | No | Full list of cohorts with search and filter functionality by name, tags, and type |
| Affinities | No | Find cohorts that overlap or index highly with a seed cohort to expand reach |
You can restrict which cohorts are available to be added to audiences through the use of tags. Create one or multiple tags that are associated with cohorts that you would like to be INCLUDED in the Planning product for audience building. Open a support request listing the specific tags for cohorts to be included.**When implemented, only cohorts associated with the defined tags will be included for audience building. **
Audience Builder - Analyze Tab
The Analyze tab provides visualizations to understand audience composition and optimize reach.| Visualization | Description |
|---|---|
| Browsers | Percentage breakdown of audience unique users across browsers compared to total user base |
| Domains | Percentage breakdown of audience unique users across domains compared to total user base |
| Cohort Uniqueness | Shows incremental reach per cohort—users unique to each cohort (pink) vs. users also in other cohorts (grey) |
When using ALL (AND) logic, the Cohort Uniqueness chart will not show incremental users since users must be in all cohorts to qualify for the audience.
Audience Targeting Logic
After building an audience, access the targeting logic panel to see:- Cohorts List: Full cohort names with their cohort IDs
- Boolean Expression: Standard representation of the audience logic
- GAM Expression: Copy-ready expression for Google Ad Manager line items (GAM 360 only)
Plan Insights
Plan Insights provide detailed analytics across six tabs. Access insights after saving an audience within a plan.Overview Tab
| Metric | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Unique Users | Reach | Estimated unique users in the last 30 days |
| Avg. Weekly UU | Reach | Average unique users in a rolling 7-day window |
| Avg. Daily UU | Reach | Average daily unique users |
| Avg. Active Days Per User | Reach | Average days users visited properties (last 30 days) |
| Pageviews | Engagement | Estimated pageviews in the last 30 days |
| PV/UU | Engagement | Average pageviews per unique user |
Overlap Tab
Analyze how your audience overlaps with cohorts organized by tags. Select comparison tags to generate tables showing:| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Comparison Cohort | The cohort being compared |
| Total Uniques | Total unique users in the comparison cohort |
| Overlap Uniques | Users in both the audience and comparison cohort |
| Overlap | Percentage of audience users also in the comparison cohort |
| Index | Audience overlap vs. total user overlap with the cohort |
The index metric shows you how much more likely a user in your audience is to be in the listed cohort vs. the average user. For example, if you have created an audience of Travel Lovers and it shows an index of 1.5x for a Cycling Enthusiasts cohort, this means that Travel Lovers are 1.5x more likely to be Cycling Enthusiasts than your average user.
Devices Tab
View audience distribution across devices, platforms, and browsers. The tab includes:- Distribution Charts: Percentage breakdown by unique users or pageviews
- Engagement Charts: Pageviews per unique user for each category
Domains Tab
Understand how your audience is distributed across properties—useful for demonstrating the value of cross-property targeting.| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Unique Users (UU) | Percentage of unique users per domain |
| Pageviews (PV) | Percentage of pageviews per domain |
| PV/UU | Engagement rate per domain |
Categories Tab
Requires Watson to be enabled for your workspace.
- Audience - colorful bars in the foreground
- Total Audience - grey bars in the background
Activity Tab
Requires Watson to be enabled for your workspace.
Guides
Creating a Plan
Learn how to create and edit plans for campaign opportunities
Building Audiences
Combine cohorts with boolean logic to build targeted audiences
Using Plan Insights
Analyze audience reach, overlap, and composition
Sharing Plans
Share plans with colleagues via unique URLs
Troubleshooting
Plan Insights loading slowly
Plan Insights loading slowly
Loading times may increase when many comparison tags are selected in the Overlap tab.Solution: Reduce the number of comparison tags selected, or wait for the data to load. Large tag selections require more data processing.
Categories or Activity tabs not visible
Categories or Activity tabs not visible
The Categories and Activity tabs in Plan Insights require Watson to be enabled.Solution: Contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM) to enable Watson for your workspace. Once enabled, these tabs will become available in Plan Insights.
AI Recommendations or AI Search not available
AI Recommendations or AI Search not available
These features require opt-in to Permutive’s generative AI products.Solution: Contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM) to enable AI features for your workspace. You can still use the Cohort Library and Affinities tab to discover cohorts.
Audience metrics showing unexpected values
Audience metrics showing unexpected values
Audience metrics may appear lower than expected when using ALL (AND) logic, as users must be in all cohorts.Solution: Review your boolean logic configuration. Using ANY (OR) logic will typically produce larger audiences. Check the Cohort Uniqueness visualization in the Analyze tab to understand how cohorts contribute to reach.
Environment Compatibility
Core Product
| Functionality | Web | iOS | Android | CTV | API Direct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plan management | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Audience building | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Plan Insights | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Cohort data (for activation) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Planning is a web-based dashboard product. Cohort data used in audiences is available for iOS and Android app targeting through the Permutive SDK.
Dependencies
| Dependency | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Permutive SDK | Yes | The Permutive SDK must be deployed to track events and enable audience metrics calculations. |
| Cohort Taxonomy | Recommended | A well-defined cohort taxonomy with tags makes it easier to discover and organize cohorts when building audiences. |
| Generative AI Products | Optional | Required for AI-powered Recommendations and AI Search features. |
| Watson | Optional | Required for Categories and Activity tabs in Plan Insights. |
| GAM 360 | Optional | Required for copying GAM-specific targeting expressions directly to line items. |
Limits
Feature Limits
| Feature | Limit | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Cohorts per audience | 15 max | Up to 3 groups with 5 cohorts each |
| Groups per audience | 3 max | Groups are combined using OR or AND operators |
| Cohorts per group | 5 max | Cohorts within groups use ANY, ALL, or NONE logic |
| Plans | Unlimited | No limit on the number of plans you can create |
Data Limits
| Metric | Window | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Unique Users | 30 days | Rolling window for user metric calculations |
| Pageviews | 30 days | Rolling window for pageview calculations |
| Overlap metrics | 30 days | Calculated over the last 30 days |
FAQ
Can Audiences from Planning be used in Audience Insights?
Can Audiences from Planning be used in Audience Insights?
No, Audiences created within Planning are specific to the Planning product and cannot be used in the separate Audience Insights product. They serve different purposes—Planning is for brief response, while Audience Insights provides broader cohort analysis.
Will Audience Insights remain available alongside Planning?
Will Audience Insights remain available alongside Planning?
Yes, Audience Insights remains available as a separate product. Planning and Audience Insights serve different use cases and can be used together.
What timeframe is used for Unique Users and Pageviews?
What timeframe is used for Unique Users and Pageviews?
All user metrics (Unique Users, Pageviews, Overlap) are calculated over the last 30 days.
Do cohort metrics update in real-time?
Do cohort metrics update in real-time?
Yes, as you add cohorts and adjust boolean logic in the audience builder, the estimated Unique Users and Pageviews update in real-time.
Can I delete plans?
Can I delete plans?
No, plans cannot currently be deleted. This is a platform limitation. Plans persist indefinitely once created.
Is there a limit to how many plans I can create?
Is there a limit to how many plans I can create?
No, there is no limit to the number of plans you can create.
What is the cohort limit per audience?
What is the cohort limit per audience?
Audiences can contain a maximum of 15 cohorts, organized as up to 3 groups with up to 5 cohorts per group.
Does Planning support Enterprise Workspaces (EnWo)?
Does Planning support Enterprise Workspaces (EnWo)?
Yes, Planning works at all workspace levels in Enterprise Workspace configurations. Performance is fastest at the child workspace level.
What can Parent workspaces see in Planning?
What can Parent workspaces see in Planning?
Parent workspaces can see parent-level cohorts and aggregate metrics across all child workspaces.
What can Child workspaces see in Planning?
What can Child workspaces see in Planning?
Child workspaces can see both parent and child-level cohorts, with metrics calculated only for domains within that child workspace.
How do I activate Audiences in my ad server?
How do I activate Audiences in my ad server?
Audiences are activated by applying the individual cohorts to line items in your ad server. Copy the cohort IDs from the targeting logic panel and configure them as key-values in your ad server. GAM 360 users can copy the GAM-specific expression directly.
Can I export Plan Insights data?
Can I export Plan Insights data?
Yes, Plan Insights data can be exported to CSV format. Look for the “Export Data” button on charts and tables within the Overlap, Devices, and Domains tabs.