> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.zeotap.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Collaborate > Collaborate is Zeotap's privacy-safe data clean room. Two organisations can run joint audience analyses and activate insights without either party ever sharing raw customer data with the other. Collaborate is a privacy-safe data collaboration module that allows two organisations to run joint audience analyses and activate insights — **without either party ever sharing raw customer data with the other**. Built on Google BigQuery's Analytics Hub infrastructure, Collaborate lets organisations bring their own datasets together, measure how their audiences overlap, and act on those insights for advertising campaigns. Neither side can access the other's underlying records, view individual-level data, or export raw data outside the controlled environment. ## Use cases Collaborate supports three core use cases. A partnership can be used for one or all three, depending on what you and your partner agree to enable. ### Discover Understand how your audience overlaps with your partner's — and what those shared customers look like. Run an overlap analysis to see how many records match between the two datasets, broken down by shared demographic or behavioural attributes (such as gender, age group, or purchase category). This tells you the size and composition of your shared audience without either side exposing individual records. **Example:** A retailer (Contributor) and an FMCG brand (Subscriber) use overlap analysis to understand what share of the brand's customer base shops at the retailer, and which product categories those shared customers buy. ### Activate Save matched segments as audiences and push them to advertising channels for targeting. Once you have run an overlap analysis, the Subscriber can save the matched population — or specific breakdowns of it — as an audience in Zeotap CDP. That audience can then be activated to any channel the Contributor has permitted, such as a DSP or paid social platform. **Example:** A media owner (Contributor) allows an advertiser (Subscriber) to save the overlap between the advertiser's high-value customers and the media owner's addressable inventory, and activate it directly to a campaign on a permitted ad platform. ### Suppress Identify customers in your dataset who were *not* reached by your partner — for exclusion targeting or incrementality measurement. The suppression view shows the non-overlapping portion of the Subscriber's audience. This is useful for building exclusion lists (avoid showing ads to people already reached), measuring incremental reach (how much new audience did the partnership unlock?), and managing frequency across channels. **Example:** A brand (Subscriber) uses suppression to identify which of their CRM customers have not been exposed to a partner publisher's campaign, then activates that segment separately to close the coverage gap. ## What you can do in Collaborate | Capability | Description | | :------------------- | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Overlap analysis | Measure the size of the matched audience between two datasets. | | Insight dimensions | Break down the overlap by shared attributes (for example, gender, age group, loyalty tier). | | Audience saving | Save matched or suppressed results as audiences in Zeotap CDP. | | Channel activation | Push saved audiences to ad platforms and CRM systems. | | Suppression analysis | Identify the non-overlapping portion of your audience. | | Privacy controls | Set a minimum cohort size below which results are not shown to your partner, and control the channels where users can activate the segments. | ## How it works A Collaborate partnership always involves two roles. | Role | What they do | | :-------------- | :-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Contributor** | Owns the data. Controls which attributes are shared, sets privacy thresholds, and defines what the Subscriber can activate. | | **Subscriber** | Brings their own audience. Maps identity keys, runs overlap analysis, and saves results as audiences for activation. | The Contributor is displayed as **Publisher** in some parts of the product. The partnership follows a structured setup before analysis can begin: 1. The Contributor creates the partnership — an invitation email is sent immediately to the CDP admins of the Subscriber organisation. 2. The Contributor configures which attributes to share and sets privacy controls. 3. The Subscriber accepts the invitation — the partnership status moves to **In Setup**. 4. The Subscriber maps their identity keys to the Contributor's, completing their configuration. 5. Once both sides have submitted, the partnership becomes **Active**. 6. The Subscriber runs analysis to view overlap/suppression results and activate relevant segments. ## Partnership status lifecycle | Status | Meaning | | :----------- | :---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Pending** | Partnership created. Invitation email sent to the Subscriber's CDP admins. Waiting for the Subscriber to accept. The Contributor can begin their configuration at this stage. | | **In Setup** | Subscriber has accepted the invitation. Both sides are completing their configuration. The Subscriber can map join keys only once the Contributor has submitted their side. | | **Active** | Both sides have submitted their configuration. All three use cases are available. | | **Archived** | Partnership closed. No further analysis is possible. Both organisations receive an email notification. | ## Which role are you? Create the partnership, select attributes to share, set privacy and activation controls, and manage the partnership throughout its lifetime. Accept an invitation, map your identity keys, run overlap analysis, and save matched audiences for activation. ## Prerequisites Complete these before attempting to create or join a partnership. **Admin tasks — completed once per organisation** * Confirm your organisation is on the Zeotap **composable CDP plan** (a warehouse-native BigQuery setup is required for both sides). To be a Subscriber, your organisation must be composable. * Request the **Collaborate module** to be enabled for your org, and enable **collaboration consent** — contact your Zeotap account team. Only consenting organisations appear in the partner selection dropdown. **Contributor tasks — before creating a partnership** * Confirm at least one composable data source is onboarded in your org. * Confirm that source contains at least one ID-type attribute (for example, Email MD5 or Phone MD5) or a primary key column, to serve as the join key. **Subscriber tasks — before accepting a partnership** * Confirm you have onboarded a dataset as a **customer parent model** in your org. This is required for overlap analysis — the join key of the customer parent model lets the system resolve user profiles for matching. * Ensure your org's CDP admins are monitoring their inbox — they receive the invitation email when a Contributor creates a partnership with your org. ## Core concepts | Term | Definition | | :---------------------- | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | **Partnership** | A named collaboration between a Contributor and a Subscriber org. Contains configuration from both sides and all analysis results. Each partnership has a unique ID. | | **Join Key** | The identity attribute used to match records between the two organisations. Must be an ID-type attribute (for example, Email MD5). Both parties must hold the same identifier type for successful overlap analysis. | | **Insight Dimension** | An attribute the Contributor shares for segment analysis — for example, gender or purchase category. Subscribers see aggregated counts broken down by this attribute, not individual values. | | **Aggregate Threshold** | A minimum group size set by the Contributor. Any cohort smaller than this is not shown in results. Default is 1,000. | | **Activation** | The ability for the Subscriber to save overlap results as an audience and push it to a connected channel. Enabled and scoped to specific channels by the Contributor. | | **Suppression** | An analysis view showing users in the Subscriber's dataset that were not matched — useful for exclusion targeting and incrementality measurement. | | **Composable Source** | A warehouse-native data source where raw data stays in the client's own BigQuery environment. Zeotap queries it in place without copying it. | ## Related guides