Criteo

Criteo is a digital advertising firm based in France, providing solutions to marketers, brands, and retailers for creating awareness and driving sales. The firm offers an 1) AI-powered self-serve ad platform for managing and analyzing advertising campaigns across a variety of channels, 2) a retail media ad platform, a demand-side ad platform (DSP), and 3) an AI engine for ad personalization. As of June 2022, 22,000+ firms and 100+ global retailers were using Criteo’s services across a variety of industries including the top five holding companies as well as ~50% of the top 25 retailers in the US and EMEA which include brands such as Bloomingdale’s, Deliveroo, and Lowe’s Canada.

Criteo specializes in commerce media, leveraging commerce data to target customers through their shopping journeys. Its dynamic ad retargeting product can analyze customer activity and provide targeted product recommendations in real time and accounted for 72% of the firm’s revenue in Q3 2021. However, in recent years, given the growing challenges due to privacy concerns over the use of third-party cookies, the firm has been transitioning its clients towards its retail media platform. The platform contributed to the growth in its retail media solutions, which experienced a 58% YoY revenue growth in 2021 and added new clients during the year, including Lowe’s, Walmart Canada, Best Buy, Target, and Nordstrom.

In line with this, the firm has made a number of acquisitions in order to further develop its retail media ad platform, including 1) IPONWEB (ad marketplace platform) purchased for USD 380 million (December 2021) and 2) Mabaya (ad monetization tool for retailers) acquired in May 2021. Leveraging on its acquisition of IPONWEB, the firm unveiled a specialized demand-side ad platform (DSP) for enterprise marketers in the retail media sector, while also introducing Commerce Grid, a dedicated supply-side platform (SSP) designed to serve agencies and publishers. In March 2023, the firm acquired Brandcrush, an Australian platform that facilitates the purchase and sale of omnichannel retail media.

Key customers and partnerships

The firm also partnered with Bluecore , a retail-specific marketing campaign automation platform to allow Sitecore’s users to leverage Bluecore’s customer predictive models (February 2022).

Funding and financials

In 2022, Criteo recorded ex-TAC revenue (net of traffic acquisition cost) of USD 928 million (a 1% YoY growth) and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 29%. As of Q4 2022, the firm expects ex-TAC revenue (including IPONWEB) to be high single digit to low double-digit growth, and the adjusted EBITDA margin is estimated to be 28%. 

In August 2022 it was reported that Criteo faces a potential USD 65 million fine from France’s data protection authority due to GDPR consent breach suite for the firm's suite of tracking techniques and data processing practices. The firm was also the subject of an investigation from the French Competition Authority. The firm stated that it had achieved a favorable decision from the authority and that the latter would restore Criteo’s partner status and partner access to Meta’s ad inventory globally.