Criteo

Criteo was founded in Paris, France in 2005 by Jean-Baptiste Rudelle, Franck Le Ouay and Romain Niccoli. Criteo spent the first four years focused on[5] R&D, and launched its first product in April 2008. In 2010, Criteo opened an office in Silicon Valley[6] in an effort to enhance its profile in the USA.

In 2012, Criteo opened its new headquarters in Paris, France establishing one of the biggest European R&D centers dedicated to predictive advertising.[7] The center will continue to provide central support to more than 30 markets worldwide, on five continents – North America, Europe, Asia, South America and Australia.

In September 2013, the firm filed for an IPO with US regulators to raise up to $190 million.[8] In October 2017, Criteo appointed Mollie Spilman as COO.[9]

Criteo's product is a form of display advertising. Their personalized retargeting solution displays interactive banner advertisements, generated based on the online retail browsing preferences and products for each customer. The solution operates on a pay per click/cost per click (CPC) basis,[10] meaning that advertisers pay only for the consumers that click on the banner and return to their website. Additional retargeting solutions operate on a cost per thousand impressions (CPM) or cost per engagement (CPE) basis.

The most common, and simple form of retargeting is basic static retargeting,[11] where a single static banner is shown to all viewers who have left a particular website. Retargeting specialists then introduced a slightly more complex form of segmented retargeting.[12] This second generation of retargeting enables to display one of a few pre-created messages to lost visitors based on a particular browsing category they fall into.

In September 2010, Criteo debuted its self-service cost-per-click[13] (CPC)[14] bidding platform that lets advertisers place bids on display retargeting campaigns and see changes and optimize campaigns in real-time.

In May, 2016, Criteo launched its dynamic email retargeting to increase potential reach.[15]

The Criteo Performance Optimization Platform allowed display advertisers and agencies to set retargeting campaigns[13] based on category, and allow advertisers to bid a different CPC per product category. This is similar to Google AdWords, but for display retargeting ads.

Criteo’s platform allowed for cost-per-click bids to be set down to the individual product level.[16] For example, if a retargeted ad displays three products the consumer had browsed on the site, a different cost can be assigned to each product displayed within the single ad.

Criteo has secured a total of $17 million in funding, with 3M € in a first institutional round in March 2006 coming from French private equity firm AGF and Elaia Partners, and 9M € in a second round in January 2008 led by Index Ventures.[17] The company displays over 4 billion banners per month but does not disclose the geographical breakdown for those banners.

In May 2010, Criteo raised a further $7 million of funding from Bessemer Venture Partners,[18] bringing the total to $24 million. WXP[19]

In September 2010, Criteo began a campaign[20] regarding the use of the popular retargeting and its impact on consumer privacy. The campaign aimed to reassure consumers about personalized retargeting and data-driven marketing tactics.

The company denies it relies on personally identifiable information (PII) and doesn’t track identifiable information, no data is shared with advertisers or publishers and no third-party data used for targeting purposes. Retargeting only uses anonymous information [20] from the merchant’s site.

Criteo won the 2010 Web Award for Outstanding Achievement in Web Development.[21] Criteo’s client Boden won the ClickZ Connected Marketing Award [22] for ‘Best Use of Display Advertising’ for its personalized retargeting campaign implemented by Criteo.

• Ad Tracking
• Rakuten
• Website visitor tracking

• Rudelle, J.B. (2016). They Told Me It Was Impossible: The Manifesto of the Founder of Criteo. Morrisville, North Carolina: Lulu Press. ISBN 978-1-4834-5777-2.

• Official website