What Criteo is
Criteo is a commerce-focused advertising platform founded in France in 2005. The flagship product is dynamic retargeting, serving display ads showing the exact products a user browsed on your site, across thousands of publisher sites on the open web.
Beyond dynamic retargeting, Criteo has expanded into prospecting (cold-audience acquisition), Commerce Media (retailer-network advertising), and audience-extension products. The retargeting roots still dominate the revenue mix.
How dynamic retargeting works
Three pieces:
- Site tag captures product-view events and user identifiers
- Product feed keeps Criteo informed of every SKU, price, image, and availability
- Ad delivery network serves display ads featuring the browsed products on partner publisher sites
When done well, the user is reminded of the products they considered, often within minutes of leaving the site, and conversion rates are high. The format and approach predate most of what Meta and Google now do natively.
The privacy headwind
Criteo’s model depends heavily on third-party cookies, which have been progressively restricted:
- Safari ITP (2017+) blocks third-party cookies outright
- Firefox ETP (2019+) blocks the same
- Chrome progressively restricts. Full deprecation has been announced, delayed, and re-announced multiple times
For Safari and Firefox users (~25% of consumer traffic), Criteo’s retargeting effectively doesn’t work. Chrome restrictions further compress addressable audience. The company has responded with first-party identity products and contextual targeting, but the core dynamic-retargeting model is structurally weaker than it was in 2018.
Measurement and incrementality
Like all retargeting, Criteo is prone to over-attribution. Many “converted” users would have come back via direct or organic search without ever seeing the Criteo ad. Incrementality testing routinely shows Criteo’s true contribution is 30-50% below the attributed number.
Mature teams measure Criteo via:
- Independent multi-touch attribution (not Criteo’s in-platform numbers)
- Periodic incrementality holdouts to calibrate the model
- Comparison to organic returning-customer baselines to detect cannibalisation
FAQ about Criteo
Is Criteo still worth running in 2026?
Sometimes. For Chrome-heavy audiences with first-party identity hooks in place, dynamic retargeting can still deliver. For Safari and Firefox audiences, performance has structurally declined. Test, measure incrementality, and decide based on actual lift not attributed conversions.
How is Criteo different from Meta retargeting?
Meta retargeting reaches users on Facebook and Instagram (walled garden). Criteo reaches users on the open web (display networks, publishers). The audiences overlap partially but not fully, some users are heavy social, others browse the open web more.
Why is my Criteo ROAS dropping?
Third-party cookie restrictions are the most common cause. Criteo’s ability to identify browsing users has weakened progressively across browsers. First-party identity hooks and contextual targeting partially compensate but don’t fully restore historical performance.