Criteo collaborates with Microsoft Advertising to drive retail media growth

Publicly-listed commerce media company Criteo announced a strategic collaboration with Microsoft Advertising to bring the latter’s demand to its global network of 225 retailers. Microsoft Advertising also intends to work with Criteo as its preferred onsite media partner, extending Criteo’s monetisation technology to Microsoft Advertising’s retailer clients, which is aimed at creating a unified retail media ecosystem than currently exists.

Retail media is one of the fastest-growing sectors in advertising. According to GroupM, it will represent 15.4% of total advertising revenue in 2028, and is forecast to exceed TV revenue (including CTV). However, 93% of marketers worldwide cite market fragmentation as a significant challenge.

Criteo and Microsoft Advertising intend to help move the industry forward by tapping into Criteo’s network of retailers, bringing them a new revenue stream, and developing a more unified buying experience for global advertisers. In turn, it would also empower Microsoft Advertising’s 500,000 strong active advertiser clients that operate across 187 global markets to achieve stronger, measurable performance for their campaigns within a singular, unified platform.

“We’re thrilled to expand our relationship with Microsoft Advertising to make it easier for brands to buy retail media and for retailers to expand demand into their media solutions,” said Brian Gleason, chief revenue officer at Criteo. “We look forward to continuing to evolve our collaboration and help drive growth across retail media.”

Criteo is also exploring the potential to tap into Microsoft Advertising’s leadership in generative AI and innovations, such as its AI-powered Retail Media Creative Studio, which makes it easier for advertisers to create and optimise their ad creatives at scale with the power of generative AI.

The demand integration and preferred onsite collaboration are expected to roll out in the second half of 2024. Lynne Kjolso, vice president of global partnerships and retail media at Microsoft Advertising said, “We’re pleased to further our integration with Criteo, a leader in retail media and performance advertising, and look forward to exploring future opportunities.”

In January this year, ad tech company Tyroo Technologies and commerce media company Criteo, announced a preferred ad reseller partnership to fuel the latter's growth of advertising solutions in India. Three months later, Criteo elevated Mohit Chablani, who led its head of sales for enterprise India, to the role of head of brand activation, India.

In March 2024, Criteo announced its first-ever accreditation by the Media Rating Council (MRC) for display rendered impression and click advertising metrics across desktop, mobile web, and mobile in-app environments for onsite sponsored products and onsite display ads on its enterprise retail media platforms, Commerce Max and Commerce Yield. As part of this accreditation, the commerce media platform was evaluated against MRC’s guidelines for detecting and filtering general invalid traffic, which provides enhanced assurance that marketers can trust the commerce outcomes driven on the Criteo platform.