Criteo Direct Bidder Reaches Widespread Adoption as Publishers Embrace Header Bidding Technology

Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ: CRTO), the leading commerce marketing technology company, today announced its recently introduced Criteo Direct Bidder has been adopted by 2,000 premium publishers in less than one year in-market.  The solution directly connects publishers’ inventory to the demand from Criteo’s extensive base of more than 18,000 retail and brand clients globally.

The widespread implementation of Criteo Direct Bidder demonstrates two clear trends. First, publishers desire more control over their inventory and who has access to it, while also wanting to maximize its value and eliminate third-party fees. Criteo Direct Bidder delivers on all fronts. Second, advertisers are benefiting by leveraging the only agnostic buying platform with scalable direct-to-publisher integrations, making Criteo Direct Bidder one of the largest and most preferred programmatic supply sources for Criteo.

To further publisher adoption and industry standardization, Criteo has also officially joined Prebid.org, an independent organization designed to ensure and promote fair, transparent and efficient header bidding across the industry. As a contributing member, Criteo will work to make integrations more seamless for publishers.

“Criteo Direct Bidder’s 2,000 publisher milestone is a testament to our continued innovation in developing inventory and publisher solutions that support their long-term monetization and customer growth strategies. said Marc Grabowski, Executive Vice President, Global Supply, Criteo. “By connecting our partners’ valuable inventory to our premium demand, we are creating a win-win scenario for our clients and publishers who collectively want to provide compelling content to readers. Further, it is a natural fit for Criteo to join the Prebid community to create a streamlined header bidding experience for publishers.”

AccuWeather, a current Criteo partner using Criteo Direct Bidder via Prebid, saw ad spend increase by 116 percent year-over-year with a 57 percent increase in impressions bought and a 51 percent increase in win rate.

“We added Criteo as one of our first header bidding partners within Prebid, basing our selection on Criteo’s proven track record,” Stephen Mummey, Vice President, Programmatic Sales and Operations, AccuWeather. “The results have been very positive thus far, and we’ve already seen higher campaign performance. Criteo Direct Bidder’s incredibly fast response time allows us to avoid latency, significantly increasing revenue.”

Flexible and seamless integration capabilities are paramount for today’s publishers as they execute against extremely competitive performance metrics and quality demands.

“We chose to work with Criteo because of its demand from high-quality advertisers, as well as its commitment to transparency,” said Mark-Olaf Winter, Deputy Director, Digital, SPIEGEL MEDIA. “The Criteo team worked closely with us to optimize set-up for Criteo Direct Bidder, and we saw immediate success. Criteo Direct Bidder has helped us to serve fewer ads, of a higher quality, to both improve the user experience and also drive significantly more yield.”

“At Synacor, we are focused on maximizing yield across our publisher partnerships and delivering value to buyers,” said Matt Leardini, Vice President, Search and Advertising, Synacor.  “Our relationship with Criteo plays an important role. By leveraging Criteo Direct Bidder, we are gaining frictionless access to Criteo’s unique demand helping us optimize the value of our inventory.”

“Criteo Direct Bidder was extremely easy to get setup and running,” said Natham Jelovich, Director of Customer Marketing, Zulily. “The account team was helpful and walked us through the entire process. Even better, CPMs are very competitive and adding the Direct Bidder has definitely delivered strong results.”

“We’re incredibly excited that Criteo has joined Prebid.org,” said Michael Richardson, Chairperson, Prebid.org. “Criteo is bringing its long-standing and deep expertise in header bidding to the open source tools and techniques that we champion at Prebid. By joining, Criteo is demonstrating its collaborative spirit in an effort to enhance the overall good of the advertising ecosystem—helping to drive more transparency, accountability and true innovation.”