EXCLUSIVE: Criteo Is Holding Its Ground as Retail Media Rivals Try to Steal Its Share

During Criteo’s first quarter earnings call in May—and the first for newly-appointed chief executive officer Michael Komasinski—the company was still reeling from two big client losses that would cost the company $100 million in revenue over the next year.

Target’s retail media business Roundel brought ad sales in house earlier than Criteo expected, and Uber Eats moved its U.S. ad business over to Instacart’s Carrot Ads platform.

In the months since, retail media insiders have seen those losses as evidence that Criteo’s reign as the dominant retail media tech player might be ending. Rivals like Kevel, Koddi, Moloco, and others are aggressively competing against Criteo for retail media wins, boasting more nimble and up-to-date tech, sources said.

That put Criteo in a two-front war: fighting for its business as large retail clients sought to bring their operations in house, while smaller retailers are vulnerable to being wooed by upstart adtech companies. “It’s definitely a threat to Criteo,” one agency executive told ADWEEK.

Still, Criteo appears to be holding strong. The company posted better-than-expected earnings on July 30, boosting its end-of-year outlook. It reported a 112% retention rate for its retailer clients. And while Roundel and Uber Eats seem like big losses on the surface, Criteo really only lost part of those businesses, not the entire account.

“Smaller companies coming in [is] just a proof point that this is a place to be and that and that it’s a big market and that there’s opportunity,” Komasinski told ADWEEK.

But the company isn’t out of the woods yet. It must continue to innovate fast enough to keep its competitors from chiseling away at its roster of over 200 retail clients while adapting to generative AI that is revolutionizing the way people find and buy products.

“Criteo is facing growing competition that’s keeping it honest and driving it to innovate,” Andrew Lipsman, independent retail media analyst, told ADWEEK. “But it’s not easy to dislodge.”

Criteo rivals tout flexibility and cutting-edge tech

Retail media is still one of the fastest-growing segments of the ad industry. U.S. advertisers alone bought $52 billion in retail media last year and are expected to buy $98 billion by 2028, according to Emarketer.

But as advertisers sink in more dollars, they’re also demanding more features: better measurement to prove out the investment, more programmatic capabilities, and easier ways to buy across many retailers at once.

Criteo’s long dominance in providing demand for retail media has let the company charge comparably high rates while lagging on technology like ad serving, sources told ADWEEK. A company spokesperson disputed the claims about its technology, and said its fees reflect the value it delivers to clients.

Criteo was an early winner when a new slate of retailers first started building advertising businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, said James Avery, CEO and founder of Kevel.

At the time, Criteo competed mostly with CitrusAd—which has since been acquired by Publicis Groupe and now sits within its Epsilon data unit—and PromoteIQ, which was acquired Microsoft, but now does not take new clients, according to the tech giant.

Now, Criteo is facing off against a new wave of companies like Kevel, Koddi, Moloco, Pentaleap, Topsort, and Vantage, who pitch sophisticated tech to solve the growing challenges retail media sellers face. Criteo’s competitors are also leveraging more programmatic advertising, an area they claim Criteo has been slow to embrace. A company spokesperson disputed that and said its approach to programmatic is “intentional and designed to meet the needs of specific retailers.”

Many of these rival companies say they can provide much-needed demand to retail media sellers. Moloco, for example, claims its updated infrastructure helps retailers compete for ad dollars against the likes of Google and Meta, said Jon Flugstad, senior director of business development at Moloco. Pentaleap connects with demand-side platforms like Teads to provide that programmatic demand, said CEO and founder Andreas Reiffen.

Criteo’s rivals are also inking deals with firms like Pacvue and Skai to use APIs so advertisers can easily buy retail media across multiple sites—and avoid buying through Criteo.

Many of these upstarts also promise to help retailers adapt to the changing way people find and buy products, as large language models and AI-powered shopper agents impact commerce.

“We’re in a replacement cycle,” said Regina Ye, co-founder and CEO of Topsort. “New solutions are focused on product and engineering, and how agentic tech and AI from Silicon Valley will impact retail media.”

The incumbent is holding strong—for now

Criteo’s business isn’t showing signs of bowing to the competition yet.

The company made $60 million on its retail media business in the second quarter, up 11% year over year. It has an extended partnership with Microsoft, which is recommending that retailers that used PromoteIQ move to Criteo.

And it’s bolstering its tech to fill out its capabilities. In the last six months, it added video ads, and enabled programmatic buying of onsite display ads. It also inked a partnership with Mirakl to bring more small-and mid-size third-party advertisers into the retail media networks that it powers.

CEO Michael Komasinski said Criteo’s competitors aren’t impacting its product roadmap: “I don’t think I’ve seen anything that radically changes what we’re doing,” he told ADWEEK. “But we take all competition seriously, even the small ones.”

As competitors go to market claiming superior tech, Komasinski insists Criteo’s value prop is more than fancy features.

“We’re not just an ad server—we really bring demand and real revenue,” he said. “When our clients are making the decision to stand up a retail media network, it’s a holistic business plan, and we’re the partner that can put revenue on the top line, not just a cost item that does ad serving.”

Those wide-ranging capabilities set Criteo’s platform apart, said Melissa Burdick, co-founder and president of adtech firm Pacvue.

Many of the newer upstarts require retailers to piece together a tech stack through multiple partnership deals, something that can be daunting for small- or mid-sized retailers, she said.

“Criteo is an attractive partner for many retailers because of how plug-and-play their solution is,” Burdick explained. “For retailers looking to quickly stand up a retail media network, Criteo’s turnkey infrastructure makes it easy to get started and scale.”

The process of switching out Criteo’s tech for a competitor can also be long and laborious.

“Sometimes, the incumbent wins because they’re incumbent,” another source said.

Even as competition against Criteo steps up, the growth of retail media means that for now, there’s plenty of spend for multiple vendors.

“Conventional business strategy would suggest that eventually there is consolidation, but the business is still growing so much that there is no need for that currently,” one source told ADWEEK. “It’s competitive, but it’s not brutally competitive. Everyone’s winning [new business] and still being profitable.”

There are multiple RFPs from retailers that will wrap up in the coming months, several industry sources said. When that happens, there will be a clearer picture of Criteo’s position within the competitive landscape.

And when retail media’s exponential growth inevitably slows, winners and losers across retail media buying and selling will emerge.

“The market will eventually need to consolidate with a relatively finite number of RMNs as potential end-users of the technology,” Lipsman said.

Criteo is against more than just legacy ad tech at this point, said Sarah Marzano, retail media analyst at Emarketer. Many of its new rivals were built specifically for retail media.

“As we move out of the ‘land-grab phase’ for platforms like Criteo, winning will mean enabling real differentiation, creatively solving for fragmentation and advertiser fatigue, and looking beyond on-site tactics.”