How Criteo Is Redefining Digital Advertising in 2025

Discover how Criteo is redefining digital advertising in 2025 through commerce media, artificial intelligence, retail media, first-party data, and measurable campaigns.

Digital advertising has undergone a major transformation as consumer behavior, privacy expectations, e-commerce, and artificial intelligence continue to reshape the marketing industry. Advertisers are no longer relying exclusively on traditional display advertising or broad audience targeting. Instead, many brands are looking for technologies that can connect advertising activity with real shopping behavior and measurable commercial outcomes.

In this changing environment, Criteo digital advertising in 2025 represents an interesting example of how advertising technology is moving toward commerce-focused strategies. Criteo has increasingly positioned its platform around commerce media, combining purchase and intent signals, artificial intelligence, retail media, performance advertising, and closed-loop measurement.

During 2025, Criteo introduced new capabilities designed to expand advertising opportunities across retail environments. These included the general availability of Onsite Video in April and Auction-Based Display in June, giving retailers and advertisers additional ways to combine storytelling, product discovery, and measurable commerce outcomes.

What Is Criteo?

Criteo is a technology company focused on connecting the commerce ecosystem through advertising and commerce media solutions.

Its platform serves advertisers, retailers, and publishers, with an emphasis on using commerce-related data and artificial intelligence to connect brands with consumers throughout the buying journey.

Criteo describes its approach as commerce media, a model that combines purchase and intent data with commerce-focused AI to improve advertising and media monetization across the open internet.

This represents a shift from focusing exclusively on advertising impressions toward understanding the relationship between advertising exposure, shopping behavior, and transactions.

The Evolution From Performance Advertising to Commerce Media

Performance advertising traditionally focuses heavily on measurable actions such as clicks, conversions, leads, or purchases.

Commerce media expands this concept by connecting advertising with broader shopping behavior.

Criteo's current platform combines performance media and retail media capabilities and emphasizes full-funnel activities, from discovery and consideration to conversion and retention. Its platform is designed to connect marketers, retailers, and publishers using commerce data and AI.

This approach allows advertising campaigns to be evaluated not only by whether consumers interact with an advertisement but also by what happens later in the purchasing journey.

Artificial Intelligence as a Core Component

Artificial Intelligence is central to Criteo's technology strategy.

The company states that its commerce AI is trained using large-scale commerce information and shopping behavior. Criteo currently describes its AI as processing information associated with billions of products and hundreds of millions of daily shoppers.

The practical objective is to improve decisions involving:

• Audience selection
• Bidding
• Product recommendations
• Creative optimization
• Campaign performance
• Customer targeting

In 2025, this emphasis on AI reflected a broader industry movement toward automated advertising systems capable of processing large volumes of behavioral and commerce data.

First-Party Data and Advertising

Privacy changes have increased the importance of first-party data in digital advertising.

First-party data is information collected directly by an organization through its own customer relationships, platforms, websites, applications, or transactions.

Criteo's commerce media approach places significant emphasis on retailer first-party data. Its platform describes the ability to use retailer data to create audiences and activate advertising across onsite and offsite environments.

For advertisers, this can provide a way to work with commerce-oriented signals rather than relying exclusively on broad behavioral targeting.

For retailers and publishers, it creates opportunities to develop advertising businesses based on their own audiences and inventory.

Retail Media Becomes More Sophisticated

Retail media has become an increasingly important area of digital advertising because it places advertising closer to purchasing activity.

Criteo's retail media offering connects advertisers with retailer environments and supports onsite and offsite advertising formats. The company's materials describe access to a network of more than 200 retailers and more than 1,300 publisher partnerships.

The significance of this model is that advertising can take place within environments where consumers are already researching or purchasing products.

This can create a closer connection between media exposure and commerce activity.

Criteo's Onsite Video Expansion in 2025

In April 2025, Criteo announced the general availability of its Onsite Video solution for retail media.

The format allows video advertising to appear directly within participating retailer environments and combines storytelling with shopping-oriented experiences. Criteo said the offering complemented sponsored-product and display advertising as part of a broader onsite retail media mix.

The development illustrates how retail media is expanding beyond traditional sponsored listings.

Video can support awareness and product storytelling while remaining within a commerce environment.

Auction-Based Display Advertising

Another significant 2025 development came in June, when Criteo announced Auction-Based Display technology for retail media.

The company described the product as providing programmatic flexibility inside retail media environments, with features related to bidding, pricing, workflow efficiency, and controls for ad relevance.

This is significant because retailers have traditionally had to balance their own commercial objectives with the requirements of advertisers.

Auction-based systems can provide additional flexibility for determining how advertising inventory is purchased and valued.

Connecting Onsite and Offsite Advertising

One of the challenges facing advertisers is maintaining a consistent strategy across different environments.

Consumers may discover products through social media, search, publisher websites, retailer websites, apps, and other channels.

Criteo's commerce media model attempts to connect onsite and offsite advertising through a broader platform.

The company's platform emphasizes full-funnel campaigns and the ability to reach audiences across multiple channels and formats.

This can help marketers think about the customer journey as a connected process instead of a collection of isolated campaigns.

Closed-Loop Measurement

Measurement is becoming increasingly important as advertisers demand stronger evidence of how advertising budgets contribute to commercial outcomes.

Criteo promotes closed-loop measurement that connects advertising activity with downstream commerce results.

Its retail media materials describe measurement capabilities that can connect campaigns with sales information at the SKU and retailer level.

This approach can help marketers evaluate advertising based on more than impressions or clicks.

Instead, companies can examine how advertising relates to sales and other measurable commerce outcomes.

Data-Driven Personalization

Personalization is another important component of modern digital advertising.

Consumers are exposed to large amounts of advertising every day, making relevance increasingly important.

Criteo uses commerce data and AI to support personalized targeting, product recommendations, bidding, and creative optimization. Its platform describes technologies such as deep learning and dynamic creative optimization as components of its advertising solutions.

The objective is to present consumers with advertising that is more closely aligned with their interests, shopping behavior, and position within the purchasing journey.

Dynamic Creative Optimization

Traditional advertising often uses the same creative for a large audience.

Dynamic Creative Optimization allows advertising elements to change according to factors such as audience, context, device, or product.

Criteo describes Dynamic Creative Optimization as part of its AI-driven advertising capabilities.

For marketers, this can make creative strategies more adaptable.

Instead of manually creating every version of an advertisement, automated systems can select or modify elements based on campaign objectives and available data.

Commerce Media and the Open Internet

Another important part of Criteo's positioning is its focus on commerce media across the open internet.

The company describes commerce media as a model that connects marketers and media owners through commerce data and AI while expanding beyond traditional retail media environments.

This broader approach can allow non-retail advertisers to use commerce-oriented signals while enabling publishers and retailers to monetize their own audiences and inventory.

The result is a more connected advertising ecosystem involving advertisers, retailers, publishers, and consumers.

Criteo and Global Agency Partnerships

Criteo's strategy also involves partnerships with major advertising networks.

In June 2025, Criteo announced an expanded global commerce media partnership with dentsu. The agreement was designed to give dentsu clients access to Criteo's Commerce Media Platform capabilities, including AI-enhanced audiences, buying tools, and measurement solutions.

Partnerships of this type demonstrate how commerce media platforms are becoming integrated into broader agency and advertising ecosystems.

Better Advertising Relevance

The combination of data and AI can potentially improve advertising relevance.

Instead of relying only on demographic information or broad behavioral categories, commerce-oriented advertising can incorporate signals associated with products, purchasing intent, and shopping activity.

More relevant advertising can potentially provide value for both advertisers and consumers.

Advertisers can focus campaigns on audiences with relevant interests, while consumers may receive recommendations that are more closely connected to what they are researching or purchasing.

Benefits for Retailers

Criteo's approach is not focused exclusively on advertisers.

Retailers can also use commerce media technology to develop advertising businesses based on their websites, applications, audiences, and first-party data.

Potential benefits include:

• Additional advertising revenue
• New monetization opportunities
• Better use of first-party data
• More advertising formats
• Improved measurement
• Stronger connections with brands

Criteo's retail media materials emphasize both advertising performance and monetization opportunities for retailers.

Benefits for Advertisers

Advertisers can use commerce media technology to connect campaigns with shopping activity.

Potential applications include:

• Product promotion
• Audience targeting
• Retargeting
• Brand awareness
• Product discovery
• Conversion campaigns
• Customer acquisition

Criteo's advertiser platform emphasizes full-funnel activity and AI-powered campaign optimization.

The appropriate strategy depends on the advertiser's objectives, audience, products, budget, and measurement requirements.

Challenges of Data-Driven Advertising

Despite technological advances, data-driven advertising has important challenges.

Privacy

Advertisers and platforms must handle consumer information responsibly and comply with applicable privacy requirements.

Data Quality

Poor or outdated information can reduce targeting accuracy.

Measurement Complexity

Attribution can become difficult when customers interact with several channels before making a purchase.

Advertising Saturation

Consumers may become frustrated when exposed to excessive or repetitive advertising.

Technology Dependence

Businesses can become dependent on advertising platforms and their algorithms.

These issues make transparency and responsible data management important parts of modern advertising strategy.

The Future of Digital Advertising

The direction of digital advertising is increasingly connected to AI, commerce data, automation, retail media, contextual signals, and measurable outcomes.

Criteo's evolution during 2025 illustrates this transition.

Rather than focusing exclusively on individual advertisements, the broader commerce media model seeks to connect audiences, products, retailers, publishers, advertising formats, and transactions.

Artificial Intelligence can support this ecosystem by processing large datasets and automating decisions involving targeting, bidding, and creative optimization.

How Businesses Can Learn From the Criteo Model

Businesses evaluating modern advertising strategies can consider several principles highlighted by Criteo's evolution.

First, connect advertising with real customer and commerce signals where appropriate.

Second, use data to understand the entire customer journey rather than focusing exclusively on clicks.

Third, measure campaigns against meaningful business outcomes.

Fourth, use automation where it improves efficiency without eliminating human oversight.

Finally, prioritize privacy and transparency when collecting and using customer information.

These principles can apply beyond any single advertising platform.

Criteo is helping redefine digital advertising by moving the industry toward commerce media, AI-driven optimization, first-party data, retail media, and measurable commerce outcomes.

Its developments during 2025 illustrate this transition. The introduction of Onsite Video expanded retail media formats, while Auction-Based Display added more programmatic flexibility to retail environments.

Criteo's broader platform strategy connects advertisers, retailers, and publishers through commerce-focused data and artificial intelligence. Its emphasis on closed-loop measurement also reflects the increasing demand for advertising systems that connect media activity with commercial results.

The future of digital advertising will likely involve increasingly sophisticated combinations of data, AI, automation, retail environments, and privacy-conscious audience strategies.

Criteo's 2025 developments provide an example of how advertising technology is adapting to these changes. The broader trend is toward advertising systems designed not only to reach audiences but also to understand shopping behavior and measure how marketing activity contributes to the customer journey.

For businesses, understanding this evolution can help inform decisions about retail media, performance marketing, audience strategy, personalization, and digital advertising measurement.