Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ: CRTO), the global technology company powering the world’s marketers with trusted and impactful advertising, today announced a first-of-its-kind product that connects first-party commerce data with real-time contextual signals, paving the way for marketers to continue to drive and measure incremental revenue in a post-cookie world.

Criteo’s contextual advertising solution is an important milestone in the company's larger vision to become a Commerce Media Platform, a world-leading media activation platform that enables media monetisation and powers global brands, agencies and retailers to optimise their sales and digital advertising returns.

As marketers grapple with solutions to smartly reach audiences in a data-privacy-minded way, solutions like contextual advertising are making a comeback – but with new and improved technology like machine learning and artificial intelligence to better classify content on the open internet. Criteo’s leading innovation goes beyond content classification to make contextual advertising even more powerful for marketers by comparing a deep analysis of web pages, images and video to its wide range of first-party commerce data.

“As third-party cookies phase-out and data privacy is top-of-mind for consumers, marketers are looking for new ways to continue to reach the right audience efficiently in brand-safe environments,” said Todd Parsons, chief product officer at Criteo. “Criteo’s contextual solution significantly raises the bar – and allows marketers to combine traditional contextual targeting with commerce data – uncovering the relationship between content and buying behaviors to further drive revenue and accurately measure the impact of their contextual campaigns in cookie-free media. It’s all thanks to the massive amount of first-party commerce data safely housed in Criteo’s Shopper Graph.”    

Through Criteo’s contextual solution, marketers will be able to drive commerce outcomes in real-time by engaging audiences in content that is proven effective in influencing shopping mindsets across Criteo’s extensive First-Party Media Network of over 5,000 direct, premium publishers and major SSPs across 100+ regions. This solution will also offer consumers personalised experiences through product recommendations based on cookie-free contextual signals.

Criteo’s contextual solution starts with a deep understanding of an advertiser’s first-party data, analyzing the most recent purchases from existing consumers. Thanks to intelligent machine learning powered by Criteo’s AI Engine, Criteo is then able to pick up on the publisher URLs and contextual categories that have the highest affinities with these consumers. By indexing every publisher URL across its vast media network with both contextual and commerce signals, Criteo can display personalised product recommendations without relying on third-party cookies. The result is better audience reach among those who have high potential to purchase in the future, and the opportunity to adapt in real-time to varying purchasing cycles and seasonal buying trends that are uncovered over the year.

Criteo contextual targeting is now in limited availability for customers in select markets, including the U.S., U.K., Germany and France. Criteo intends to generally release the solution in the second half of the year. To learn more, visit here.