Criteo is arguably the most successful re-targeting companies in Europe. Its CPC focused model has won it a lot of business from ecommerce and retail sites in the affiliate channel. Building on this success, and doubtless making good use of its recent VC round, the company has built out its new optimisation platform. Michael Steckler, Managing Director UK at Criteo, spoke ExchangeWire about the new offering and how Criteo is now looking to target medium-to-long tail advertisers.

Can you provide an overview of the new Criteo optimisation platform?

MS: The Performance Optimisation Platform was the next logical move for us after bringing cost-per-click (CPC) display to the market. The platform gives display advertising the flexibility and self-service functionality that advertisers have become used to with paid search.

Criteo’s platform empowers advertisers and agencies with 24/7 access to monitor their campaign results in real-time and fine-tune them through easy to use features. These include an online automated CPC bidding tool, enhanced reporting dashboard and a budget renewal tool which allows advertisers to manage their budget needs.

The biggest game-changer however is CPC bidding by category that the platform now allows. This is where you can really take control of your campaign ROI by customising product categories and setting CPCs for each category based on margin and profit goals.

Give me the pitch about your platform. How will it increase conversions and sales?

MS: It’s all about transparency and control. Advertisers can monitor their campaign results in real-time to see how each CPC bid is affecting specific categories as well as overall campaign performance. The ability to update and optimise in real-time means you can have an immediate effect on conversion rate and sales.

Flexibility over product category also means ROI can be monitored on a granular level. For example products with a lower margin such as CDs (retail) or flights (travel) do not have to impact on your ability to drive higher volumes to your high-yielding products such as iPod accessories (retail) or car rental (for the travel sector).

Criteo’s Performance Optimisation Platform brings campaign control and results to a new level never before experienced with display advertising.

Can you explain how a typical campaign is set-up on the new platform – and how the bidding process works?

MS: We have a dedicated Integration and Support team who manage a 3 step process to set up a campaign with Criteo. The first step is integrating our tags onto the client’s website. We do this directly or through the client’s analytics provider to ensure the process is seamless. This step coincides with the integration of the client’s feeds including any category level definitions. We then design the creative based on the client’s brand guidelines. We have just launched our Generation 2 banner templates which give clients full control over the design. We are also developing an API so that clients can build and upload their own creative.

Once the campaign is fully tested and live, we give the client access to their own dashboard where they can start optimising their campaign CPCs. Clients have access to a dedicated account manager and technical support to ensure their campaigns are fully optimised.

Explain how some of the granular targeting on the platform – specifically category items?

MS: Based on their specific criteria, advertisers can create product categories and define and adjust the CPC for each category. It’s a great way to monitor cost-of-sales by category just as you would with your search campaigns.

This granularity translates into the display creative. A banner displaying 4 products from 4 different categories can have 4 different CPCs assigned to it depending on which product the user clicks on.

Categories are defined by the advertiser and assigned within the product feed they send us. These are then displayed as part of the advertiser’s campaign within the platform.

You can also create differentiated campaigns (with specific CPCs) based on where customers are in the acquisition funnel. For example, first time buyers versus repeat buyers. By setting specific CPCs by these criteria, you can set the appropriate investment by how engaged your customers are with your site. We call these ‘contexts’ where a user who has only looked at the homepage would be a context 1 and a user who has bought a number of products would be a context 10. This is a great way to prioritise (and even change the messaging) by your campaign’s target audience.

In addition to adjusting by context, you can also segment users by your own criteria. For example if you wanted to focus on users who have accessed a specific offer page or ‘added to basket’ but didn’t complete the purchase, you can set this up and monitor the performance by segment within the platform.

Criteo initially dealt directly with advertisers. How did this affect agency relationships? Are you working with agencies now? What’s your approach?

MS: We initially launched with direct client relationships although we are also more than happy to work with agencies and already do in many instances.

Agencies play an important role in helping to drive overall media strategy and personalised retargeting whilst rapidly gaining prominence, is still an area of performance marketing where advertisers and agencies alike are seeking greater knowledge. With the landscape changing as quickly as it is and as the market leaders in this space, it makes sense for Criteo to be helping here.

We’ve also recently appointed a Director of Agency Relations. Patrick Lynch, former Head of Business Development for Xbox, joined us in August and will be growing this area of our business.

What do you say to clients who want to work on a specific CPA model?

MS: We are all working to the CPA/CoS targets that our advertisers give us. Without this accountability we would not be able to gauge the true ROI and advertisers would not continue with the activity.

However a CPC model is the best currency to ensure access to premium inventory and greater volume as it allows for optimisation in real-time based on a predicted click thru rate.

As discussed in detail above, Criteo’s performance optimisation platform allows advertisers to change CPCs in real-time so they can always meet their CPA objectives, effectively making the CPA argument less relevant.

How do you work with clients who want control over their own media buying? Will this become a feature on the platform?

The majority of clients actually ask us to take the risk in delivering against their performance goals, which means buying the media on a cpm and optimising against these goals. We’ve invested significantly in our platform to offer a scalable results driven model and our belief is that this will be the future model of choice for most marketers and agencies for performance based display advertising.

Criteo has taken some proactive steps to protect user privacy, such as the clearly defined opt-outs on your targeted advertising. Do you think the industry should be doing more to protect user privacy?

MS: We were the first to set an opt out on all our banners – the transparent ‘i’ button which lets consumers understand why and how they were targeted as well as giving clear opt out options.

There is no need to collect personally identifiable data for retargeting. The data required is based on the visitor’s navigation activity such as pages viewed and products or services purchased. This data is strictly anonymous and only used in a statistical sense to determine the most relevant ads. At Criteo we don’t collect any data associated with an IP address or email.

There have been good steps taken by trade bodies such as the IAB in the UK as well as the NAI in the U.S. in the area of user privacy. We will continue to work with these associations to ensure we not only adhere to but go beyond the basic requirements to ensure our advertisers and their website users are given the most relevant advertising experience without any concerns about privacy.

Can you give more overview on the road map for this platform? Are you looking to target long-tail advertisers for instance?

MS: Criteo is actively building out a roadmap for Small and Medium sized advertisers and publishers. We have recently recruited Tim Frankcom who was Senior Director for Inside Sales at Yahoo EMEA to head our Small and Medium Business channel.

The first development on the roadmap is the re-launch of Criteo Direct which has been renamed the Criteo Publisher Marketplace [hyperlink: http://publishermarketplace.criteo.com]. The new site has enhanced features to help publishers get the best value for their display inventory and is designed to offer publishers the opportunity to increase their existing display revenues with revenues from Criteo display advertising. The new interface makes it much easier for publishers to join Criteo’s Publisher Marketplace and immediately start reaping the benefits through increased revenues.

Criteo already works with a large number of small and medium sized advertisers and is actively seeking to work with more. We know that personalised retargeting works for advertisers of all sizes and provides a great return on investment.