I often say to executive teams, “Assume we only get the privilege of being known for one thing. We have to choose one word. What will it be?”

This captures the challenge of reinventing or repositioning a company. It’s hard enough to boost awareness and become widely known for one thing. Disabusing the public of that perception and becoming known for another thing altogether? Extremely challenging. 

That makes Criteo’s reinvention noteworthy. The company was known for one thing: retargeting, which the looming deprecation of the third-party cookie endangered. So, many people assumed Criteo had joined the walking dead.

Consider this r/adops post from three years ago entitled, “Are Criteo managing to reinvent themselves?” The author continued, “With the looming death of the third-party cookie, how are Criteo doing? I was looking at their share price, which has made some recovery from an initial fall a couple of years ago. What's the sentiment here?”

Someone responded, “Two years ago, I would have put the chance of a Criteo turnaround lower than Trump admitting a flaw in his decisions / policy. Now I have to eat dirt — because they are turning around. And yes, because of retail media.”

Right you are, 2021 Redditors. While most public adtech stocks have struggled mightily over the past few years, Criteo has enjoyed a resurgence — despite the no. 1 secular trend (privacy changes) seemingly endangering their core business. The stock hit an all-time nadir in March 2020 at $7 and is now only about 10% off its all-time high at $48 as of the writing of this newsletter.

What happened, and what can other companies learn from Criteo’s success?

There are undoubtedly many factors (most of which are invisible to me), but I’d highlight one critical lesson: Criteo went all in on retail / commerce media. It didn’t make the mistake that nearly every company trying to reinvent itself or keep up with a changing industry does: trying to cover all their bases by making multiple plays at once. Criteo brands itself as “the commerce media platform for the open internet.” And through that focus of strategy and communications, they’ve actually reinvented their market perception.

This strategic focus persists. If you check out CEO Megan Clarken’s prepared remarks on the company’s most recent earnings call, Criteo doesn’t describe the seven different initiatives they’re pursuing and the many disconnected metrics that point to potential future success. The message is clear: “Our vision is quickly coming to life as we continue to transform our company into a commerce media powerhouse. … We’re leveraging the largest set of commerce data and shopping intent signals on the open internet to reach valuable audiences across the entire shopping journey to drive more sales and grow customer lifetime value.” They also mention that their DSP allows advertisers to buy media across a “global network” of 225 retailers.

Marketing should communicate three things about a company:

1. What does it do and for whom?

2. How is it different from competitors?

3. Why should anyone care? Why is it urgent?

Criteo is a commerce media platform, a single destination where advertisers can “reach valuable audiences … to drive more sales” across 225 retailers. It’s different from competitors because it’s the “largest” platform facilitating the surging commerce media sector; the biggest problem that space faces is fragmentation, and Criteo is solving it. Finally, advertisers should care because Criteo, in its telling, actually delivers performance — which, by the way, does another thing every reinvention story should: tying together the company’s DNA (in this case, retargeting, which drives bottom-of-funnel outcomes) with its new focus (in this case, commerce media, which is geared toward bottom-of-funnel use cases). Indeed, Criteo states that 80% of its performance media revenue comes from “clients using commerce audiences in addition to retargeting.”

Criteo is far from perfect. Its website, for example, leaves a lot to be desired (“Advertise more effectively” is extremely vague hero copy on the site of a company that has otherwise demonstrated impressive focus). And there are plenty of questions to ask about whether its retail media and retargeting business is driving incremental gains or claiming credit for purchases advertisers would’ve driven anyway. In this sense, Criteo’s vulnerabilities may be those of “performance” advertising more broadly.

But in its unlikely tale of successful reinvention, Criteo models one lesson that is simple but that, in my experience, almost every company fails to heed: you don’t get the privilege of being known for multiple things — especially if you want to reinvent yourself and shed a previous identity. You have to go all in on a single thing. 

Assume you get one adjective: the native SSP, the CTV SSP, the commerce media platform. Criteo placed its bet on commerce media. The market has rewarded its discipline.