Criteo is the Commerce Media Platform that runs retargeting and customer-acquisition ads across the open web — publisher networks, news sites, and the long tail of the internet outside the walled gardens. Unlike Google Shopping or Meta Catalog where your feed feeds proprietary surfaces, a Criteo feed powers ads that follow shoppers across thousands of independent sites. FeedArc emits a Criteo-compatible CSV with Google taxonomy categories (Criteo accepts Google's product category tree, which lets the same feed serve both channels) and explicit `currency` as a separate column.
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Criteo ingests a CSV (UTF-8, comma-separated, header row) polled from a URL you provide in the Marketing Dashboard. FeedArc emits this format directly. Criteo accepts Google's product category taxonomy (`google_product_category`), which is unusual — most channels define their own taxonomies. The `currency` is REQUIRED as a separate column (not embedded in price), and `category_id` for product grouping is the Criteo-specific recommendation that improves predictive-bidding performance.
id,title,description,link,image_link,price,currency,availability,sale_price,brand,gtin,google_product_category,category_id
SKU-4501,"Hugo Boss Slim-Fit Cotton Shirt","Premium fitted shirt, 100% cotton, machine washable","https://example.com/shirts/hugo-boss-slim","https://example.com/cdn/hugo-boss-slim.jpg","89.00","EUR","in stock","69.00","Hugo Boss","4051043452109","166","apparel/men/shirts/slim-fit"
SKU-4502,"Ralph Lauren Polo Classic Fit","Iconic three-button polo in heavyweight pique","https://example.com/polos/ralph-lauren-classic","https://example.com/cdn/ralph-lauren-classic.jpg","99.00","EUR","in stock","","Ralph Lauren","4051043452116","212","apparel/men/polos/classic"idUnique product identifier — stable across feed updates. Used to match against the Criteo OneTag pixel event for retargeting.
titleProduct name. Max 150 characters (FeedArc auto-truncates). Criteo recommends descriptive titles since retargeting display ads show the title on the creative.
descriptionProduct description. Max 5,000 characters. Used in dynamic creative templates for richer ad placements.
linkProduct landing-page URL. Criteo OneTag must be installed on this domain for retargeting attribution to work.
image_linkPrimary image URL. Criteo crops and composites this into dynamic display ads — clean white-background or transparent PNGs perform best.
priceNumeric price without currency symbol (e.g. `89.00`). Currency is a separate REQUIRED field.
currencyISO 4217 currency code (EUR, USD, GBP, etc.). REQUIRED as separate column. Default per Criteo French HQ is EUR.
google_product_categoryGoogle Product Taxonomy ID or full category path. Required — Criteo accepts Google's taxonomy (unusual; most channels define their own). Lets you reuse the same category mapping as your Google Shopping feed.
title150 charactersdescription5,000 characterscategory_idrecommended for product grouping in dynamic creative templatesidshould match OneTag pixel `product_id` eventimage_linkclean background recommended for dynamic creative compositingCriteo is the Commerce Media Platform — its real differentiator is the open-web retargeting network, not just a single ad surface. Where Google, Meta, Amazon, and TikTok serve ads inside their own walled gardens, Criteo serves them across thousands of independent publisher sites the user visits after leaving your store. Five capabilities make Criteo strategically different:
Criteo serves dynamic display + native ads across a publisher network of independent news sites, blogs, and the long tail of the internet — places shoppers spend time AFTER leaving your store and AFTER closing TikTok or Instagram. The same product feed that powers your other channels can re-engage the lost-cart segment that walled-garden retargeting misses.
Criteo's Commerce AI is trained on a proprietary dataset of billions of shopping events across the network — purchases, cart additions, product views — to predict which shopper × product × creative combinations convert. Bidding is per-impression based on conversion probability, not fixed CPC.
A separate Criteo product lets brands buy ad placements ON RETAILER websites — Walmart Connect, Boots Media, Best Buy Ads, and dozens more. The same brand catalog can serve both your direct-to-consumer retargeting AND sponsored placements on the retailers carrying your products.
Criteo Customer Acquisition uses lookalike modelling against the open-commerce dataset to find new shoppers interested in your category. It works without any first-party audience seeding from your store — unlike Meta's Custom Audiences or Google's Customer Match which need email or phone lists.
Criteo accepts Google's product category taxonomy directly (`google_product_category`) — most channels define their own. This means the same FeedArc transformation that maps your products to Google categories also satisfies Criteo. One mapping, two channels.
Criteo does not currently expose an OAuth flow for third-party feed tools — integration is via Marketing Dashboard direct: you generate a feed URL in FeedArc, paste it into Criteo's Catalog Manager, and set a fetch schedule. Critically, you also need to install the Criteo OneTag pixel on your site for retargeting to work — the catalog alone gives Criteo the product universe; the pixel gives the shopper events to retarget against.
In FeedArc Dashboard → Channels, click Configure on the Criteo tile. Select region (Criteo operates globally but is HQ'd in Paris — `defaultCurrency: EUR, defaultCountry: FR` per channel-registry), currency, and language. FeedArc generates a hosted URL like `https://feedarc.com/api/feeds/{id}` that Criteo will poll.
FeedArc auto-applies the CRITEO preset: FILTER out products with availability="out of stock" (Criteo wastes budget on retargeting for unavailable items). Add a SET rule for `google_product_category` mapped from your store categories — Criteo requires this field even though most non-Google channels do not. Add `category_id` if you have a custom taxonomy for tighter dynamic creative grouping.
Sign in at marketing.criteo.com, navigate to Catalog → Add Catalog. Paste the FeedArc-hosted URL. Choose poll frequency — daily for stable inventory, hourly for fast-moving categories like fashion or electronics. First catalog fetch typically completes within 15 minutes.
Retargeting requires the OneTag pixel installed on every product page + cart + thank-you page. The pixel fires events like `viewItem`, `addToCart`, `transaction` with the product `id` matching your feed. Without OneTag, the catalog uploads successfully but Criteo has no behavioural signal to retarget. FeedArc surfaces a OneTag verification step in the dashboard after the first catalog sync.
End-to-end setup from a fresh Criteo Marketing account to your first retargeting campaign. Typical timeline: same-day account approval (Criteo onboards faster than Amazon or TikTok), then 30–60 minutes for steps 3–6 plus a 1–2 day OneTag instrumentation cycle on your store.
Sign up at marketing.criteo.com. Provide business name, target country, monthly ad budget (Criteo has no minimum but recommends ≥$1,000/month for meaningful campaign data). For EU sellers, designate your billing entity and VAT number. Account approval is typically same-day for established businesses.
Criteo lets you start with one product line (Retargeting, Customer Acquisition, Video Ads, Retail Media for Brands) and add the others later. Most direct-to-consumer brands start with Retargeting + Customer Acquisition; brands selling on retailer sites add Retail Media after the first two are tuned.
In FeedArc Dashboard → Channels → Criteo, click Configure. Set region + currency + language. The CRITEO preset auto-applies FILTER on `availability == "out of stock"` + SET on `google_product_category` via TAXONOMY_AUTO_MAP. Add `category_id` mapping from your store taxonomy if you have one — improves dynamic-creative grouping.
In Criteo Marketing Dashboard → Catalog → Add Catalog, paste the FeedArc-hosted URL. Pick poll frequency (daily default; hourly for high-velocity categories). Criteo runs validation on the first poll and surfaces field-level errors (missing google_product_category, broken image_link, etc.) — FeedArc's pre-export validation catches most before this stage.
Get the OneTag snippet from Marketing Dashboard → Setup → OneTag. Install it on every page of your store (product detail, listing, cart, thank-you). The pixel fires events parameterised with product `id` — these must match feed entries for retargeting to work. Most stores use Google Tag Manager to deploy OneTag with template-driven event firing.
In Marketing Dashboard → Campaigns → New Campaign → Retargeting, choose objective (conversions vs traffic), budget, geo. Criteo Commerce AI takes over bidding from there — no per-keyword work. Initial learning period is typically 5–7 days; after that, performance stabilises as the predictive model has enough observations.
After Retargeting is producing stable ROAS, layer Customer Acquisition (prospecting new shoppers) and, if applicable, Retail Media for Brands (sponsored placements on retailers carrying your products). Measure via Criteo's built-in attribution + your own server-side tracking (GA4, Adjust, AppsFlyer). FeedArc keeps `id` stable across regenerations so post-click attribution does not break on catalog updates.
The five most common Criteo catalog rejections — and how FeedArc prevents them. Every check below corresponds to a real validation routine in our source code (see lib/feed-generators/validation.ts). With a valid catalog in place, product feed optimization — richer attributes, accurate categories, segmented labels — is what sharpens the recommendations Criteo can retarget with.
Cause: Criteo accepts Google's product taxonomy as its category system — and requires it. Stores that built their catalog without Google Merchant Center never populate `google_product_category`, so every product gets rejected at Criteo catalog import.
FeedArc solution: FeedArc's TAXONOMY_AUTO_MAP rule (the same one used for Google Shopping) infers Google category from product title + description + existing category path. The same mapping serves both Google Shopping and Criteo — no separate categorisation work.
Cause: Criteo requires currency as a dedicated column — embedding `89.00 EUR` in the price field like Google or Meta accept does not work. Catalogs imported from generic Google-compatible CSV often lack this column and fail validation.
FeedArc solution: FeedArc emits `currency` as a separate column for every Criteo feed, populated from your store default or per-region override. The CRITEO preset enforces this by default.
Cause: Criteo only retargets shoppers whose OneTag events match a product `id` in the catalog. Stores that install OneTag with `internal_sku` while the feed uses `external_sku` (or vice versa) get zero retargeting because the join fails silently.
FeedArc solution: FeedArc keeps product `id` stable across feed regenerations and surfaces a OneTag verification step in the dashboard. The verification fires test events and confirms the `product_id` parameter matches a feed entry. Mismatched IDs are flagged before any campaign launches.
Cause: Criteo retargets based on past `viewItem` events. If a shopper viewed a product yesterday and you sold out today but did not refresh the feed, Criteo will still serve a retargeting ad pointing to an unavailable product — paying for clicks that convert at 0%.
FeedArc solution: The CRITEO preset auto-applies a FILTER excluding `availability == "out of stock"` before export. Combine with hourly feed refresh on Professional + Business plans to keep the catalog tight to actual stock state.
Cause: Criteo's Commerce AI predictive-bidding model needs many products to find lookalike audiences and serve diverse dynamic creatives. Catalogs with fewer than ~50 active SKUs perform poorly across both retargeting and customer-acquisition.
FeedArc solution: Use FeedArc's minimal filter strategy for Criteo specifically — include every product that has the required fields populated, even low-margin items. The dashboard surfaces a "Catalog Health" score and warns when active product count drops below the Criteo recommended threshold.
Criteo is headquartered in Paris and listed on Nasdaq (ticker CRTO). Operations span global open-web inventory, but compliance requirements vary by region and depend heavily on tracking/consent rules. The following requirements are documented in Criteo's advertiser policy and apply at the campaign or pixel level.
Criteo OneTag pixel requires GDPR-compliant consent management. Every EU visitor must affirmatively consent to behavioural tracking before OneTag fires. The IAB TCF (Transparency and Consent Framework) v2.2 is the standard — Criteo integrates with all major CMP vendors (OneTrust, Cookiebot, Sourcepoint). Without TCF consent, the pixel emits anonymous events that cannot be used for retargeting.
UK GDPR + PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations) apply. UK ICO has been more enforcement-active than mainland EU regulators — Criteo settled a £200k+ fine with ICO in 2019 related to consent practices and has tightened pixel-side defaults since. The UK consent flow is independent of EU TCF.
CCPA + CPRA give California residents the right to opt out of cross-context behavioural advertising. Criteo provides a Limited Service Provider mode + Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal honouring. Catalogs serving California shoppers must respect opt-out signals or face state-level enforcement.
Criteo supports multi-currency catalogs, but pixel events must include the same currency as the feed entry for transaction tracking to attribute correctly. FeedArc emits per-region feeds where needed (EU EUR, UK GBP, US USD) to avoid attribution gaps.
Criteo's historical retargeting model leaned on third-party cookies. As browsers (Safari ITP since 2017, Firefox ETP, Chrome Privacy Sandbox) deprecate or partition 3PC, Criteo has shifted to first-party data + identity graph + Commerce AI lookalike modelling. The product feed becomes more important (not less) in this transition because catalog quality drives the contextual + behavioural targeting fallbacks.
In 2026, Criteo is piloting agentic AI for campaign management and an integration with OpenAI ChatGPT for conversational ad delivery. Both are early-access only as of mid-2026 — production catalogs continue to work with the established retargeting + customer-acquisition + retail-media products.
How AI is reshaping product feed management — from AI-generated titles in 7 languages to vision-based image quality, taxonomy mapping, GTIN validation, and POAS signals.
How to turn a valid product feed into one that wins clicks and sales: title structure, complete attributes, custom labels, and error fixes across every channel.
How a Criteo product feed works: accepted formats, required fields, google_product_category, OneTag id matching, import schedules, and fixing rejected catalogs.
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