• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, May 1, 2023

The evolution of retail media -- commerce media, where brands go beyond a retailer’s website to engage with consumers -- continues to grow in popularity. 

Commerce media has the potential to generate more than $1.3 trillion of enterprise value in the United States and create a paradigm shift in digital advertising not seen since the rise of programmatic, according to McKinsey & Company.

It is a performance option that delivers a clear return on investment.

Shopify added Criteo as an app in 2022 as part of its effort to keep page with the shift in trends. Since then, the commerce media company has seen a 36% year-over- year (YoY) increase in new Shopify merchants using Criteo's platform.

“There’s some commercial value that we’re exploring with Shopify, but it hasn’t been completely solidified,” says Rory Mitchell, Criteo GM of global growth. And it has not been announced.

The two companies have partnered for four years, but spent the past 18 months closely integrating platforms.

Based partly on that partnership, Criteo rebuilt its app that launched in late 2022. Mitchell believes that Shopify and Criteo are “kindred spirits” in terms of how the two companies go to market. More than 1,000 advertisers use the integration of the platform today.

“We’re an engine that scales the mid- to upper-mid market of an advertiser community,” Mitchell says. “We also have a powerful engine that allows a larger advertisers to scale."

Now, for the first time, Criteo and Shopify’s thousands of merchants and clients in the U.S. can access the Criteo App on the Shopify App Store via self-registration capabilities. It triggers a self-service set-up via the Criteo Commerce Growth Platform.

These automated functions now allow Shopify merchants to have quicker speed to market. There are some technical features, but for the most part Criteo made it easier to use.

VRAI, a Shopify merchant, partnered with Criteo in 2022 to grow its ecommerce business, leveraging Criteo’s ability to activate first-party commerce data to connect with their most valuable audiences.

VRAI successfully ran several full-funnel campaigns, targeting consumers across their entire shopper journey to achieve their acquisition and retention goals, ultimately achieving an overall 300% increase in Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) year-over-year.

Sam Bench, director of performance marketing at VRAI, said that since since implementing Criteo’s technology, the company has seen a “tremendous increase in high-intent shoppers” to its website.