Criteo is retiring its AD-X attribution product and replacing it with a new partner-based approach to mobile tracking, the French company revealed Thursday.
Criteo, a retargeting company that works with Internet retailers, brands and agencies, first acquired AD-X in July 2013. AD-X remained a standalone business within Criteo, offering advertisers and app developers in-app measurement tools for iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows and Facebook.
“The Ad-X attribution product has been hugely successful for our clients,” said Criteo Chief Product Officer Jonathan Wolf. “However, the mobile industry evolves quickly and as a result, we are experiencing a rapid increase in usage of our mobile performance products across both browsers and apps. This has led us to decide to focus entirely on our mission to generate incremental sales for our clients.”
When asked if AD-X was underpinning Criteo’s own in-app measurement, Wolf responded, “Criteo’s cross-device solution continues to receive a positive response from our clients and partners. Today’s announcement does not impact our cross-device business in anyway.”
As it retires AD-X, Criteo will launch a new app measurement partner program that aims to drive and measure sales for its clients. Adjust and TUNE, two major in-app measurement players, are the first partners out of the gate. Developers working with either firm will now have the option to run their in-app marketing campaigns through Criteo.
Criteo has been working to build out its cross-device chops for some time, and in October launched a solution that uses hashed email address to connect consumers across mobile web, app and desktop screens.
“When you look at all of the major players like Google and Facebook, they all have authentication,” Rob Deichert, Criteo’s managing director for North America, told AdExchanger in October. “We found that a probabilistic match just doesn’t have the accuracy we want. That’s why our focus has been around making an exact match, which essentially allows us to create a kind of network effect to track behaviors everywhere.”
What happens to the 30 people who used to work for AD-X?
“The AD-X Tracking team will remain in place,” Wolf said. “The team will support AD-X Tracking clients until September. After that, the mobile business at Criteo is growing rapidly and as such this team will be redeployed within it.”
