Brian Fitzgerald: Got it. Thanks, Todd. Appreciate it.
Todd Parsons: You bet.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Richard Kramer from Arete Research. Your line is now open.
Richard Kramer: Thanks very much. Megan, you spoke a lot about the completeness of your offering spanning the retailer, publishers and advertisers and agencies. And you’ve also talked in the past how some competitors were sort of point solutions and mentioned being the alternative to Amazon. So, my question for you is, what would mark success for Criteo becoming the sort of de facto industry alternative or standard? And what are the proof points of that? Are you seeing now higher win rates and direct pitches? Can you get agencies to secure preferred relationships despite some of their own investments? So, you know, what are the couple of things you’re looking forward to say we’ve really put the complete distance between ourselves and rivals?
And then, one – another one for Sarah. You know, an issue that’s been raised over the past year or so is the volatility in some of the forecasts since Investor Day. And you’ve now had several quarters where you were able to meet or exceed expectations. What do you attribute that to? Is it that Retail Media is becoming more mature, that you’re getting more clarity in the sales pipeline or there’s some other factors that are making you more confident being able to forecast and hit the numbers? Thanks.
Megan Clarken: Hi, Richard, great question me on the spot, although it’s – I think it’s a pretty straightforward one and we would love to be the size of Amazon in terms of the advertising that’s flowing through there, let me caveat that. And we’re not – and again, we’re agnostic in all of this. So, we’re an ad tech provider who’s joining one side to the other. So, in the – you know, in the spirit of that, we would love to be that size or a complementary choice to buy on Amazon or a buy on Walmart would be a buy on – across Criteo’s Retail Media network. For us, I think, you know, the – I talked about it before, it’s the unlock of those national budgets where by – when you’re an agency and you’re looking to spend your dollars, you’re spending it across such social and retail, and when it comes to retail, you’re buying, you know, maybe Amazon, maybe Walmart and then definitely Criteo.
And so, that our retailers are getting a fair share of the spend that’s coming into Retail Media. And that growth because – becomes, you know, somewhere where the evidence of performance is measured through measurement. And it is a performance vehicle because you’re getting to consumers that are close to the point of sale using first-party data. And so, it’s a, you know, dark, gracious place to advertise. For us, we’ve got to serve our clients. We need to make sure that in order to do that and unlock that spend, continue to get the trade marketing spend across and start to make sure that we’re at the table next to an Amazon, is to continue to invest in our clients, stay close to them, scale them, get more supply available on their properties, fulfill their fill rates, bring more formats to them, help them drive advertising, not just on site but off site.
All of these things, that is the power and I guess the magic of Retail Media, us leaning into that and bringing that to life over the next years is what’s going to get us to the place that we want to be, which is the ultimate compliment to an Amazon Buy. So, you know, watch this space.
Sarah Glickman: Yes, and I guess if I address the other part of your question, yes, we feel very good about the performance we delivered in 2023 and well, obviously coming into Q1 ’24, as well as the guidance for the year. Of course, the whole industry was impacted by the advertising recession starting off just after our earnings day in late 2022. But we feel very, very good about our business. Our strategy stays intact. We’ve continued to drive topline and bottom line performance. We obviously have an incredible balance sheet. On Retail Media, you know, we have a scaled base of $200 million with the only independent ad tech platform that’s showing their Retail Media numbers. And we’re growing all sectors of that, from our largest clients all the way through to our newer clients. So all in all, we’re feeling pretty good about life.
Richard Kramer: Okay, thanks.
Megan Clarken: Thank you.
Melanie Dambre: Thank you.
Operator: There are no further questions. Please go ahead.
Melanie Dambre: Yes, thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thanks, Megan, Sarah and Todd. This now concludes our call for today. The Investor Relations team is available for any additional questions. Have a great day.
Megan Clarken: Thank you.
Sarah Glickman: Thank you. Bye-bye.
Operator: The conference call has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
