Run Criteo from Your Dealership CRM

A larger commerce intent set than most retargeting, behind a vendor application, and the honest state of the adapter.

Criteo is a commerce media company that grew out of retargeting. The core product still follows people who visited your website, but the reason it is a separate entry from the lighter platforms in this family is the data set behind it. Criteo sits across a very large volume of shopping behaviour on retailer and publisher properties, and that breadth is what its bidding and creative decisions run on.

For a dealership the practical consequences are two. Dynamic creative is stronger, meaning the ad that follows a shopper can render specific items with real attributes rather than a generic brand banner. And audience modelling reaches beyond your own site pool, so a campaign is not strictly limited to people who already visited you.

Lead capture is clickout. Nothing is submitted inside an ad unit, so every campaign returns the shopper to your website and your own page converts them. Authentication on their side is OAuth2 client credentials, which is a machine to machine pattern rather than a sign in with your account button, and that detail changes how a connection would be set up. The wider channel argument already lives on programmatic display advertising for dealers, and this page will not restate it.

The case is depth. A retargeting platform that only knows your own website is limited to the audience your other marketing produced. One with a wide commerce intent set can distinguish between a visitor who browsed once and a household showing purchase behaviour across a category, and it can bid differently on the two. On a considered purchase like a vehicle, that difference is worth real money, because the wasted half of retargeting spend is usually people who were never going to buy anything.

The honest objection is opacity, and it is the reason this page is more cautious than the one next to it. Criteo has historically been sold as an enterprise product with pricing and commitments negotiated rather than published, and a smaller advertiser has limited visibility into how a bid is priced or what margin sits between the money in and the media out. There is now a lower barrier tier aimed at growing advertisers and a self service onboarding path, which is a genuine change, but any store or vendor should verify the current path and any undisclosed minimum before committing time or budget. Taking a platform's stated entry point on faith is how a dealership ends up in a contract it did not intend to sign.

The second objection is the same one that applies to every retargeting platform: results only arrive quickly where an audience already exists. A store with thin website traffic is buying an empty room, and no amount of data sophistication on the vendor's side fixes that. Set expectations against what to expect from car sales leads before approving a budget.

Registered, not yet built. The published test for that status is that an adapter file exists in the LeadLocate ad gateway with a written wire-up checklist, committed and scoped. That is what is there. The checklist runs to six ordered steps, and every lifecycle method on the adapter falls through to a shared refusal that names Criteo, so a stray call fails loudly with the network in the error rather than looking like a vendor outage.

Access class is PARTNER, and this axis is the vendor's gate rather than ours. Credentials require an application that Criteo reviews before issuing them. That step is not ours to accelerate and it does not move because a dealership is in a hurry.

Keeping the two axes apart matters here more than on most pages, because they fail differently and independently. If the adapter were finished tomorrow, the vendor review would still stand between your store and a live connection. An approved application, equally, is worth nothing without an adapter to use it. Two gates, two owners, and both have to clear. Anyone presenting a PARTNER platform as a switch to flip is glossing over the half that runs on somebody else's calendar.

Stated as a design rather than a description, because none of it runs. The same four row shape appears on every page in this directory, so a platform we have built and one we have not can be read line for line.

The bottom row is the one that decides what dynamic creative could actually show on this platform, and the section below says so without hedging.

Criteo would not be a special case in the CRM. It would be one more implementation of a contract every network answers.

A single library inside LeadLocate defines what any advertising platform must be able to do: hand us an authorization URL, exchange the returned code for a token, list the accounts you own, deploy a campaign, pause or resume it, return spend and results, and prove on demand that the connection still works. Seven operations, one adapter file per network. That structure is why finishing a platform is scoped work with a checklist rather than an open ended project, and why completing one does not disturb the network already running.

Credentials are encrypted before storage using AES-256-GCM. Every action taken against a network is written to an append only event log carrying the company, the network, the user and the detail, stamped in UTC on purpose, because these tables are shared across dealerships and a timezone relative timestamp is one nobody can reconcile later. Campaign objects record which credentials created them and re-resolve those same credentials afterwards, so a credential rotated or withdrawn later does not strand the work built under it. That last property matters more on a client credentials platform than on a user sign in one, because machine credentials get rotated on a schedule somebody else sets. Every entry in this directory carries a status with a stated test beside it.

There are two ways to advertise through LeadLocate and you pick.

The first is the webXintel Ads Network. It is included, our team builds and operates the campaigns from the selections you make in Leads Manager, and it arrives as one line rather than a stack of platform invoices. Nothing to set up, no vendor application to file, and no dependency on the state of this page.

The second is your own account, connected to the CRM so campaigns sit on your billing, in your name, with your spend history intact. That is the path this page documents, and for Criteo it is unfinished on our side and gated on theirs. Any advertiser relationship your store already holds with them stays exactly where it is.

One limit stated plainly, because it holds across the whole gateway even where a network is fully built: pushing, pausing and reading numbers from a network is done by our team today, not from your dashboard. That is a deliberate constraint while the connection layer is young, and opening it up is queued work rather than a promise.

Three things in order, and only one of them is engineering.

First the vendor application, which Criteo reviews on its own timeline. Second the commercial verification, which on this platform is a real step rather than paperwork: confirm the current self service onboarding path and confirm whether any minimum applies at the tier a single rooftop would sit in. Committing engineering time before that is answered risks building against an entry point that does not exist for the stores who asked for it. Third the adapter itself, which is the six step checklist: credentials into the gateway configuration, the client credentials token exchange, account listing, campaign deployment, status changes and reporting, and the verification call that proves a stored credential still works rather than assuming it.

On measurement, the condition is the same as on any retargeting platform and it is worth repeating because it is the thing stores get wrong. Results read within hours where a site audience is already warm. Where the tag went up recently, the early days measure pool growth rather than performance, and reading them as performance leads to switching off a campaign that never had a chance to run. None of this is a promise about volume or about what any of it closes at, and nobody can promise those.

This platform is capable of considerably more than we have built, and on a page about a vendor known for dynamic creative the gaps have to be explicit.

We do not emit a vehicle catalog or an inventory feed to any advertising platform. The dynamic product creative Criteo is known for renders from a feed. There is no code anywhere in our stack that generates one, for Criteo or for anybody else, so the single strongest reason a dealership would choose this vendor over a lighter retargeting platform is the reason we cannot currently serve. Inventory Link ingests your feed and merchandises your units on your own properties, which is a different job entirely. That gap sits outside the six step checklist and finishing the adapter would not close it.

We do not install or manage pixels. The site tag that builds a retargeting pool has to live on your website, and placing it, maintaining it through site changes and keeping consent handling correct are not services we provide.

We do not run a server side conversions API and we do not upload offline conversions. Connecting a delivered impression to a signed deal is outside what this integration would produce.

We do not export a hashed audience. Customer list matching is a genuine capability on their side and no export of ours feeds it.

There are no native lead forms to retrieve. Lead capture is clickout, so nothing arrives by webhook and the real time lead path built for one network does not extend here.

No campaign has ever been deployed to Criteo from LeadLocate, because the code that would deploy one is not written, and no credential of ours has ever been issued by them.

Say so, and say it with your store attached. Requests are recorded against the platform they name, and the tally is the input to build order, because a dealership ready to spend on a channel is a better signal than any internal roadmap meeting.

Expect the first answer to be a question rather than a schedule. On a PARTNER platform with negotiated commercials, the useful thing we can do before writing code is find out what tier your store would actually sit in and what it would actually cost, and tell you plainly. If that answer is unattractive, you have saved a quarter. If it is attractive, the request has done its job and the engineering follows.

If the honest answer is that a lighter retargeting platform or the one network already connected does what you were trying to do, you will hear that as well. Meanwhile the managed path is live and waits on none of this, and pricing sits on the pricing page without changing based on which networks you turn on.

Does LeadLocate integrate with Criteo today?

No. Criteo is registered in the ad gateway, meaning an adapter file exists with a six step wire-up checklist, and it is not built. Every lifecycle call it receives returns a refusal naming the network, and no credential has ever been issued to us by them.

Can I use my own Criteo ad account?

Not through the CRM. Two things stand in the way and they are independent: the adapter is unfinished on our side, and credentials require an application the vendor reviews on theirs. Any relationship your store holds with them today operates entirely outside LeadLocate.

What happens if I request Criteo?

It is recorded against Criteo specifically and counted, and the tally decides build order. Because commercials here are negotiated rather than published, expect the first response to be what your store would actually pay and sit in, before anybody schedules code.

Why does the PARTNER label matter if the adapter is unfinished anyway?

Because the two gates fail independently. Clearing the vendor review leaves you without an adapter. Finishing the adapter leaves you waiting on a review nobody at LeadLocate can accelerate. Both have to clear before a connection exists.

Could you run dynamic vehicle creative through Criteo?

Not with anything we produce. Creative that renders individual units needs a product feed, and we do not generate one for any advertising platform. That is the main reason a dealership would pick this vendor, and it is the part we cannot currently serve.

Is there a minimum spend?

That is exactly what should be verified before any commitment. A lower barrier tier for growing advertisers exists alongside the enterprise product, and the entry point has been changing. Confirm the current path and any undisclosed minimum in writing rather than assuming the published version applies to a single rooftop.

Requests are counted against the platform they name. Before any code is scheduled we would rather tell you which tier a single rooftop lands in and what it carries, in writing.