Still on the rise, Criteo is out to make Pay-per-click sexy again. A report released by the retargeting ad server shows grand success for Q1 2010, citing a 100% increase in US customers between the first and second quarter. The effects of Criteo’s ability to deliver has reportedly increased sales for US retailers, as its remarketing methods explode.

Criteo reports an increase of 600% for online purchases, with shopping cart values increasing 70%. This is where Criteo really sees its opportunities, as retargeting associated directly with the purchasing process makes a personalized experience for the buyer. The importance of this reports’ findings is the apparent scalability of Criteo’s retargeting, with huge opportunities for retailers including Zappos, Art.com and others.

“Online retailers partner with us because they recognize the power and scale of our retargeting solution,” said JB Rudelle, CEO and co-founder of Criteo. “Since the relocation of our headquarters from Paris to Palo Alto, Calif., in Q1, we have seen remarkable U.S. momentum. We will continue to deliver incremental results quarter-over-quarter, and our e-commerce clients will prosper from the investments we are making in the product and the company’s scale.”

Underutilized retargeting

The concept of retargeting is nothing new, but it’s receiving new interest. Social media has brought a new wave of opportunities and incentives for retargeting, creating centralized hubs to tap search behavior. Even beyond social media, increased access to the web alongside individualized search methods have generated countless buckets of data to repurpose in marketing and recommendations.

As marketing and recommendations become one and the same, custom consumer experiences become the norm. Good thing for Criteo, as it implements an established idea in a reformatted fashion. Upcycle and upsell–everybody wins. Serving the retailer market is a niche Criteo is appealing to, providing huge improvements on a very specific tail. Looking at the numbers, it appears to be working quite well so far:

**U.S. client base of leading brands increase by 100 percent
**Unique retargeted ad impressions grew more than 230 percent
**Clicks resulting from Criteo retargeted banners increased by almost 400 percent
**Number of sales generated post-click increased more than 600 percent

Some industry validation

Extreme success has been reported by MarketingCharts and FetchBack, verifying some of the findings from Criteo’s last quarter. Coming off a $7 million Series C round of funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Criteo’s superb quarter continues the server’s momentum.

Like others emerging in the retargeting space, Criteo is also focusing on its self-serve tools as well. With Google offering retargeting capabilities through AdWord, and Facebook seeking more ways to utilize social search and centralized profile data, the repurposing of consumers’ paper trails will become a hot commodity towards the personal (and very mobile) web.