What happened
Shares of advertising-technology company Criteo (CRTO 0.91%) are rising today, possibly because of a Susquehanna analyst. Shyam Patil met with management and said the company may be reimagining itself -- and a reimagining would be good, considering the stock is down around 50% over the past five years. As of 11:30 a.m. EST, Criteo stock was up 7%.
So what
According to The Fly, Patil met with Criteo's management and talked about the company's Commerce Media Platform. Essentially, Criteo's technology helps brands advertise their products more natively inside of e-commerce platforms. Retail platforms gain ad revenue, while the brands get better results and insight into their customers. Big retailers like Walmart, Best Buy, and Target already use Criteo's tech.
Image source: Getty Images.
To be clear, Patil isn't breaking news about Criteo's evolving strategy. In the company's conference call to discuss results for the third quarter of 2020, management said: "We believe the commerce media opportunities is ours to grab. Strong favorable market trends support our vision, and we have the assets to execute on it."
Patil brings visibility to this evolving strategy for Criteo, which might be the reason the stock is rising today.
Now what
This might not be the only reason why Criteo stock is moving today. As of this writing, fellow adtech stocks including Magnite, Perion Network, and PubMatic are all up double digits, as well. So the adtech space is hot today, in general, which certainly doesn't hurt Criteo.
There's a lot of noise in the adtech space that investors need to block out right now. Over the short term, stocks will bounce around as all sorts of analysts publish tantalizing news reports. But long term, business performance is what matters.
Criteo says its new strategy opens up a $15 billion to $25 billion market. If true, investors should start expecting revenue to rise as its vision plays out.
