Criteo vs Halliard: Which Media Planning Tool Is Right for You? (2026)

Few companies in ad tech have made a more deliberate reinvention than Criteo. Once synonymous with the retargeting pixel — the tool that followed you around the internet showing shoes you’d looked at once — Criteo has rebuilt itself as a retail media platform and performance marketing engine. Commerce AI. Commerce Max. Commerce Grid. The company is now publicly traded (CRTO) and deeply embedded in the retail and e-commerce advertising supply chain.

Halliard operates upstream from execution. It’s the media planning OS that connects cross-channel strategy to buying — the place where independent agencies and in-house teams build plans, model reach and frequency, and manage approval workflows before any campaign asset goes live.

These tools don’t compete for the same job. But for retail and e-commerce advertisers trying to figure out where each fits in their stack, the comparison is worth doing.

What Is Criteo?

Criteo is a publicly traded performance marketing and retail media platform (NASDAQ: CRTO) built on the world’s largest commerce dataset — billions of shopping events across a global network of 200+ retailers. Its Commerce AI engine powers predictive bidding, dynamic product creatives, and purchase intent targeting across the full customer journey.

Criteo’s product suite spans three major platforms: Commerce Max (demand-side — for brands and agencies buying across retailer networks), Commerce Grid (supply-side — for media owners and retailers monetizing inventory), and Commerce Yield (enterprise retailer monetization). In April 2025, Criteo launched onsite video for retail media with partners including Albertsons, Costco, and Walmart Mexico. In September 2025, it became the first on-site retail media supply partner for Google Search Ads 360 — meaning Google search advertisers can now extend campaigns to sponsored product ads across Criteo’s retailer network.

Criteo operates on a CPC/CPM pricing model with no setup fee — advertisers pay as a percentage of media spend, with no minimum budget requirement to get started.

What Is Halliard?

Halliard is a media planning and buying platform built for independent agencies and in-house teams managing $10M to $500M+ in annual spend. The platform was created by Matthew Jacobs — 15+ years across Starcom, Dentsu (SVP Product), Amazon DSP (Senior PM), and Paramount (Senior Director).

Halliard is planning-first. It starts with the strategy — visual flowcharts, budget allocation, cross-channel reach and frequency analysis — and connects through to execution via native integrations with 18+ channels including Google, Meta, TikTok, Spotify, Netflix, YouTube, Twitch, and Hulu. Real-time spend tracking, approval workflows, and historical benchmarking complete the plan-to-proof workflow.

In December 2025, Halliard completed the first fully autonomous media buy via Model Context Protocol (MCP) with PubMatic. The platform starts free with no credit card required.

Comparison Table

Where Criteo Wins

Commerce data depth. Criteo’s competitive moat is the dataset — billions of shopping events across a retailer network spanning hundreds of platforms. This data powers targeting and bidding decisions that no other platform can replicate, because no other platform has the same transaction signal. For e-commerce advertisers trying to reach people in active purchase consideration, this is a genuine advantage.

Retail media network access. Commerce Max gives agencies and brands access to 200+ retailer networks through a single buying interface. Rather than negotiating directly with each retailer’s media team, buyers can access sponsored product placements across Albertsons, Costco, Walmart Mexico, and dozens of others in one platform. The September 2025 Google Search Ads 360 integration extends this reach further.

Performance on purchase intent. Criteo’s Commerce AI builds predictive bidding models based on demonstrated purchase behavior — not just browsing signals, but actual transaction history. For campaigns where the KPI is conversions or ROAS rather than reach, that specificity in the bidding model is valuable.

Lower barrier to entry. The CPC/CPM model with no setup fee and no minimum means brands can run a Criteo campaign with a relatively modest budget and measure the performance before scaling. For e-commerce brands testing retargeting for the first time, this accessibility is meaningful.

Dynamic creative at scale. Criteo’s ability to generate personalized product ads dynamically — pulling live inventory, pricing, and product imagery into creative at the moment of impression — is a core capability that static creative platforms can’t match for catalog-heavy advertisers.

Where Halliard Wins

Cross-channel strategic planning. Criteo is a performance marketing and retail media platform — it’s optimized for the bottom of the funnel. It doesn’t help you plan how to allocate budget across linear TV, CTV, paid search, paid social, audio, and retail media simultaneously. Halliard does. For agencies building full-funnel media plans, the cross-channel planning layer is where the strategic work happens.

Reach and frequency modeling before the campaign. Halliard’s proprietary 10,000-person panel across 210 DMAs lets planners model cross-channel unduplicated reach before a dollar is spent. Criteo can tell you how many conversions a retargeting campaign drove — but it can’t tell you how many unique people your proposed media mix will reach at a given frequency level. These are answers to different questions.

Full approval and workflow management. The approval workflows, stakeholder collaboration, and structured review processes inside Halliard address a pain point that performance platforms don’t touch. Getting a media plan approved — with all the version history, client feedback, and budget authorization documentation — is a workflow problem that Criteo was never designed to solve.

Multi-channel including non-commerce channels. Halliard connects to Google, Meta, TikTok, Spotify, Netflix, YouTube, Twitch, Hulu, and linear TV. For brands with media plans that include brand awareness channels, entertainment, audio, or CTV alongside retail media, Halliard provides the unified workspace.

Institutional knowledge retention. Every plan, every campaign result, and every channel performance benchmark lives inside Halliard — building a compounding knowledge base that improves future planning. Criteo’s performance data lives in Criteo; it doesn’t inform how you plan next quarter’s TV and audio investments.

Feature-by-Feature Breakdown

Targeting and Audience

Criteo uses its Commerce AI data — billions of shopping events — to build purchase intent audiences. Dynamic retargeting, lookalike modeling for new customer acquisition, and abandoned cart recovery are the core mechanisms. The data is transaction-verified, not just behavioral.

Halliard uses a proprietary 10,000-person panel for cross-channel audience planning, identifying unduplicated reach across TV, CTV, digital, audio, and social simultaneously. Platform-specific audiences are managed through native channel integrations.

Campaign Planning

Criteo doesn’t offer a campaign planning layer. Its workflow begins at execution — setting up retargeting or sponsored product campaigns within the platform.

Halliard is a planning-first platform. The visual flowchart builder, budget allocation engine, multi-channel scenario modeling, and approval workflow are the core product.

Measurement

Criteo measures conversion performance — ROAS, cost per acquisition, click-through rate — within the Criteo ecosystem, with cross-device attribution and closed-loop reporting where retail data is available.

Halliard provides real-time plan-to-delivered spend tracking across all channel integrations, with historical benchmarking against past campaigns and budget variance reporting.

Pricing

Criteo charges as a percentage of media spend (CPC/CPM model) with no setup fee and no minimum budget.

Halliard offers a free plan for individual planners with no credit card required, and premium tiers for teams.

Best Fit Scenarios

Choose Criteo if:

• You’re an e-commerce or retail brand where purchase conversions are the primary campaign KPI
• Retargeting with personalized product ads is a core component of your always-on marketing
• You want access to sponsored product placements across 200+ retailer networks through a single platform
• Bottom-of-funnel performance marketing is the primary advertising activity
• Your team is focused on ROAS-driven execution rather than broad multi-channel planning

Choose Halliard if:

• You’re managing a multi-channel media plan that spans brand awareness, consideration, and conversion channels
• Cross-channel reach and frequency analysis at the planning stage is a client deliverable
• Approval workflows, budget visibility, and stakeholder collaboration are operational pain points
• You need institutional knowledge retention across campaign cycles
• You want a free plan to start building and planning before any budget commitment

How Retail Brands Use Both

For retail and e-commerce brands running full-funnel campaigns, Criteo and Halliard can serve complementary roles:

• Halliard handles the upstream planning: where to invest the annual budget across brand TV, streaming, paid social, and retail media; how to model reach and frequency across the combined plan; how to get approvals from legal, finance, and brand teams
• Criteo handles the downstream execution: retargeting in-market shoppers, sponsored product placements across retailer networks, and conversion optimization within the commerce ecosystem

In this architecture, the strategic planning happens in Halliard; the performance execution happens in Criteo. Neither tool is trying to replace the other.

FAQ

Does Criteo have a minimum spend? No. Criteo uses a CPC/CPM model with no setup fee and no minimum budget requirement. Advertisers pay as a percentage of media spend for conversions or impressions.

What is Criteo Commerce Max? Commerce Max is Criteo’s demand-side retail media solution for brands and agencies. It provides access to 200+ retailer networks through a single buying interface, enabling sponsored product placements across Criteo’s publisher and retailer ecosystem.

Is Criteo only for e-commerce brands? Criteo’s core capabilities — dynamic retargeting, purchase intent targeting, retail media — are most relevant for e-commerce and retail advertisers. Brands without a commerce transaction signal won’t benefit from the Commerce AI data advantage in the same way.

How is Halliard different from a retail media platform? Halliard is a media planning OS, not a retail media platform. It connects the strategic planning workflow — budget allocation, cross-channel R+F, approval workflows — to execution through channel integrations. It doesn’t offer retail media inventory or purchase-intent targeting. For retail media execution, tools like Criteo fill that role.

Can I start Halliard for free? Yes. Halliard offers a free plan for individual media planners with no credit card required. Start at halliardmedia.com/trytoday.

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Building a full-funnel media plan that includes retail media? Start planning for free at halliardmedia.com/trytoday.