Criteo Mobile Proxies for US Retargeting Verification

Criteo serves retargeting and retail media advertising: a shopper views products, then sees those products in banners across publishers and retailer sites. Whether a shopper is eligible, which products appear and where depend on the shopper's location, device and browsing. A marketer outside the United States cannot trigger or see the US version of their own campaign from a foreign address. A Stateside Proxies line in a US metro makes the browser a US phone shopper in that metro, so the retargeting sequence can be walked from first visit to served banner and recorded for a client. This page explains how, in plain terms.

What Criteo decides from the shopper's connection

Eligibility: campaigns target countries and regions, and a shopper outside them never enters the audience. Device: mobile and desktop creatives differ, and a carrier address is mobile. Retail media placements on US retailer sites serve to US shoppers. The products shown in a dynamic banner follow what the shopper browsed, so the check begins with browsing the advertiser's own US site through the line. From a datacenter address the shopper may never be marked eligible at all.

Who verifies Criteo campaigns

Advertisers confirming that a shopper who viewed their products in a US metro sees the right products, prices and creative afterwards. Agencies producing proof for clients. Retailers checking retail media placements on their own sites as US shoppers see them. Brand-safety teams reviewing where banners appear. Each is a human walking a shopper's path from inside the audience.

Before hunting for banners, check the foundations. Criteo's tracking code, called the OneTag, reports what a shopper does on the site: home page, product page, basket and confirmation. In the browser's developer tools, open the network panel, filter for criteo and load a product page. A request should leave the page carrying the product's ID, and that ID must match the one in the product feed, the catalogue file Criteo builds its banners from. A mismatch is a frequent reason banners show the wrong product or none.

Why a carrier line

Retargeting depends on being recognised as the same shopper over time, which needs an address that holds steady and a browser profile that keeps its cookies. A carrier line holds its address until you rotate it, and a profile tool keeps the shopper consistent. A VPN's shared datacenter address changes without warning and is often excluded from audiences.

Setting up the check

Rent a line in the campaign's metro and build a browser profile with the metro's time zone and US English. Browse the advertiser's US site as a shopper would, viewing products and perhaps adding one to the cart. Then visit US publishers where Criteo serves and look for the dynamic banner; screenshot it with URL and local time, click through once and record the landing page and the products shown. Keep the profile open across the session so the shopper is recognised.

Stop before the confirmation page. A completed order tells Criteo the shopper has bought, which can change what they are shown next and adds a false sale to the results. Use Chrome for the main pass, because Safari and Firefox limit third-party cookies (small files set by a company other than the site you are on) by default, and a missing banner there does not by itself show a fault. Allow time as well, since a shopper does not join an audience the instant they view a product.

For the record, put the banner beside the product page it came from, so price, image and availability can be compared directly, and date both captures, because a feed that updates overnight can lag a price change made that morning.

Staying inside the rules

Criteo's terms forbid click inflation and automated traffic. Verification is one shopper path, observed and recorded, with a single click-through per banner. Nothing more is needed and nothing more is appropriate.

Setting up a Criteo proxy on Stateside Proxies

1. Rent a line in the campaign's target metro.
2. Create a browser profile with the line's details, the metro's time zone and en-US; confirm the carrier on an IP lookup page.
3. Browse the advertiser's US site as a shopper, viewing products.
4. Visit US publishers and retailer sites and screenshot the dynamic banners with URL and local time; click through once.
5. Repeat in another metro after a free move if the campaign targets several.

Criteo proxy questions