Ad Tech Briefing: Private equity’s ad tech playbook returns

Criteo’s take-private offer is just a starting gun

Criteo is the subject of a takeover approach, in yet another twist in the “will they, won’t they?” fate of the France-founded ad tech firm, which recently relocated its commercial base to Luxembourg, sparking further merger-and-acquisition speculation.

The offer, submitted jointly by private equity firms Vista Equity Partners and Quinti Capital, represents a premium of more than 50% to Criteo’s recent share price and values the company at approximately $3.7 billion on an equity basis, per the initial Bloomberg report.

Per Reuters, Criteo’s board has yet to respond to the proposal, while both PE firms are said to be attracted to the company’s AI capabilities, viewing them as an opportunity to expand retailers’ and advertisers’ use of its platform.

Developments at IAS

Vista’s name will ring a bell with experienced observers of the sector. The private equity firm paid a reported $1.4 billion for TripleLift in 2021 and previously held a significant stake in Integral Ad Science, fully exiting after Novacap took IAS private last year. Meanwhile, IAS itself announced a C‑suite shakeup this week, with Lisa Utzschneider stepping down after seven-and-a-half years and former Slack and Bumble chief Lidian Jones taking over as CEO, effective immediately.

Takeover speculation for Criteo is hardly new. For more than three years, the company has been the subject of recurring speculation, but sources approached by Digiday, expect similar take-private deals to be on the horizon.

What corp dev sources think

“You’re going to see PE come back in H2,” the source says. “The opportunity AI creates is finally starting to outweigh the existential fear of it,” said one corporate development source who declined to be named, as they weren’t cleared to speak with the press.

Such voices believe top‑tier PR funds that have been relatively quiet in ad tech — think Vista, CVC, or KKR and their peers — are now circling a familiar target set: undervalued public platforms with real cash flow and defensible data or AI positions.

“Someone is going to pick up a business like Criteo at three to four times EBITDA while large private [company] peers are trading at 10-to-15,” noted a separate source. “Some of the better‑loved public names are effectively on 20‑plus, that’s a huge spread for financial buyers.”

The economics of going private are also normalizing around a new benchmark. A ~50% premium to the undisturbed share price — roughly 1.5X the trading level — is now viewed as the minimum price of entry for serious take‑private talks.

“It used to be you needed to pay 2X to get boards and shareholders to move,” the source says. “Today, if you show up with one‑and‑a‑half times and a credible AI and growth story, people listen.”

It is with this in mind that Vista’s move on Criteo looks like a template, not just a one‑off, with the same logic likely to be applied to other scaled ad tech names with strong data and measurement assets, including verification players, where public valuations have lagged the strategic importance of the category — think how Integral Ad Science was taken private last year.

“Public markets are undervaluing some of these assets pretty dramatically… If you’re a big fund that sat out the last 18 months, H2 is when you start putting real money back to work,” noted one source.

Redefining CTV

The IAB has opened its proposed Redefining Media Types Standard for public comment, outlining a new framework for classifying digital video advertising. Rather than relying on legacy labels such as CTV or AVOD, the framework classifies inventory by how consumers watch content and a set of technical attributes used for buying and measurement.

The goal is to give advertisers, publishers, and ad tech vendors a common language for planning, transacting, and measuring video campaigns across fragmented environments. Read below for a brief rundown of the latest proposals.

Key points

• The RMT Standard is open for public comment until Aug. 8, 2026, and was developed with IAB Tech Lab.
• It replaces technology-based media labels with a two-layer classification based on viewing environment and technical attributes.
• Viewing environments include large-screen, personal-screen, and public-display experiences.
• Technical attributes include factors such as sound, skippability, device type, screen size, and addressability.
• The framework aims to reduce inconsistent media definitions that complicate planning, buying, and measurement.
• It is designed to align with OpenRTB and Project Eidos rather than introduce a separate technical standard.
• Supporters argue a shared taxonomy will become increasingly important as AI agents automate more media planning and buying.
• Backers include executives from Media.net, Horizon Media, and NBCUniversal.

What we heard

“Every other post on LinkedIn are industry execs posting pictures from Cannes… Between pay freezes, constant layoffs, and increased stress levels, it seems so out of touch and just plain cringe. Looking through the lens of an entry-level media planner making $50K a year and who won’t receive a raise this year but still dealing with increased inflation just seems gauche to me.”

– Members of the advertising Subreddit community get it off their chest.

Numbers to know

Adobe’s Amazon Prime Day statistics:

• $26.4 billion : the amount spent from June 23 to 26
• 9.3%: the growth figure it represented
• 54.2%: the amount of transactions performed on mobile
• $32.45 billion: the amount spent between Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday in 2025

What we’ve covered

WTF is containerization?

Depending on whom you ask, it’s either the infrastructure overhaul that finally drags programmatic into the modern era, or it’s a rebranding of tech that the big players solved years ago. The truth, as ever, is somewhere in the middle. 

Publicis and The Trade Desk settle their dispute, but tell no one why

“Publicis and The Trade Desk are now focused on moving forward,” according to the pair, but the means by which they bridged their high-profile contractual dispute remains a mystery. 

What we’re reading

Google looks to bleed publishers with new AI partnerships that would cull their content

Google has been pitching news and entertainment publishers on a new pilot program that would promote their content in Google’s AI Overviews – a big boost to organizations that have faced significant declines in web traffic. 

However, in exchange, Google wants broad access to the publishers’ content, including the right to potentially use it to train AI bots. 

Platformocracy: A curious launch from Google

 Former Google Ads senior exec Jonathan Bellack notes how Google launched its “Google for Creators” program, introducing verified creator profiles on Search and Discover, which blurs the line between traditional search and social media platforms on his new outlet, Platformocracy.  

Amazon faces billions in penalties from potential FTC ad suit

Amazon is facing a possible lawsuit from the US Federal Trade Commission that may lead to billions of dollars in civil penalties, over claims the e-commerce giant misled advertisers, according to people familiar with the matter.

Shopify wades deeper into advertising, but not ad tech

“Merchant Marketing” is the way the company thinks about its nascent media and data business, which serves, optimizes, and attributes campaigns on behalf of Shopify site owners, explains Samir Pradhan, vp of product, Shopify.