THG Commerce announced this Friday (9) the integration of Criteo's sponsored ads into its artificial intelligence shopping assistant, developed with Google Cloud's Gemini Enterprise. The technology allows advertising to be displayed directly in consumer conversations, alongside organic recommendations. According to preliminary results from the company, the ads achieved a click-through rate more than five times the site average and a conversion rate more than twice as high.
The integration expands the use of retail media beyond traditional search placements and product pages. Instead of relying exclusively on keywords typed into a search bar, the system identifies needs, preferences and constraints described by consumers during the conversation.
When a sponsored product matches the identified intent, it can appear among the assistant's recommendations, with explicit identification as advertising. The selection uses the keyword matching mechanisms, semantic analysis and relevance criteria already employed by Criteo.
The format allows retailers to commercialize advertising spaces within a conversational shopping experience, while brands present products related to the requests made by users.
Ads leverage existing campaigns, but results are still preliminary
An operational detail of the integration is that advertisers do not need to create specific campaigns to participate in this new inventory. According to Criteo's documentation, the spaces use the Sponsored Products infrastructure, including keyword targeting and cost-per-click bids already configured.
The feature depends on its activation by the retailer. Once enabled, performance can be tracked separately in Criteo's dashboards, with indicators such as impressions, clicks, investment and return on ad spend (ROAS).
The platform also allows adjusting bids for this type of placement, but does not offer the possibility of configuring a campaign exclusively for ads in AI assistants.
As for the results disclosed by THG, the indicators of more than 5 times the average CTR and more than 2 times the average conversion represent relative comparisons, not absolute rates.
The announcement does not present the volume of impressions, the number of conversions, the full measurement period or sufficient information about the methodology. It also does not report independent auditing of the results. Therefore, the numbers demonstrate the preliminary performance reported by the company, without establishing that other retailers will obtain equivalent gains.
The integration is part of THG's collaboration with Criteo and Google Cloud. The assistant is offered as a service independent of the main e-commerce platform, allowing its adoption by retailers that use different online store infrastructures.
