Retargeting Giant AdRoll Poaches Google Ads Veteran To Head New EMEA Office

As retargeting startup Criteo is poised to IPO, one company flying under the radar but, by the looks of it, that is also doing well in the retargeting space is AdRoll. It’s now launched in Europe, or perhaps more accurately EMEA. At the same time it’s poached Marius Smyth, eight-year Google veteran, and former head of UK & Ireland SMB Sales and part of Google’s UK and Ireland executive team.

AdRoll says it has had some 600 percent+ growth in the region – an indication of why it might be doing so well. It’s been pulling in 1,300+ advertisers here (but 10,000+ advertisers in 100 countries). They say they recently passed a $100 million run-rate milestone (up from $50 million last year).

Backed by Peter Thiel and Accel Partners with $25 million in funding, AdRoll’s success shows retargeting is pretty hot right now. Google launched a “Dynamic Remarketing” product in June 2013 and in June Twitter said it would be offering a retargeting product. Facebook launched retargeting on FBX in late fall 2012.

Then of course, there’s Criteo’s NASDAQ IPO. Criteo has already hiked its IPO price range to $27-$29. The company is expected to officially price its IPO this week, after which it’ll begin trading. This comes after Rocket Fuel delivered a very hot IPO.

Obviously, this is a European tech success story, even if there are plenty of annoyed people that they decamped to NASDAQ.