Migration from Legacy Systems to Commerce Grid | Criteo Commerce Grid Documentation

Your Commerce Grid Migration Hub

This guide is your portal to unlocking the full monetization potential of Commerce Grid, outlining the required processes to migrate from legacy systems to the Commerce Grid ecosystem.

History: Why is migration required?

Commerce Grid represents the evolution of two legacy technologies: The MediaGrid from IPONWEB and Criteo's CDB solution for publishers.

In 2023, these solutions came together to form Commerce Grid, the world's first Commerce SSP.

Commerce Grid brought together the best of both solutions while introducing new, differentiated solutions for publishers, such as the first-ever access to Criteo's Commerce Audiences data.

Key Migration Dates & Milestones

June 2023: Commerce Grid launched, immediately replacing The MediaGrid's user-interface.
2023: Legacy CDB & TMG customers begin moving to Commerce Grid contracts.
Q1 2024: The inventory migration process launches, allowing customers who have signed a Commerce Grid contract to port their inventory from CDB into the Commerce Grid inventory structure.
June 2025: The legacy reporting solution PMC is deprecated in favor of Commerce Grid reporting.
December 2025: The legacy reporting API (PMC API) is deprecated in favor of the Commerce Grid Reporting API.

Overview: What does migration entail?

Migrating from a legacy system to Commerce Grid is a multi-step process, with the bulk handled by Commerce Grid and very little technical work required from Publishers.

Process at a glance

Step 1: Contracting. All publishers must sign a Commerce Grid contract to begin the migration process.

Step 2: Inventory Migration. A Commerce Grid support team will transition all of your inventory from your legacy setup into the Commerce Grid Inventory Management structure. Our support team will guide you through this process.

Step 3: Technical Implementation. Following guidance from our support team, Publishers will be required to add "Publisher ID" to their Prebid configuration (note: Prebid v9.4.1 or higher is required).

Step 4: QA & Finalization. Our support team will complete the final checks to ensure we're seeing the correct values flow through the integration and that your inventory has been mapped correctly.

Step 1: Contracting

All customers who wish to monetize their inventory with Commerce Grid must sign a Commerce Grid contract.

If you have not already done so, please reach out to your Commerce Grid support team to kick off the process. If you don't have a dedicated support team, you can begin the process by emailing support at support-cgrid@criteo.com.

Q: Why am I required to sign a new contract?

A: Commerce Grid introduces new features that were not previously available in legacy systems like The MediaGrid and CDB, and for which new terms and rates are associated. For this reason, a new contract must be signed.

Q: How long will the contracting process take?

A: Our contracting process is streamlined, and documents will be delivered to you prefilled and ready for signature. If you'd like to discuss the terms further prior to signing, it will extend the overall process.

Q: I'm not ready to, or don't want to, sign a new contract at this time.

A: We understand that each publisher has unique considerations when it comes to signing new paperwork. Unfortunately, legacy publishers who don't sign a Commerce Grid contract are subject to losing access to monetization capabilities.

Step 2: Inventory Migration

Inventory Migration is the backbone of the migration process, mapping your legacy inventory setup from CDB to the Commerce Grid Inventory Management structure. This enables you to seamlessly port your monetization activity into Commerce Grid.

Understanding Commerce Grid's Inventory Management structure

Commerce Grid uses a four-tiered structure to enable you to manage your account and inventory for monetization. This structure differs from the legacy CDB structure, as shown in the image to the left.

The Commerce Grid Inventory Management structure is as follows:

Account is the parent publisher business entity.
- Managed at this level: user access, creative category blocking, advertiser domain blocks, and creative ID blocking (which can either be applied at the account or inventory group level).
  - Domain and app bundle declaration for brand safety review and classification are also managed at the account level.
  - Demand source mapping is applied to the entire account unless select ad units are mapped below.
Inventory Group is the publisher level, where separate supply sources for a single publisher OR multiple different publishers (in the case of a network) can be individuated.
- Managed at this level: ads.txt management and COPPA controls.
- Inventory Groups can also be used to isolate select inventory and manage specific block lists.
Ad Unit is the ad slot level.
- Managed at this level: ad slots, including ad placement, size, inventory type, content type, and floor price settings.
- Individual ad units can be made available to specific demand sources.
Domains/App Bundles is the domain/app level.
- Managed at this level: individual domains or app bundles, approving or blocking traffic, and defining content categories.

Inventory Migration Process

The inventory migration process will be managed by the Commerce Grid support team, based on the following steps:

Our support team will analyze your current setup in CDB and build a recommendation for how the migration should be facilitated.
1. Most commonly, this looks like translating Networks and Affiliates from CDB into one or more Inventory Groups in Commerce Grid.
2. If you were using a specialized Zones setup in CDB to manage ad slots, our support team may also recommend creating Ad Units in Commerce Grid. Because Commerce Grid reports out on Ad Size natively, Ad Units are not required but may be beneficial on a case-by-case basis.
As the recipient of the inventory migration proposal, you will be expected to review it and approve it.
Once approved, our support team will create your new Inventory Groups (and Ad Units, if applicable) in Commerce Grid. They will then automatically port over all of your domains and app bundles, as well as any blocks you have in place to ensure a 1:1 implementation.
Q: How do I kick off the process to get an Inventory Migration plan?
A: If you're not already engaged with our support team, please reach out at support-cgrid@criteo.com to start the process.
Q: I have a robust setup that includes many Networks and Affiliates in CDB. Why is the support team recommending only one Inventory Group?
A: Inventory Groups are more flexible than the legacy Network or Affiliate levels in CDB, thus fewer are typically required.
Q: I had a robust setup with Zones in CDB that I used to track creative size across my placements. Shouldn't I need Ad Units to mirror this setup?
A: Not necessarily. Creative size is tracked automatically and natively in Commerce Grid. If creative size were the only reason for using Zones, our team would likely suggest an Ad Unit free setup.

Step 3: Technical Implementation

Technical implementation is part of the migration process that requires publishers to make small changes to their integrations to pass new values via bid requests.

What must be passed and how

To complete the migration, publishers must pass either pubid or uid .
These values can be passed either via ortb2.site.publisher.id or ortb2.app.publisher.id or via BidderParams (less common).
1. Find guidance here on passing these parameters.
If our support team recommended an Ad Unit setup, publishers must also pass adunitid , as the Ad Unit IDs appear in Commerce Grid.

Implementation Process

The technical implementation process will begin after our support team has delivered your Inventory Migration plan, and you have approved it.
Select whether you want to use pubid or uid and how those values will be passed (i.e. ortb2.site.publisher.id or ortb2.app.publisher.id or via BidderParams) and indicate your decisions to our support team.
Update your integration with the new fields and confirm with our support team (guidance can be found here).
Our support team will review the fields as they begin populating and kick off the QA process.

Step 4: QA & Finalization

Once you have completed the Inventory Migration and Technical Implementation, our support team will QA the setup to ensure everything is working correctly!

QA Steps

Our support team will take the following steps to ensure that everything is working as expected:

Confirm that the pubid or uid fields are being passed correctly, along with any other additional fields such as adunitid .
Spend checks, to ensure there has been continuity in your trading activity as spend has shifted from legacy systems to Commerce Grid. We will make multiple spend checks in the first days post-migration.

If anything looks incorrect or needs further work, our support team will address the issues with you and partner with you to remedy them.

Finalization

Following a successful QA, you are now ready to work in Commerce Grid!

To get started and learn more about how to maximize your usage of Commerce Grid, check out these helpful resources: