AdRoll made retargeting accessible to small and mid-sized businesses that couldn’t afford enterprise-grade ad platforms. Founded in 2007 by Aaron Bell and Adam Berke, the company grew by offering self-serve display advertising tools with relatively low minimum budgets and an easy setup process.
The platform sits on top of major ad exchanges and lets businesses run retargeting campaigns across the web, social media, and email from a single dashboard. It integrates directly with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and other e-commerce platforms, making it especially popular with online retailers.
In 2018, AdRoll restructured into NextRoll, a holding company with two brands: AdRoll (for direct-to-consumer marketers) and RollWorks (for B2B account-based marketing). The split reflected the growing differences between consumer and business marketing needs.
AdRoll’s AI engine, called BidIQ, handles real-time bidding decisions across ad exchanges. It analyzes browsing behavior, purchase intent, and engagement patterns to decide how much to bid on each ad impression. The company says it processes over 80 billion AI predictions daily.
The platform’s biggest appeal is its simplicity. While enterprise DSPs like The Trade Desk require significant expertise, AdRoll is built for the marketing manager at a 50-person e-commerce brand who needs to run campaigns without a dedicated ad-ops team. Pricing is transparent, and you can get started with budgets as low as a few hundred dollars per month. The company doesn’t disclose exact revenue figures as a private entity, but it serves over 120,000 brands globally.
