Advertising technology has become one of the hottest markets in today’s media world, as the size of the online ad market grows exponentially.

Global advertising spending topped $500 billion last year; digital advertising made up less than a quarter of that total at about $110 billion. However, while digital is still one of the lower spend categories in advertising, it is one of the fastest growing, especially now that advertisers are working to monetize ads on mobile devices.

Both ad sellers and the go-between brokers generally get paid on a “per-click” basis, but those brokers who can connect the best ad sellers with the best ad buyers are typically the highest paid.

Criteo (NSDQ: CRTO), a French ad tech company, specializes in analyzing large volumes of data to engage and convert potential customers. What that essentially means is that the company uses available data to help advertisers and sellers of advertising place display ads on websites where they are most likely to find the greatest number of potential buyers.

The company’s technology is known as the Criteo Engine, which uses machine learning algorithms to analyze available data to predict and recommend ad delivery across a variety of platforms, including tablet computers and mobile devices. That technology is covered by both French and American patents which expire in 2026 and 2028, respectively. Criteo Engine also analyzes bulk data available for purchase from Big Data providers on nearly $3 billion of sales transactions at its client companies.

Because Criteo only completed its US initial public offering in October, the company hasn’t released a great deal of financial data yet. However, we do know that the company’s revenue grew by 57 percent in the fourth quarter to EUR135.9 million, while full-year revenue was up 63.3 percent to EUR444 million. Over the trailing three-year period, revenue growth has averaged 89.1 percent, well in excess of many of the company’s peers.

In the fourth quarter, the company added several new clients, including American Eagle Outfitters (NYSE: AEO), Deutsche Telecom (OTC: DTEGY), L’Oreal (OTC: LRLCF), Qatar Airways and three others in the Asia-Pacific region.

Excluding traffic acquisition costs (TAC), the company’s region of greatest growth is far and away Asia-Pacific, where revenue was up 133.2 percent year-over-year in 2013, accounting for 19 percent of total revenue. The Americas came in a distant second with 71.9 percent growth in ex-TAC revenue and account for 27 percent of the company’s total. Europe, Middle East and Africa combined account for 54 percent of the company’s global revenue, although it is also the slowest growing region with a 35.6 percent year-over-year boost.

Net income in the fourth quarter amounted to EUR3.3 million, a significant improvement over its loss of EUR4.7 million in the same period last year, coming in at EUR0.055 in earnings per share (EPS). Net income for the year totaled just EUR1.4 million following heavy expenses in the run up to the IPO, though still above the EUR800,000 in 2012, with EPS flat year-over-year at EUR0.02.

Full-year ex-TAC revenue totaled EUR179 million, a 53 percent increase over the prior year. For 2014, the company expects that metric to rise by about 41 percent to between EUR246 million and EUR251 million with earnings of between EUR47 million and EUR51 million.

One of the main reasons Criteo is likely to outperform its peers is its dedication to research and development. In 2012, it spent EUR4.2 million to enhance and refine its proprietary technology and spent another EUR9.9 million last year. That superior matching technology resulted in nearly 2 billion clicks and $9.7 billion in sales for its client companies.

With a net cash position of EUR234.34 million following its recent IPO, it will be able to make an even larger investment in its technology this year, a critical element of an ad tech company’s success considering that new data is constantly introduced into the system.

That continued investment has helped the company consistently grow its client base from just 1,712 in the final quarter of 2011 to more than 5,000 at the end of last year. This pace of growth is likely to accelerate thanks to improving economic conditions in Europe and the Americas; it is much easier to sell to sanguine customers.

Enjoying both technological and economic tailwinds, Criteo is a buy up to 43.