Europeans have a clear case of high-tech envy. American companies like Apple, Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), Amazon.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN), The Priceline Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: PCLN) and Netflix, Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) are building major market share across Europe, while homegrown tech stars are few and far between.

Paris-based Criteo (Nasdaq: CRTO) would like to change that perception. Not only is the company in the midst of robust growth, but it is outperforming many of its U.S.-based rivals. And its shares, which have fallen by more than one-third from the 52-week high, sport an impressive GARP (growth at a reasonable price) value proposition.

#-ad_banner-#At first blush, Criteo may seem to be just another internet advertising company. Companies like Rocket Fuel, Inc. (Nasdaq: FUEL), The Rubicon Project, Inc. (Nasdaq: RUBI) and even almighty Google, Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) are adept at matching web surfers with relevant, targeted ads. But Criteo goes one step further, offering the kind of cloud-based “Big Data” analytics that has helped firms like Splunk, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPLK) and Tableau Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: DATA) garner lush market values in excess of $5 billion.

As analysts at Goldman Sachs note, in prose that only a financial professional could admire, “Criteo is the leader in the retargeting niche differentiating through its product recommendation engine, direct publisher relationships and scalable data integration.”

Here’s what that means in layman’s terms: Let’s say you search Priceline.com for a hotel in Los Angeles, but don’t actually book a room. A day later, you may be perusing a completely unrelated site (for example, checking the score of last night’s game). Suddenly an ad appears for a great price on a Los Angeles hotel room.

Criteo’s software, in effect, targets consumers who signaled awareness and intent about a service or product. It then identifies other metrics to further tailor the advertisement, such as the ideal time of day when you will again consider such a purchase.

The company pairs that approach with a strong set of exclusive, negotiated deals for placement at popular sites. This gives Priceline access to clients that it doesn’t usually negotiate with directly. It would be too hard for Priceline to track where that potential buyer will be surfing the next day. Criteo does that for them. The industry acronym for this inventory ad placement is known as “Real-Time Bidding” (RTB).

A robust technology platform isn’t even Criteo’s greatest strength. Instead, it is the company’s solid sales execution. The company established strong market share on its European home turf and is now rapidly expanding in North America and Asia.

A look at the global RTB market explains why Criteo is poised for great growth in coming years. In 2013, RTB was a $3.1 billion market in the United States and just $1.4 billion in all other markets, according to research firm IDC. Criteo is the best way to play the inevitable narrowing between U.S. penetration and the rest of the world.

RTB itself is a fast-growing category. IDC estimates that it represents 23% of the internet ad display market this year, and the firm projects it will rise to 34% of the market by 2016.

You can see the impact of global trends on Criteo’s income statement: Sales shot to more than $200 million last year from less than $50 million in 2010 and should exceed $400 million by 2015. Investors have come to see Criteo as a “beat and raise” stock. Per share profits have been at least 20% higher than consensus forecasts in every quarter since the company went public in October 2013. Investors quickly embraced this stock, though shares have since backslid from their early 2014 peak.

As tech stocks stumbled this past spring, shares of Criteo settled back into the low $30’s, at least until industry reports circulated regarding a possible acquisition by French advertising giant Publicis Groupe (Nasdaq: PUBGY). Publicis presumably thought that it could snatch up Criteo while it was out of favor, and Criteo’s management likely sees too much growth ahead to sell the company at a cut rate.

Indeed in early November, Criteo went on to deliver “one of the best quarters in ad tech history,” wrote analysts at Pacific Crest Securities. These analysts, who carry a $55 price target on shares, predict very strong growth in 2015 and 2016 as the company increasingly utilizes social media, e-mail and mobile platforms for its clients. They add that “CRTO has the rare combination of solid results, fast growth and reasonable valuation.” Shares trade for around 17 times their forecasted 2015 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), even as EBITDA is growing at a 50% pace.

Risks To Consider: Advertising is a very economically sensitive business, and if Criteo’s core European market slips into recession, then the company will likely generate fewer revenues per client in 2015.

Action To Take –> With or without an acquisition by a major ad firm such as Publicis, shares appear to have 30%-to-40% upside as the company expands its product offerings and adds more clients. Both of those factors should help Criteo deliver more “beat and raise” quarters in 2015, attracting even more momentum investors to this high-growth tech stock.

Europe is not the only international investment you should be considering. High-Yield International is your best source for investing trends, opportunities and sky-high yields abroad. In fact, 79% of the world’s highest-yielding stocks are overseas. For more information about international investing, click here.