eBay's Thompson Takes Yahoo! Top Spot; Mergers, Acquisitions Accelerate Says JEGI; Teresi To Apple's Ad Network

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Yahoo! Chooses Tech With CEO Selection

And the new Yahoo! CEO is…. former ebay/PayPal President Scott Thompson. Read the release. With the choice, Yahoo! appears to hold dear its tech roots as Thompson has a decidedly “tech” pedigree and includes being the CTO of ebay’s PayPal and CIO of a Barclay’s subsidiary. Beleaguered Yahoo! shareholders might ask, “Where’s the ‘media’ or ‘content’ experience?” It appears Yahoo! is looking to regain its past culture which centers on technological innovation. Madison Avenue will need to be convinced this is the right move, though, publicly, the Avenue appears to approve according to Digiday’s Mike Shields. Wall Street’s view is mixed according to a Barron’s article. ZDnet’s Larry Dignan says this is play to get in front of “big data” and the idea that all companies/publishers are starting to become retailers. GigaOm’s Om Malik still sees conflicts arising from Yahoo!’s board that may make any turnaround difficult. Read it. Finally, Ad Age’s Jason Del Rey talks to Thompson who echoes some of the themes of the Yahoo! conference call announcing his arrival – including that it’s too early for Thompson to have an informed view on the company’s critical display business. Read more.

M&A In Review

Boutique investment bank Jordan, Edmiston Group has released its M&A data for 2010 and says in a release, “The media, information, marketing services and technology sectors saw nearly 900 transactions in 2011 that totaled $47 billion, a 9% rise over 2010.” At the top of the list among all 2011 deals is the $2.4 billion acquisition of GSI Commerce by eBay. New Mountain Capital’s acquisition of SymphonyIRI for $800 million also makes the top 10. Read more.

You’re Hired, Too!

Yahoo! wasn’t the only one making hiring news yesterday. Bloomberg reported that former Yahoo!/Quantcast/Adobe sales exec, Todd Teresi, is taking a position with Apple to run its iAd team. Bloomberg’s Adam Santariano reports, “The new job makes Teresi the main liaison between Apple and Madison Avenue, the heart of the ad industry in New York. The role was vacated by Andy Miller, a founder of [mobile ad network] Quattro Wireless.” Read more.

Big Data Needs

On ClickZ, nPario’s Chris O’Hara, formerly of TRAFFIQ, looks at “a real-life example of a digital display campaign, run through the digital ad agency of a popular mattress retailer.” The importance of data management and audience validation are a couple of O’Hara’s closing observations of the case study as he states, “There are DMPs for every marketer, so be careful to choose the right one. Big data needs a call for pure play DMPs that can stitch together highly disparate data sets that include all data types.” Read it.

Gimme Less Ads!

Undertone’s Eric Franchi gets on the Digiday pulpit and says its time for publishers to dial down the number of ad placements on a page. He writes, “Fewer ads on a page automatically give the remaining advertising messages a better chance to be seen. Providing advertisers the opportunity to have their message viewed is the very essence of what we do! And with fewer ads on the page, you can make the ads that remain bigger and bolder.” Read more scarcity talk.

Cross-Channel And Conversions

On iMedia Connection, former Adchemy product/marketing chief and current Baynote CMO, Anurag Wadhera, talks about best retailer practices when it comes to cranking out conversions. He says, “The quicker retailers can identify and differentiate between current buyer intent and past buying history, the more relevant their recommendations will be, and therefore the more likely to drive sales and elevate conversion.” Read more.

Infographic Thursday

Ecommerce technology company Monetate has made a good ol’, linkbaiting infographic on testing landing pages. See what retailers test.

But Wait. There’s More!