Today’s top headlines all across the media: “Verizon buys Yahoo…!” (for just $4.83 bln), “Verizon-Yahoo deal” etc. Not that I am shocked, as Yahoo has been going down the rail for a while now, but I am convinced that there are quite a few (logical) actions that could have lifted up Yahoo back on its feet.

While everyone is playing the blame game over Marissa Mayer’s acquisition failures in the last couple of years, her micro-management style and lack of direction, I’d like to go over a few business-related issues that could have REALLY helped Yahoo, before being bought.

1. The Focus on Strategic Plan

Yahoo 2016 strategic plan #1 action outlines as “Better user and advertiser product quality”, but has this really been addressed? Indeed I would keep it as #1 priority for the company – to optimize the current core business model! Obviously, the core business stopped performing, which must be addressed ASAP. Before creating (or buying) any new business, a company must address current issues through analysis of the gaps and optimization of the bottlenecks - the very straightforward business management concept.

2. Neglecting the numbers

Let’s look at the Search and Display Metrics over the years. We can see significant decrease in number of paid clicks in global search and number of display ads sold, after Q2 2015 (in fact, the numbers have been significantly fluctuating for years). That point after the first half of 2015 clearly indicates a need for a redefined strategy that “something must be wrong with the way we handle our ad business”. But, have we actually seen significant differences in ad operations since then?

3. The Monetization Unit of Advertising

With the so many articles being published today, I’d like to quote the below from Variety:

“Mayer has touted growth of Yahoo’s so-called “Mavens” business, comprising mobile, video, native, and social ads. That segment represented $390 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2016, up 7% year-over-year, with mobile ads up 11% to $250 million, and a global mobile audience of 600 million monthly users.”

Sounds quite good in terms of the % growth, but is it good enough, $250 million? Having worked with Yahoo Advertising myself, I’d like to pinpoint the below very important factors that scare away marketers like myself:

Having Account Managers reach out to you directly (via email, LinkedIn and Skype?!) from such a big platform as Yahoo does not represent trust and reliability at a start of a relationship;

Not having full access to manage ads directly by a big corporate account is not the best practice from ad management and optimization perspectives;

I had three AMs in 6 months. Changing those Account Managers too often without a transparent handover makes businesses step away from doing business with 3+ people in just half a year;

Not having all information online, and being sent a number of PDF presentations is just weird for an Internet company: why wouldn’t you share this info on your website or give access to the customer portal?

Even though a number of my Yahoo campaigns did work (from CPL perspective), the lack of communication and direct access to optimize ads pushed us to stop our collaboration. And so, some others might have as well…

4. The (over) Diverse Startups Pool

I came by this interesting graphic below that represents different types of companies Yahoo has been acquiring since 1997. The only question that arises from my side is “Did they actually have a strategy and business plan behind those buys?”. We see web portals, social networks, multimedia, e-commerce, marketing companies, mobile apps and many others in the “pool”. Where is the focus exactly?

There are a number of other fails, such as with its Mobile proposition, internal communications and management, but most of those are also closely linked to the above four.

I do feel that Yahoo could have survived the tough Internet competition with Google and Microsoft (and maybe even better than that) by focusing on the core offer, what works best, and optimizing those streams (before expanding to new areas).

What’s your opinion on the Yahoo situation today?

What do you think awaits the company in 2017?

Have you worked with their advertising solution, what has been your experience?