» We’ve had yet more European M&A agency action this week. It was announced yesterday that LBI and Bigmouthmedia are to merge to form Europe’s largest digital marketing agency. The new company is expected to list on the NYSE Euronext Amsterdam in July. This consolidation within the market comes hot-on-the-heels of LBI’s takeover of Danish digital agency, Triple Copenhagen. The new agency will have around 1,800 staff, and offices in 15 countries – and has plans to expand its operation beyond its European footprint. (WSJ)

» The debate continues around privacy and behavioural targeting use in online advertising on both sides of the Atlantic, with EU and US legislators casting a disapproving eye over the online advertising sector. With the value of impressions decreasing, it is data (especially cookie data) that is now the valuable commodity. Without it you can’t track or remarket, making online advertising effectively useless. This obviously will have an effect on online publishing and its survival. A recent e-marketing report suggests that the industry should do more to engage the public on the topic, and make more of the trade-off between anonymous user data and free content. As was alluded to at the recent AOP’s recent event, there are much more insidious data collection methods offline. So why is the industry getting it in the neck? The report believes the public is ill-informed online ad targeting: what it actually is, how it may not really be a threat and what benefits they get from content sites that ise this type of advertising. (Emarketer)

» EyeBlaster released a report this week indicatging that display advertising does stimulate search. The research was conducted over more than 1300 integrated search and display campaigns. It found that 72% of conversions resulted from display advertising. It highlights the importance of display advertising in creating purchasing intent and bringing buyers in the purchasing funnel. This is often overlooked by some media buyers. The study was carried out over a twelve month period between 2008 and 2009. (EyeBlaster)