My Valueclick (VCLK) acquisition checklist for MediaWhiz Holdings, Inc. is rounded out:

1) Former DoubleClick executive in place as CEO (and former DoubleClickPerformics founder, James Crouthamel recently appointed to ValueClick’s board)

2) A text link-based (TextLinkAds) ad platform in place at MediaWhiz—ready to duke it out with Google’s (GOOG) forthcoming PPA text link network

3) Commission Junction eBay (EBAY) revenues declining due to search being taken in house (would be great to buy a bunch of FULLY AUTOMATED auction publishers at this point)

4) Today AuctionAds is being brought into the highly diversified MediaWhiz family

Okay… so how is ValueClick going to lay off of this one?  As I see it, they’ll pick up MediaWhiz before the end of 2007.  If they don’t someone else will (namely, a privately held lead generation company looking to further diversify in hopes of an IPO… a company like QuinStreet or AllStarDirectories or perhaps Infilearn).  Or they’ll be rolled up just as Venture Direct was this week via Plattform Holdings.

Besides, it’s rather trendy to buy up your own distribution lately (Linkshare + Traffic Strategies, ValueClick + Mezimedia, heck even Google + Doubleclick!) and it makes sense from that perspective too.  Why continue to do business with MediaWhiz when you can just own ‘em?  Just like ValueClick acquired FastClick, WebClients, etc. etc. they’ll acquire MediaWhiz.  They are forced to, in fact.  MediaWhiz is simply too diversified.  They’re a perfect target and there will be competition for them as the online ad industry continues to roll itself up. 

Says lead generation insider and Weekly Insight audio program regular Lee Gientke, “With the Internet land-grab in full swing—Microsoft (MSFT) grabbing Aquantive, ValueClick grabbing MeziMeida, Google grabbing DoubleClick—there has been a deafening silence from eBay.”

According to Gientke, a business development pro over at online lead marketplace Leadpoint.com, revenues at eBay have been slowing and yet there has been a remarkable silence from that side of the Valley.  He ponders (and I can’t help but do the same) if they will wake up and make a grab for MediaWhiz themselves… for at its heart is a customer acquisition company that has the potential to spruce up some of eBay’s earnings.

Gientke seems to believe that they may also be interested in owning the distribution—to pump up eBay’s auction numbers but also to bolster eBay’s other investments.  Color me riveted!

As I see it, if Valueclick acquires Mediawhiz it can take back a lot of that revenue lost to eBay taking search affiliates out of its Commission Junction unit’s hands and into their own.  As I see it, Valueclick can also accomplish something it has failed to accomplish in the recent past—add scale to its affiliate marketing platform.  It can do so with the technology created by AuctionAds.  To what extent could Valueclick leverage this technology?  They could push Commission Junction advertiser offers (most of them) out to that publisher base (AuctionAds’) in a highly controlled environment.  This is exactly what Valueclick failed to accomplish with its recent CJ Unit’s “Link Management Initiative” which was rebuked by publishers.

Tragically, Valueclick (like so many other large, technically stagnant / backward affiliate marketing companies) will innovate through yet another instance of buying out a relatively small business—in this case a rather crude affiliate publisher, Jeremy Shoemaker) with a cult-like following of ”get rich quick and overnight“ affiliate-marketing wannabes. 

What do you think?  Is Experian going to sit this one out?