Case Study
Analytics Backbone for Dual M&A
Data backbone that supported two multi-market acquisitions.
As Head of Analytics for eBay Emerging Markets, Arturo delivered the data foundation for the sale of Vivanuncios to Adevinta, and later from Adevinta to Quinto Andar.
Key Results
The Transformation
The Challenge
eBay was preparing to sell its Classifieds Group — a portfolio spanning multiple Emerging Markets including Mexico (Vivanuncios), South Africa, Poland, Ireland, and Argentina. Potential buyers needed rigorous due diligence data to evaluate each market: total addressable market size, competitive positioning, traffic trends, revenue trajectory, and portfolio health.
But this data didn't exist in any consolidated form. Market intelligence was scattered across dozens of tools and internal systems. Each country GM had their own view of competitive dynamics, built from different data sources at different time periods. There was no standardized, data-backed narrative that could withstand buyer scrutiny during negotiations. The stakes were exceptionally high — inaccurate or incomplete data could undervalue the portfolio and leave money on the table, while overstated projections would erode buyer trust during due diligence. The analytics needed to be both comprehensive enough to tell the full story and honest enough to survive professional scrutiny.
Our Approach
We built a comprehensive analytics backbone that combined external market intelligence with internal performance data to create a single source of truth for the M&A process. The external layer pulled from Semrush (SEO and competitive traffic), SimilarWeb (market share and traffic benchmarking), INEGI (Mexico demographic and economic data), and Google Trends (category demand signals). The internal layer consolidated Google Analytics traffic data, listing volumes, revenue metrics, and customer cohort analysis from internal databases.
The challenge was standardization. Each market measured success differently — Mexico tracked listing volume, South Africa focused on paid penetration rates, Poland emphasized traffic share. We created a unified framework that expressed each market's position using consistent KPIs: market share by traffic, revenue per listing, customer lifetime value by segment, and growth rate relative to category benchmarks.
We produced market-by-market analytical packages that fed directly into pitch decks and due diligence data rooms. Each package included competitive landscape analysis (traffic trends, feature comparison, pricing benchmarks), financial deep-dives (revenue decomposition, cohort retention, unit economics), and market opportunity sizing (TAM estimates backed by external data sources, not internal projections).
The analytics had to serve two transactions: first the sale of eBay Classifieds to Adevinta, then later the sale of Adevinta's Emerging Markets portfolio to Quinto Andar. Each transaction required updated data packages with different buyer-specific angles — Adevinta cared about operational synergies across their existing European portfolio, while Quinto Andar focused on Latin American growth potential.
The Outcome
The analytics backbone supported both transactions through to successful completion. Buyers had the data they needed to make confident acquisition decisions, and the selling side could defend valuations with external benchmarks rather than internal optimism.
The standardized market framework became valuable beyond the M&A process itself — it gave eBay's corporate development team a reusable template for evaluating portfolio health across Emerging Markets. The competitive analysis surfaced insights that influenced product strategy even before the sales closed: we identified markets where competitors were gaining traffic share in specific categories, which informed defensive investments in the interim period. The Quinto Andar transaction specifically leveraged the Latin American market opportunity analysis we'd built, which became central to the buyer's growth thesis for the acquisition.
Beyond the transactions themselves, the process demonstrated how analytics infrastructure pays dividends in unexpected ways. The same data backbone that powered due diligence slides also informed day-to-day operational decisions — market share trends, competitive movements, and growth projections that were just as valuable to the GMs running the business as they were to the bankers evaluating it. Building the analytical muscle for M&A support simultaneously raised the bar for how the business used data in normal operations. The standardized market intelligence framework we created was subsequently used for quarterly board reporting, annual planning, and competitive strategy reviews — turning a one-time M&A deliverable into a permanent analytical capability.
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