IBM, Facebook enter marketing alliance

Facebook and IBM today entered into an alliance to drive personalised campaigns, both on the social network and across other digital media.

The two companies will collaborate to provide leading brands with tailored marketing capabilities that reach the right audiences "at the right time with the right message."

The initial focus of the pact will focus on combining data to make Facebook's Custom Audience insights available to brands that use IBM's Marketing Cloud to manage campaigns

IBM's Marketing Cloud clients can now utilize Facebook's Custom Audiences, along with IBM's deep analytics and design features, to create customised user experience for their customers across applications, devices and time.

Using IBM's new Journey Designer, brands can create personalised customer experiences across all engagement touch points and then use Journey Analytics to gain an understanding, at an aggregate level, of how customers responded. 
By combining Facebook's ad technologies with IBM's Journey Analytics, brands can more accurately determine which groups of customers are among the 1.44 billion people active on Facebook and establish correlations in aggregate between their interests and interactions across multiple channels.

These insights can then be brought to life through IBM's Journey Designer solution, guiding brands to deliver more compelling messages on Facebook and other mediums.

IBM also announced that Facebook will be the first company to join the new IBM Commerce THINKLab, a research and collaboration environment in which companies will work directly with brands to accelerate development of new technologies designed to personalize customer experiences.  IBM researchers, Facebook experts, domain experts, designers and other partners will be available to work side by side with clients to identify specific areas of need and generate new solutions.

''Our partnership with IBM will help top brands achieve personalization at scale by using IBM's marketing cloud to find and engage their target audiences on Facebook, as well as solve their vexing challenges by consulting with IBM Commerce THINKLab, '' said Blake Chandlee, VP of Partnerships for Facebook.  ''We will also be working closely with IBM Commerce THINKLab to help deliver people-based marketing that's optimized to achieve each brand's business goals.''

IBM will use deep analytics, on top of Facebook's anonymised and aggregate audience insights with additional information from IBM's marketing cloud so marketers have a clearer picture of their target audiences. Marketers can also replicate proven campaigns beyond Facebook to other brand channels including their stores, websites and through mobile apps to reach the customer wherever they most prefer to connect with the brand. All of this means better ads for people.

For example, a retailer launching a new line of running gear can use Facebook's Custom Audiences and targeting solutions to segment its customer groups that are interested in long-distance running. The retailer can then glean aggregated insights into the audience's preferences in running gear and, based on location, offer deals on apparel that fit the appropriate training climate.

''Brands understand the increasing need to provide customers with powerful and personalized experiences to nurture loyalty,'' said Deepak Advani, general manager, IBM Commerce. ''Through this collaboration, consumer product companies and retailers will be able to quickly and easily gain deeper insight into what their customers expect and provide them with compelling experiences that bridge the physical and virtual divide.''