Facebook and IBM will work in collaboration to provide better target advertising for retailers. The companies will work as a team to bring Facebook’s technology of ad targeting into IBM’s own line of tools and services for retailers.
Making ads more effective on Facebook
IBM and Facebook are looking to create more personalized marketing campaigns for their customers by combined synergies. With the help of the new tools, retailers can target a particular segment such as runners for ads or directly drop the next ad into the user’s feed, depending on ads the user clicked on before.
According to IBM, post-collaboration, users will be able to buy Facebook ads backed by data from both Facebook and IBM’s Marketing Cloud, which includes information such as weather, location and previous purchase history. The tech giant also informed advertisers that users can take their successful Facebook campaigns to try it elsewhere.
Online advertisers have been using browser cookies to create and target ads that are shown to users around the web. However, the ones IBM integrates with Facebook’s platform will be even more effective. “These new capabilities will allow Facebook to deliver more relevant, more personalized experiences,” says Jay Henderson, a director of strategy for IBM Commerce.
IBM moving with the trend
IBM, a 103-year-old company, is working just like any other veteran to come in line with the present trend of mobile devices, social media and cloud computing. To accomplish its goal, the company invested $1 billion into a cloud version of its artificial intelligence platform Watson. It also entered into a partnership with Apple and Japan’s postal service to design mobile services for senior citizens. The collaboration with Facebook makes sense, but it doesn’t involve Watson and instead is a deal with IBM Commerce, a division of IBM that offers analytics and marketing tools and services to retailers.
Facebook employees will also participate in IBM Commerce’s THINKLab consulting practice, which enables the companies to develop new digital marketing strategies. Henderson said this is just a start of a long-term partnership with IBM, and both companies will continue to collaborate moving forward.
