IBM and Facebook team up to deliver ads through people-based marketing and provide brands with tailored marketing capabilities. Starting today, IBM's marketing cloud clients can utilize Facebook's ad capabilities such as Custom Audiences, along with IBM's deep analytics and design features. Using IBM's new Journey Designer, brands can create personalized 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.

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 will use deep analytics, on top of Facebook's anonymized 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.

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.