IBM + Facebook = A Marriage of Targeted Advertisements

The biggest problem with online advertisements are that they are very generic. They simply don't look natural, and most of the time only picks up a word or two on the page to create a sometimes completely irrelevant ad campaign. Despite Google Adwords trying its best to target customers, a customer can't help think why a random advertisement appears so out of context. 

IBM and Facebook are working together to help retailers pinpoint their audiences/customers. IBM Commerce is known for their analytics tools that accumulates data from consumers. For example, "their product purchase histories, locations, product preferences and sentiment about a brand." To truly target the appropriate audience, IBM will gather more information with Facebook to gather the users’ interests and likes.

This way, retailers can choose a customer segment they really want to target. A special offer to men in San Francisco between age 20 and 40 with long-distance runners’ equipment may work well, for instance.

To further this effort of information sharing, IBM has invited Facebook to join ThinkLab, a collaborative forum where brands can develop solutions to their specific needs. With researchers and designers from IBM and Facebook’s social network’s ad formats, retailers and brands can test out several ad campaigns and sharpen up their ad targeting.

https://www.internetretailer.com/2015/05/06/ibm-and-facebook-team-help-retailers-target-shoppers

Alex Lee