Big Blue is teaming up with the world's most popular blue app.
Facebook and IBM announced on Wednesday that they will put some of their advertising tools and experts together to help big companies more closely personalize their marketing to customers.
The collaboration allows the two Big Blues to double down on big advertisers. The partnership should add an incentive for IBM's Fortune 500 roster of clients to come closer to Facebook, which is looking for more advertising revenue. IBM, in turn, can now take advantage of the incredible wealth of data about consumers that Facebook collects.
A Facebook spokesperson noted that the partnership should boost the relevancy of ads, and perhaps more importantly to the company's bottom line, demonstrate how Facebook can drive "sales, not just clicks." Facebook's advertising machine propelled the company to its first $10 billion revenue year in 2014.
Theoretically, a bank might use IBM's data to determine current customers it wants to target through marketing in e-mail and Facebook. Or a sporting brand might work with IBM and Facebook to target real-time Facebook ads to customers who are currently at a game, based on IBM's location data.
"Some of the clients we have, it's the who’s who. This allows Facebook to jointly collaborate with IBM on some of the marquee clients around the world," Deepak Advani, general manager for IBM Commerce, said in an interview with Mashable.