• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, May 6, 2015

Facebook and IBM’s Commerce division are teaming up for the sake of smarter ad targeting. Per the new pact, the work that IBM already does for its marketing cloud clients will be complemented by Facebook’s ad capabilities, including Custom Audiences.

Jay Henderson, director of product strategy at IBM Commerce, said ad targeting is not measuring up to the high standards of modern consumers. “Four out of five customers believe that brands don't understand them as individuals,” Henderson said on Wednesday. “This is precisely why this partnership is so important.

“Now, some of the world’s largest banks, retailers, and insurance companies can apply IBM’s powerful analytics to the reach of Facebook in order to bring these consumers more personalized campaigns,” Henderson added.

Using IBM’s new Journey Designer, brands will be encouraged to create personalized customer experiences across engagement touchpoints, and then use its Journey Analytics service to quantify success.

By combining Facebook’s ad technologies with IBM's Journey Analytics, Henderson said that brands can better determine which groups of customers are among Facebook’s active user base, and establish correlations between their interests and interactions across multiple channels.

Facebook also becomes the first company to join the new IBM Commerce THINKLab, a research and collaboration initiative in which companies will be encouraged to work directly with brands to develop consumer personalization technologies.

Blake Chandlee, VP of partnerships for Facebook, said the plan is to work with IBM Commerce THINKLab to come up with “people-based marketing.”

IBM Commerce currently boasts a network of some 35,000 clients.

Boosting Facebook’s bottom line, the company has recently seen increased adoption of targeting tools like Custom Audiences and Conversion Tracking, COO Sheryl Sandberg recently told investors.

Among other efforts, Facebook recently rolled out Product Ads -- a new format for brands to show off multiple offerings, and in some cases, their entire inventory.

Appealing to audience-obsessed advertisers, Facebook also recently expanded its ability to target users based on their demographic traits, geography, and purchase history. the new Audience Insights service can analyze trends across Facebook, which the social giant considers relevant to brands’ current and potential customers.

Also during the first quarter of the year, Facebook’s Atlas unit tapped Merkle and its wealth of customer relationship marketing (CRM) data. The alliance followed a similar pact between Facebook’s ad targeting and measurement platform and Havas Media Group.