IBM launches customer data exchange for marketing cloud

IBM has launched a new data exchange within its Marketing Cloud offering, aiming to help marketers better connect data across their environments and engage customers in the right moment.

The cloud-based Universal Behaviour Exchange (UBX) enables users to connect and share customer data between multiple technology solutions, and is designed to fuel more personalised marketing campaigns digitally.

It is being enabled by a raft of third-party vendor partnerships across the social, mobile, CRM and paid advertising space, including MediaMath, RocketFuel, Spredfast, MutualMind, SugarCRM, Vibes and Exchange Solutions.

According to IBM, marketers are more than 30 different systems to deliver campaigns, making it challenging to pool data and then execute tailored customer experiences at scale.

Director of digital media for Georgia Aquarium, Rosie Judd, saw the UBX as a way of addressing the issue of collecting and analysing customer data at scale.

“On a daily basis, our marketing systems process countless customer data points, including visitor preferences on exhibits and special events,” she said. “This is ultimately helping small marketing teams such as Georgia Aquarium’s, be more efficient and stay focused on customer-centric campaigns that deliver memorable experiences.”

MediaMath said integration between its TerminalOne ad tech platform, and IBM’s marketing automation, engagement and digital analytics stack, will allow marketers to increase conversions with offers tailored to individual consumers, whether online or in store.

“We see the opportunity in connecting advertiser data to other channels to create more timely and relevant interactions,” said MediaMath’s president of commercial, Mike Lamb. “UBX represents a major step towards true customer-centric marketing and we are thrilled that IBM shares our vision.”

Mobile marketing and mobile wallet solutions vendor, Vibes, said joining IBM’s UBX allowed marketers to gain greater visibility into key data for mobile marketing campaigns.

Key capabilities thanks to the partnership include connecting website and ecommerce behavioural data with all mobile marketing touchpoints, leveraging email insights from IBM’s marketing cloud to better communicate with customers via mobile as well as provide more targeted mobile wallet offers, and better management of push notifications based on customer data.

For example, if a customer abandons their online shopping cart, an alert is automatically sent to UBX, where Vibes is ‘listening’ to these events, the vendor said. If the customer is a member of the retailer’s SMS text database, Vibes can be used to send a tailored text message encouraging them to complete a transaction, as well as provide a unique mobile coupon.

“With UBX, marketers can drive revenue using innovative mobile marketing channels while also connecting mobile to all other digital marketing events,” said Vibes CEO, Jack Philbin. “UBX is cracking the code on big data applied to the marketing cloud, and we’re thrilled to be a part of this emerging ecosystem.”

The partnership between IBM and RocketFuel, meanwhile, will allow IBM customers to use RocketFuel’s DMP and DSP capabilities to leverage first-party data through paid media channels, as well as target anonymised users within the digital advertising ecosystem.

According to RocketFuel, the combination creates a “virtuous loop” in which marketers’ first-party IBM data can be tapped for digital ad campaigns, then used to update customer insights within the marketing cloud.

“The challenge marketers face today is the ability to deliver at scale customer experiences that are timely and relevant,” said IBM Commerce general manager, Deepak Advani. “Today’s launch is addressing this by removing a key pain point for marketers around data integration to free them up to deliver the more innovative and meaningful experiences that consumers demand.”

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