IBM To The Rescue, Tech Giant Brings Focus On Results To Marketing Communications

IBM is using its information technology and consulting prowess to get into the marketing services business.

According to Ad Age, IBM’s “Smarter Commerce” initiative links its 2010 acquisitions Coremetrics, a web-analytics firm; Unica, an interactive-campaign-management firm; and Sterling Commerce, a retail-systems and analytics company in a rollup of web analytics, consumer behavioral data, store data and consumer research.

The Smarter Commerce practice will analyze everything from social-media buzz to what time of day consumers buy which products to marketing-campaign effectiveness. It also aims to provide automated personalized shopping experiences, marketing and promotions.

Focusing heavily on the digital-marketing-to-retail link makes increasing sense, according to IBM, because 70% of a customer’s first interaction with a product or service now takes place online and 64% of customers across all businesses now make a first purchase because of a digital experience.