• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, May 25, 2016

Ensighten, an enterprise tag management provider, envisions a world where its clients can pull in many different kinds of first- and third-party personalized targeted advertising data. It may have achieved that goal by signing a partnership  with IBM to integrate with Big Blue's Universal Behavior Exchange (UBX).

The deal opens data collection for IBM’s Marketing Cloud by providing additional data sources to both company's clients by moving past a "walled garden" to a first- and third-party data integration approach. Ensighten VP of Marketing Erik Bratt said Ensighten can port mobile and Web data into IBM's marketing cloud through an integration with UBX, which is designed to exchange data between commonly used marketing platforms.

UBX is a cloud-based exchange of individual behavioral data between systems. IBM customers gain more than 1,100 tag integrations, plus data from unlimited Web and mobile data sources, such as Adobe, Google, and Salesforce. Clients also will have an option to integrate data from digital advertising, online video, beacons, and other devices that have an IP address linked through the Internet of Things (IoT).

Ensighten has a pixel that allows advertisers to collect and port data from banner ads, kiosks and smart watches through technology Bratt calls "Pulse," which tracks impressions and user interactions. For example, the smart watch app fires off a pixel to connect the person with the device and the advertisement.

In another example, United Airlines has kiosks in airports. The traveler signs in, images and text render in the kiosk, and Ensighten's tag can connect the consumer's behavior and interactions. Advertisers will use the data to retarget across devices by pieces together the different interactions across channels.