• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 2, 2010

Omniture and Facebook will announce a deal Wednesday that turns the social network into an online marketing channel, complete with technology tools, audience segments and best practices.

Initially, the two companies will focus on the ability to automate Facebook media buying and access analytics that measure customer engagement. The partnership builds on Facebook analytic features the companies announced last year to help marketers join the conversation, rather than interrupt the experience.

This alliance is intended to help companies integrate Facebook as a marketing channel, connecting to relevant conversations with the site's more than 400 million active users. Facebook climbed to the No. 2 spot in the U.S. with 133 million viewers behind Google, according to Compete. These numbers drive more marketers to understand the impact and return on investment in Facebook.

Dan Rose, Facebook's vice president of business development and monetization, says Omniture developed an immersive toolset accessible through one dashboard to help marketers identify the value of Facebook advertising campaigns.

Omniture will identify members based on Facebook audience segments. High-value members have a preference for luxury brands. Knowing this, marketers that want to target this segment with luxury products might have more success converting the ads into sales. "It's a closed-loop system, so you can always look at the analytics to see how the campaign performed," says Aseem Chandra, vice president of product marketing at Omniture, an Adobe company.

Facebook will allow advertisers to buy the media through Omniture tools. Through the tools, advertisers can also track how the campaign performs. Tools like SearchCenter Plus, that combine search engine marketing application with functions that allow marketers to purchase Facebook ads and compare campaigns.

The analytics and optimization tool enables marketers to see the opportunity to build and reward customer loyalty on Facebook. The platform generates reports specifically designed to understand ad effectiveness for some of the unique elements from Facebook Pages.

The deal has not been without challenges. Chandra points to lack of supporting proof that Facebook provides marketers with -- and advertises -- an alternative ad platform. Many have that gut feeling, but lack the numbers to get buy-in from C-level executives who control the budget. "A lot of what we do next will determine the feedback from the market," he says.

Although the companies chose to announce the partnership, the tools and the marketing guidance supported through Omniture's consulting team will not become available until later this year.

Omniture also will announce today an expanded version of its Online Marketing Suite, an integrated suite of applications and services that enables marketers to take control of data to optimize ad spend and conversions. The suite aims to help marketers create "relevant, personalized experiences for their customers," says Chandra.

The suite comes with display advertising optimization tools, and mobile and online analytics enhancements, along with the suite of features from measurement tools, to comScore integration.