• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, April 17, 2014

Kenshoo, known for predictive media optimization technology, said Thursday it will link-up with IBM to deliver search marketing campaign management to clients, such as Bizgnition, which provides consulting services to private and government agencies.

IBM has been a longtime partner of Bizgnition, per owner Ken Tola. He said the company began using Kenshoo services to manage its clients' paid search campaigns after an introduction through IBM.

Jay Henderson, IBM strategy director, views Kenshoo as a leader in paid search marketing for its automated workflow and bid management tools. He said the company proved its technology can manage, automate and deliver search engine marketing campaigns at scale.

IBM and Kenshoo built out their respective platforms to share data, allowing markers to make more informative bid placement decisions by understand performance, Henderson said. IBM has technology to support digital and customer analytics, cross-channel campaign management, digital marketing and execution to personalize Web sites and emails, but IBM doesn't have the technology to support search bid management, he said.

There are 140 technology partners in IBM's marketing partner network, but there is only a couple supporting paid search. Along with Marin Software, Kenshoo takes a spot in the IBM marketing ecosystem supporting search bid management, the pay per click part. There are others focused on search optimization.

Most major companies have elaborate procedures for becoming a certified business partner. Kenshoo earned the right to become a certified IBM business partner. The two companies share relationships with some joint clients, which gives folks at Kenshoo a better understanding of IBM's paid search analytics tools.

Kenshoo has been working to make its services known. Earlier this month, it released a predictive modeling engine called Halogen, designed to work with advanced targeting and bidding algorithms. In , it a partnership with Oracle to support Social Cloud.

The service is part of Oracle's open API-based paid social media service. It provides marketers a view of the interplay between paid, owned and earned social marketing campaigns and the ability to immediately take action on key insights to improve performance.