• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, February 10, 2015

Strengthening its agency ties, Facebook’s Atlas unit and Merkle are expected to announce a partnership on Tuesday.

Merkle’s wealth of customer relationship marketing (CRM) data makes it the perfect fit for Altas’ platform, according to Megan Pagliuca, general manager and vice president of digital media at Merkle.

“First-party CRM data is the starting point for advanced media targeting and measurement,” Pagliuca said on Monday. Merkle is also a proponent of Atlas’s “people-based” marketing model, which prioritizes smarter targeting over sheer scale.

The alliance follows a similar pact between Facebook’s ad targeting and measurement platform and Havas Media Group, which was announced last month.

Last year, Facebook re-engineered Atlas so it could serve and track advertising on Web sites beyond its own walls -- a move that was expected to help it grab an even larger piece of the digital ad market.

Since the relaunch, JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth said that the move resulted in increased ad activity from auto and CPG brands, including Mercedes-Benz, Acura, BMW, Lays and Kellogg’s.

Thanks partly to Atlas, Facebook’s ad business continues to surpass analyst estimates.

Late last month, the search giant reported fourth-quarter earnings of 54 cents per share -- up 69% from 31 cents a share year-over-year. Revenue for the quarter increased 49% to $3.85 billion from $2.59 billion during the same period last year.

Ad revenue -- of which mobile now represents a whopping 69% -- was up 54% to $3.59 billion during the quarter. (During the fourth quarter of 2013, mobile made up 53% of total ad revenue.) Big agencies' partnerships should help Facebook maintain its ad growth -- so long as the social giant can deliver on its promise of superior targeting and measurement.

By its own count, Merkle presently manages 3.7 billion first-party customer relationship marketing (CRM) data records.