For more than a decade, walled gardens have been a certainty for brands and advertisers: a large number of users willing to spend a large part of their time online, high personalisation capacity of the content offer and the ability to target their audience, thanks to an in-depth knowledge of data, personal information and interests.
All this translated into the possibility of creating effective and high-performance advertising campaigns, so much so that on average, the most significant budgets were invested on these channels, even for campaigns with conversion targets.
But, for some years now, the situation has changed. The walled gardens are gradually losing appeal in the face of an open web that is instead gaining ground, showing itself to be more responsive to the evolution of privacy regulations, technological advances and user expectations.
But let us proceed in order and before we get to understand the change taking place, let’s start with the basics.
Walled gardens: what are they?
The term ‘walled garden’ is used to define closed ecosystems in which data, content and user interactions are confined within the platforms themselves.
Meta, Amazon, Google, TikTok: it is enough to refer to some of the big players in this category to understand the characteristics of these systems.
Here, the proprietary companies choose which information, services or products to show users and all interactions take place within a controlled environment.
All of this, as we have anticipated, allows for very precise and centralised data collection: every click, display of a product, interaction with a content or advertisement is tracked, providing a rich source of information on user behaviour.
With all the data collected, it is possible to create detailed user profiles to be used for profiled target audiences to be reached with targeted advertisements, thus increasing the effectiveness of one’s own advertising campaigns.
It is therefore no coincidence that, as eMarketer reports, Meta and Google were the destination of more than 60 per cent of global advertising expenditure in 2023.
Advanced profiling by means of first-party data, but that’s not all: let’s start with a significant figure to introduce some less positive aspects concerning walled gardens.
According to Statista, in 2014 walled gardens occupied 62% of the time spent online in the US by adult audiences, a percentage that has dropped to 39% by 2023.
This figure is significant of a progressive disinterest of the public in the use of walled gardens. The reason for this is certainly attributable not only to a progressive loss of interest in the proposed content, but also to the growing interest of users in their own privacy.
One of the less transparent aspects of walled gardens concerns the management of data itself. Users have little control over proprietary data and how it is used: the process by which each company manages data is considered proprietary.
Moreover, most platforms only allow advertisers to see aggregated metrics, which leads to problems with the transparency of performance itself.
Open web: the increasingly ‘real’ alternative to walled gardens
Precisely on this last point concerning the transparency of walled gardens, the open web is reinforcing its position as an effective channel for advertising campaigns. The term ‘open web’ refers to the Internet ecosystem in which data and information are accessible without restriction. This includes websites, apps, digital properties where content can be shared and contributed by anyone and which do not refer to big players in the tech sector.
Recent studies conducted on clusters of American consumers report that over 48% of them are more interested in spending more than an hour browsing resources on the open web, while only 30% are more interested in walled gardens.
The combination of free, quality content, coupled with an increasing focus of non-walled garden sites on privacy is winning over more and more users, and consequently, attracting the attention of brands and advertisers.
Accelerating the process is the evolution of technology and the presence on the market of increasingly high-performance platforms, such as Blendee, which allow advanced profiling activities even in open environments thanks to:
- identity resolution processes
- first-party data enhancement processes on corporate properties;
- data enrichment and data collaboration activities;
- contextual targeting and advertising.
Walled Garden and Open Web: what future?
The advertising industry is getting us used to really sudden changes of perspective and contexts where models and approaches do not necessarily have to be alternatives.
This is precisely the case with walled gardens and the open web as channels on which to convey our advertising campaigns.
Combining advertising activities on Meta with programmatic advertising activities on other channels of the open web allows the strengths of both ‘ecosystems’ to be exploited. This integrated approach helps you reach a wider audience and engage your audience more effectively.
Brands and companies can no longer afford fragmented strategies and tactics: all activities must be able to work together efficiently, supported by technology solutions that collect and normalise data from multiple sources and touchpoints to create detailed customer profiles from which to build larger target audiences, even with the help of second and third-party data, while fully respecting user privacy.
