Reconsidering The Open Web For Your Next Ad Campaign
The open web and walled gardens represent two distinct approaches to the digital advertising landscape. The open web encompasses the vast expanse of the internet that is freely accessible, including websites, blogs, forums, and apps outside the control of dominant platforms. It thrives on interoperability and offers advertisers diverse opportunities to reach audiences across independent publishers and platforms.
In contrast, walled gardens are closed ecosystems controlled by major tech companies. These platforms restrict data and user access, creating tightly managed environments where advertisers leverage proprietary first-party (1P) data and advanced tools. While walled gardens offer convenience, scale, and targeted advertising capabilities, they often come at the cost of transparency and flexibility.
2021 was a pivotal year in digital marketing.
Not only did the iOS privacy changes, implemented in April of that year, greatly impact mobile marketing campaigns and the platforms and solutions used to run those campaigns, but 2021 also marked the low point in the decline of the open web as an advertising platform. Since then:
The open web’s share of U.S. programmatic display advertising has increased from 27.4% to a forecasted 29.2% in 2025.
eMarketer
Though this shift isn’t massive, it’s large enough to help level the playing field for marketers seeking greater data empowerment while providing publishers with a growing revenue stream in digital marketing.
Between 2014 and 2021, platforms—most notably Google, Meta, and later Amazon and TikTok—had a combined digital ad market share that was greater than 50%. In 2022, that dropped to 48.4% (including Amazon and TikTok) and was expected to decrease further to 44.9% in 2023.
While Google and Meta’s ad businesses are still growing, other channels are experiencing greater growth. The return to the open web makes sense. In fact:
Consumers spend 66% of their online time on the open internet.
The Trade Desk
Despite this, only 40% of advertiser budgets are allocated to the open internet. And in the critical commerce category, 73% of online shopping takes place on the open internet.
Why Are Walled Gardens Winning?
Even though users spend most of their time on the open web, walled gardens have several advantages that increase their relative share of online marketing budgets.
- Data: With the changes in data policy and legislation, Google, Meta, Amazon, and TikTok possess a treasure trove of first-party user data, including user engagement data patterns.
- Engagement: While most online time is spent on the open internet, that time is spread across many sites and applications, whereas the leading walled gardens benefit from concentrated user time and the valuable engagement patterns learned from that activity. This provides marketers and agencies with greater campaign scale, making it difficult for them to leave the major platforms and try smaller, less proven channels on the open web that may require more time to manage.
- Resources: The leading walled garden companies have the staffing and budgets to develop and implement advanced solutions utilizing AI technologies like Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage+, which help them win a greater share of marketer budgets.
These advantages have helped the leading walled gardens overcome challenges like historically higher costs, lack of transparency regarding specific ad or creative performance, and the inability to export data to assess cross-channel results.
Judge Mehta’s recent ruling that Google has maintained a monopoly in the search and advertising markets might end up benefiting the walled gardens further. With another case accusing Google of monopolizing digital advertising by controlling both sides of the ad stack in September, the company might decide to appease regulators by offering greater campaign data insights—a common complaint raised by marketers against the platforms. Such a concession would make Google stickier for marketers, though it’s unclear how much they will agree to open their kimono.
Opportunities On The Open Internet
One effective tactic for marketers on the open internet is to partner with complementary marketing organizations. For example, a leading real estate network partnered with a large local media brand to uncover new sets of relevant consumer behaviors and demographics that better informed contextual marketing activations.
With marketers increasingly capturing first-party data following privacy legislation and policy changes by Apple and other walled gardens, there are ways to utilize this first-party data to improve the efficacy of marketing initiatives outside of the walled gardens.
Marketers collecting extensive first-party data should consider integrating a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to effectively store, manage, and use the data to improve targeting and retention. Data Management Platforms (DMPs) can also enable marketers to collect, extend, and centralize data. However, DMPs are typically used for second and third-party (3P) data, which is becoming less common due to privacy concerns.
Beyond managing data and data partnerships with CDPs and DMPs, marketers can also work with Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) via programmatic auctions to secure relevant ad placements on the open internet.
News is an effective way to reach prospects, either via programmatic auctions or by working directly with publishers. Although some marketers are concerned about brand safety when advertising next to quality news content, research has debunked that myth.
Among Gen Z respondents, purchase intent for brands advertising next to quality news items about crime was 67%, compared to 69% for ads placed next to sports content—a traditionally brand-safe environment.
Stagwell
Returning to the aforementioned research conducted by The Trade Desk, when respondents were asked which channels were most associated with premium brand advertising, the top three were:
- Newsletters/blogs (36%)
- Online news magazines (34%)
- Personal interest/entertainment websites (33%).
In the same question, only 21% perceived that social media walled gardens as being aligned with premium brand advertising.
Though there are many benefits to advertising in the social media walled gardens, marketers should take advantage of the plentiful advertising opportunities available on the open web.
