Tom Fishburne's latest cartoon is titled “Walled Garden”.
In his blog post, he wrote that last year, Google, Meta, and Amazon accounted for 74% of global digital ad spend, and 47% of all money spent on advertising. That’s up from 67% and 37% the previous year.
Beyond these largest walled gardens, retailers like Walmart, publishers like the NYT, and other platforms are all doubling down on first-party data to erect their own. With iOS privacy changes and the loss of third-party cookies, the value of walled gardens is going up.
“Walled gardens” as a business concept is described as a closed tech ecosystem which is now common in the ad tech world. In 2015, Facebook Instant Articles introduced me to the word. Instant Articles - is a program that natively hosts publishers’ content in its app’s News Feed so users don’t have to click out and wait for websites to load.
It launched with rich-media stories from The New York Times, BuzzFeed, National Geographic, and six other outlets that will be globally visible from Facebook’s iPhone app.
These were the days when Facebook ad sales experts were selling likes and engagement to the publishing world. Built to appeal to the publishers the move initially was glamorous but failed when publishers started missing the ad money that Google had been providing them for years.
In other words, Facebook wanted to eat the ad dollars of Google.
Walled gardens is once again making a comeback. Majorly for two reasons:
The emergence and the growing importance of first-party data
And owning a greater market share
The importance of first-party data has been the talk for the last few years. After making millions of dollars from the cookies we are now preaching of cookie-less world.
Google is removing third-party cookies by 2023 and we are entering the world of an improved version of cookies - Unified ID 2.0
For Rose Keen of Econsultancy: First-party data is a bit like getting regular exercise or eating a balanced diet. We have long accepted its importance, but the pandemic has thrown the need for it into even sharper relief.
Many companies will have already started taking action to collect and, importantly, act on their customer data but 2022 will see this ramped up. Those not paying attention to their first-party data strategy are neglecting a critical asset. Data ownership will be front of mind, with many brands moving towards the in-housing of more of their data and digital capabilities; collaborating with, rather than relying so heavily on, their agencies.”
For the auto brand, Kia's emphasis on first-party data is helping it become a more customer-centric company. “Being customer-centric means getting the value exchange with customers right.”
In parallel to working with dealers, we are also testing capabilities to engage people on our own channels so we can increase the value customers get out of their shopping experience with Kia.
We also use signals from online car configuration simulators and other e-commerce features to understand what customers want in a dream car and to tailor their UX experience on our website. These efforts help us capture the right customer signals and deliver better purchase triggers. It also motivates customers to log in and shop for their next car with us.
Ïn India 71% of organisations use a blend of first-party (1P) and third-party (3P) data for marketing.
While the road towards first-party data is a long and hard one; organisations have started giving importance to consumer choices and one of the ways is trying to keep them in their walled gardens and know them better.
Automation is also driving the path toward the walled garden concept.
Google thinks that for brands the challenge of reaching people effectively across myriad customer journeys and meeting their expectations. It’s why those ahead of the curve are turning to marketing automation to grow their e-commerce business.
Savvy brands across APAC are maximizing the power of marketing automation by using Performance Max. It consolidates all your performance advertising activity into a single campaign that runs across Google channels, including Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. And by connecting your Performance Max campaign with your Google Merchant Center feed, you can also surface your storefront to people when they are browsing and most interested in making purchases.
Brands that have used Performance Max campaigns see an average increase of 13% in total incremental conversions at a similar cost per action.
Meta is also making rampant changes to its world of ads. Meta Advantage Ad Suite is one of the latest examples where the social networking giant is simplifying quite a few things for marketers via automation.
There are features that save you time but at the same time, you are left in dark without much clarity. For example, now that detailed targeting is out of the picture Facebook provides you with a small feature in the targeting to expand your audience. Whenever Facebook feels that the cost is increasing and the audience needs to be broad it will expand on its knowledge. It has worked for me in an existing campaign but I don’t know what is the targeting for this extra 10-15% audience.
Facebook says that it will only do it if the costs are low. Would you worry? Not now.
John Loomer thinks that Facebook’s road to automation is less controlled and will be a concern as it provides a lack of transparency. He does make a point but Facebook wants to control and own the data.
Detailed targeting was the backbone of the Facebook advertising world but being open has also come at a cost. Not just Facebook - Apple, Google, Amazon and publishers, who have the money are building their walls so that they can own and provide less control to users. Automation helps.
This also means less market share to your competitors. Apple’s privacy changes wiped out roughly Facebook’s $200 billion in market value.
Now ad tracking will happen in the name of personalisation in a walled garden.
Privacy is a myth on Intenet. So what value do you provide in exchange for personal details?
Marketers will need to be innovative.
I hadn't thought that would be so much depth to facebook's walled gardens and now how others are following suite.
thanks to you I was proven wrong