Trimming the Walled Gardens

The piece argues that the logged-in internet is overtaking the open web as the advertising arena, with the trend described as trimming the walled gardens. It notes that content experiences are increasingly open to advertising and that the industry is moving away from a purely open-web mindset toward environments where advertisers gain access through logged-in ecosystems. The author highlights that approximately half of major walled gardens now allow third-party demand, and that Spotify serves as a poster child for trimmed gardens by maintaining its own ad stack while making inventory available on major DSPs and integrating identity graphs from LiveRamp and UID2. Brand safety remains integrated across platforms, with IAS and DV accepted widely. Despite these shifts, Meta remains the largest budget item for many marketers, and the guidance suggests focusing on first-party data and programmatic buying without labeling the shift as the open web.