A walled garden refers to a closed ecosystem: a platform that only provides limited access to external apps, websites, or other external services. Examples of walled gardens include social media platforms like Facebook, search engines like Google, or eCommerce platforms like Amazon. Walled gardens are designed to keep users on-platform, which provides the company more control over the user experience and maximizes revenue from customers and users, as well as advertisers that want access to the users and data.
As Advertify highlights:
Walled gardens make up the vast majority of digital advertising opportunities within the publishing landscape. In fact, last year, Google, Meta, and Amazon took home 74% market share of all digital ad spend — and that number is expected to be even higher in Europe because of GDPR.
Walled gardens can be beneficial for users and platform owners, although they can pose challenges for marketers and advertisers without the right tools.