The Demise of Third-Party Cookies: The Rise of Walled Gardens and ARM
Author:
Christopher Greco
Category
TRENDS
This article explores the rise of walled gardens and Advertising Resource Management (ARM) platforms, a category of software solutions that promises to help advertisers manage their campaigns across any number of platforms and media - including multiple walled gardens.

On June 24, 2021, Google announced it would phase-out third-party cookies from Google Chrome, a move that had been anticipated by the industry for years. The decision has had a profound impact on the digital advertising landscape, particularly on targeting and measurement. With the forced unavailability of third-party cookies, advertisers have been forced to look for alternatives, and many have turned to walled gardens as a means of accessing first-party data to target their audience. In this article, we will explore the rise of walled gardens and Advertising Resource Management (ARM) platforms, a category of software solutions that promises to help advertisers manage their campaigns across any number of platforms and media - including multiple walled gardens.

Walled Gardens: The New Frontier

Walled gardens are closed ecosystems where users engage with a platform and its content, and where the platform has complete control over the data that is generated. Examples of walled gardens include social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, as well as e-commerce platforms like Amazon. With the demise of third-party cookies, advertisers have turned to walled gardens as a means of accessing first-party data to target their audience. 

This approach has several advantages, including:

  • Access to first-party data: Walled gardens have access to vast amounts of first-party data, which advertisers can use to target their audience more effectively. This data includes information about user behavior, interests, demographics, and more.
  • Better targeting: By using first-party data, advertisers can target their audience more accurately, increasing the likelihood of conversion
  • More control: Walled gardens offer advertisers more control over their campaigns, allowing them to optimize their targeting and messaging more effectively.

However, there are also several challenges associated with walled gardens. For one, each walled garden operates on its own terms, with its own rules, metrics, and reporting mechanisms. This can make it difficult for advertisers to manage their campaigns effectively across multiple platforms. Additionally, because walled gardens are closed ecosystems, there is a risk of over-reliance on a single platform, which can be detrimental if that platform changes its policies or algorithms.

Introducing Advertising Resource Management: A Unified Solution

To address the challenges associated with managing campaigns across multiple walled gardens, advertisers can turn to MINT ARM, a platform that provides a unified solution. ARM stands for Advertising Resource Management, and it is designed to help advertisers manage their campaigns across multiple platforms from a single interface. 

Some of the benefits of ARM include:

  • Unified reporting: ARM provides unified reporting across multiple heterogeneous platforms, giving advertisers a bird's eye view of their campaigns. This makes it easier to identify what's working and what's not, and to optimize campaigns accordingly.
  • Cross-platform cookie-less optimization: With ARM, advertisers can optimize their campaigns across multiple platforms, ensuring they push the walled garden, platform, or media that works best as often as needed. This approach can help advertisers get the most out of their campaigns, regardless of the platform or its targeting method.
  • Improved efficiency: By using a single platform to manage campaigns across multiple walled gardens, advertisers can save time and resources, improving overall efficiency whilst empowering the team with readily-available data.
  • Building Advertising Equity: teams often miss out on crucial information simply because they can't get access to it quickly enough. Building an advertising equity based on all data from an advertiser's campaigns ensures that any test, any result, and any configuration is stored and easily accessible.
  • Post-cookie readiness: As the industry moves away from cookies, ARM promises to provide a solution that will work with or without cookies, ensuring advertisers are prepared for the future of digital advertising.

Conclusion

In summary, the demise of third-party cookies has prompted a significant shift in the way advertisers target and measure their campaigns. Walled gardens have emerged as an alternative, giving advertisers the ability to access first-party data and have better targeting and more control over campaigns. However, the challenges of managing campaigns across multiple platforms from different walled gardens have arisen, leading to the development of Advertising Resource Management (ARM) platforms.

ARM platforms like MINT provide advertisers with a unified solution for managing campaigns across multiple platforms, offering benefits such as unified reporting, cross-platform optimization, improved efficiency, and post-cookie readiness. With these benefits, ARM platforms help advertisers navigate the changing landscape of digital advertising effectively. By providing a centralized platform, ARM empowers advertisers to optimize campaigns more effectively, giving them greater control over their messaging, targeting, and overall performance.

In addition to the advantages mentioned, ARM can help advertisers build information assets, which ensures that all data from their campaigns is stored and easily accessible. This asset is especially useful for teams that often miss out on crucial information because they can't access it quickly enough. By providing readily-available data, ARM empowers teams to test and optimize campaigns more effectively.

As we move away from cookies, ARM's post-cookie readiness ensures advertisers are prepared for the future of digital advertising by enabling them to adapt quickly to any changes in the industry, ensuring they can continue to target their audience effectively while complying with the latest privacy regulations.

In conclusion, the digital advertising industry has undergone significant changes due to the demise of third-party cookies. Walled gardens and ARM platforms have emerged as viable solutions for advertisers, providing greater control and more targeted advertising campaigns. As the industry continues to evolve, it is clear that ARM platforms will play a crucial role in helping advertisers navigate the changing landscape of digital advertising.