‘Walled gardens’ — not something you might have at the back your house — but a closed platform, such as Google or Facebook, can be a major constraint to organisation data use.

In particular, ‘walled gardens’ restrict how brands evaluate data, with 68% of marketers saying walled gardens do not provide enough data to effectively measure campaigns.

Fenced off

The Sizmek study also found that two-thirds of marketers believe ‘walled gardens’ are a barrier to improving first-party data.

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Many of the respondents agreed that these ‘walled gardens’ do not provide enough insight to make comparisons with other channels or partners. Without having access to cross-site performance data, brands are over exposing their audiences and reducing the ROI from their media spend, according to the report.

“It’s becoming increasingly hard for marketers to navigate a complex digital ecosystem, particularly improving their campaign effectiveness or increasing the efficiency of their media spend,” said Joshua Koran, Managing Director at Sizmek.

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Data ownership

The GDPR is another factor driving the pursuit of data ownership. According to the report, 77% of marketers expect their audience targeting and objective, third-party measurement to be constrained as a result of the new regulation.

To better improve the ROI from their digital media spend, marketers are looking to integrated data management platforms (DMP) and demand-side platform (DSP) systems, with the majority listing integrated technology as either a critical or high priority in the coming year.