As marketers grapple with changes to data privacy legislation and the upcoming deprecation of third-party cookies, it’s becoming increasingly important for advertisers to find reliable ways to reach their audiences. At 4C, we’re seeing brands turning to media channels, such as LinkedIn, where audience data is native to the platform and where highly engaged audiences make for ad campaigns that drive better business outcomes.
These platforms are known as closed ecosystems. We define closed ecosystems as media and tech companies that publish paid content to verified audiences in placements that fit seamlessly into the consumer’s experience for precise, data-driven advertising.
Let’s dig into the three key attributes of a closed ecosystem:
- Verified or authenticated access. Closed ecosystems, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram or other social media platforms, require consumers and advertisers to log in or otherwise be permissioned to interact within the environment. This approach ensures that user-level data is kept within the ecosystem, protecting consumers while allowing brands to surface actionable insights.
- Engaging native ad formats and placements. Native ad formats, such as Sponsored Content on LinkedIn, enable advertisers to advertise in the content of the individual platform. Often this means paying for messaging that appears in the user’s “feed.” By leveraging each platform's individual aspects and context, advertisers hope to capture audience attention with bespoke messaging.
- Precise, data-driven advertising. Closed ecosystems allow marketers to use platform-specific audience data to inform campaigns, to create precise targeting, to optimize to drive better results, and to ultimately measure campaign performance.
Closed ecosystems exist across media channels. In digital advertising, Google, Microsoft, and LinkedIn are widely recognized for their access to actionable audience data. In the TV world, the convergence of traditional linear television and CTV is enabling the large broadcasters to create closed ecosystems of their own and deliver on the benefits of audience-based targeting.
Connecting with consumers on closed ecosystems is key to driving business outcomes. Yet, navigating the different aspects of each platform and their audiences and campaign planning, activation, optimization, and analytics can be difficult to manage, and feel overwhelming.
Interested in learning more about marketing effectively in a closed ecosystem? Join Ty Heath from the LinkedIn B2B Institute and me for a lively conversation on July 29. We’ll be talking about the increase in demand for marketing within closed ecosystems over the last quarter, and steps you can take today to ensure your campaigns are using the best data available. I hope you can join us. Here are details:
Session: Break Through the Noise: Find Your Audience with Data-Driven Advertising
Hosts: Aaron Goldman, CMO at 4C, and Ty Heath, Global Lead of LinkedIn’s B2B Institute
When: July 29th at 11am CDT
Watch the archived version here.
