Walk down George Street or Collins Street and you’ll hear the same refrain in every boardroom: do more with less, justify every dollar, prove every channel. Advertising is no longer just another budget line, it’s a lifeline for growth.

The latest IAB/PwC Internet Advertising Revenue Report shows that Australia’s online advertising market grew 11.1% year-on-year in 2024 to reach $16.4 billion, with search and video making up the majority of spend – formats dominated by Google, Meta, and increasingly Amazon.

But here’s the irony: while they absorb the bulk of marketers’ media budgets, Big Tech’s advertising businesses are just fuel for bigger bets, whether that’s AI, retail empires, cloud computing, driverless cars or moonshot projects. Advertising is buried somewhere beneath all that. And therein lies the problem: when advertising isn’t built for your benefit, when it’s a line item on a tech giant’s list, brands and their customers lose.
 

A system of conflicts

Big Tech’s ad model has conflicts. They profit at every stage of the trade – acting as buyer, seller, and auctioneer, like a bank representing both borrower and lender while also setting the terms. The walled gardens runs their own ad exchanges and own the media from YouTube to Prime Video, channelling ad spend back into their own properties.

When brands hand their data to a walled garden, they surrender visibility and control. Without data portability, advertisers can’t compare performance across channels or generate independent insights. And because walled gardens grade their own homework, there’s an absence of independent measurement.
 

The power of independence

There is another path. An independent, demand-side platform has no media assets to push, no retail empire to protect, and no hardware pipeline to subsidise. The focus is singular: helping advertisers buy the most effective ads across the open internet. Every line of code, every investment, every partnership is aligned with maximising the return on advertiser investment. And that independence delivers practical benefits: data flows back to the advertiser rather than a black box. Instead of renting data from Big Tech, advertisers keep full control of their first-party data, direct spend where it drives growth, and gain transparent reporting across channels. It means campaigns run across the breadth of premium environments consumers already trust, not just one fenced backyard.
 

Own your future

We’ve already seen what happens when competition collapses. The ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry revealed how Google and Meta capture the majority of digital ad dollars, starving local publishers and weakening the media ecosystem. When spend bypasses trusted local environments in favour of global tech platforms, it doesn’t just reduce brand effectiveness, it hollows out important open internet channels such as journalism that advertisers rely on to connect with consumers in credible spaces.

Yet many brands retain their media investments in the walled gardens. Amazon’s cut-price fees or Google’s exclusive access to YouTube may appear safe and convenient, but are advertisers entering into a losing proposition? The hidden cost of a non-objective buying platform is far higher and only becomes clear over time.

Ultimately, it’s like renting your own customers back on terms set by the landlord, with little visibility into what’s driving performance. Investing in walled gardens becomes less about growth and more like paying a tax on customer connections, with little data shared to help grow your business or build relationships beyond their walls.

Brands that continue handing over control in exchange for low-cost media or platform fees are mortgaging tomorrow’s growth for today’s ease. The better path is ownership:

• Own your data, so insights compound rather than vanish.
• Own your strategy, so campaigns align with brand goals, not opaque platform priorities.
• Own your ad spend, so every dollar works as hard as it can.

Stop handing over your future to Big Tech’s agenda. Own your future, so customer relationships and brand equity remain in your hands, ensuring advertising always works in your best interests.