Indonesians spend 55 percent of their time on the open internet vs. walled gardens

With economic uncertainty and advertising costs on the rise, many brands and advertisers are spending more than ever to sustain previous levels of reach and exposure while also adapting to consumers’ evolving digital media habits.

A crucial dilemma for numerous marketers is whether to allocate their campaign funds to the closed ecosystems of social media and search or to the rest of the internet, commonly referred to as the open internet.

Interestingly, a new survey-based report Gateway to the Open Internet, from Kantar and The Trade Desk Intelligence, finds that while the average Indonesian consumer spends half of their time on the open internet (55 percent) versus the walled gardens (45 percent), advertisers surveyed in Asia spend three times more ad dollars on walled gardens (78 percent), such as Alphabet and Meta, than they do on the open internet (22 percent).

The survey involved 1,000 Indonesian respondents ages 16 to 65 years old who have used at least two ad-supported media channels in the past three months, and the data was collected in September 2022. The research is based on consumers’ digital consumption and supplemented by interviews with leading agencies and marketers in Indonesia and across Asia.