The digital media in its late twenties has matured over the period, as a human does. The journey that began with accumulating followers, likes, reach, impressions, views has now evolved to conversions and commerce. The big four – Meta, Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, have though extremely different in their DNA have been the talk of the town amongst the brands. Is it only brands? No! The media consumers like us have over time become content consuming juggernauts from these four. These four taught us how to connect with the lost friends, be in touch with each other as we moved cities / countries to build our careers, and finding new relationships. They came to our rescue when we were down with self-doubt. They eased our shopping experiences and helped us grow in our professional lives. Its difficult to imagine a day without these four. Right from the dawn till late night, we are spending our valuable time on these platforms to derive comfort, joy, build relationships or discussing an important business pitch.

These walled gardens as they are often referred to have, provided good alternate media platform for the brands to engage with their existing and potential customers. In the last three decades the advertising budgets have shifted heavily from the traditional media to the digital media platforms. As of 2026, even a traditional brand spends close to 50% on digital media, while some new age brands are digital-first with spends over 80% on digital media.

The media agencies also evolved over these years, equipped themselves with digital knowledge and started suggesting these walled-gardens to the brands. Everyone (the big four, brands, agencies) was happy. Then entered the tribe of ‘influencers’, the digital version of erstwhile brand ambassadors whom we had watched on television, newspaper and OOH for years. Anyone with a good following on Meta, Google or LinkedIn was perceived to be influencer of the respective product category. Influencers also sharpened their positioning and became topical influencers based on their subject expertise or work experience. The influencer agencies cropped up, who helped brands in finding influencers, negotiating deals, managing campaigns. The value chain was limited to find, negotiate and execute.

The walled-gardens realized the gap here. Gradually, each one of them have rolled out their respective Creator Programs. These Creator Programs are aimed at onboarding influencers to their own platforms and leverage their reach not just for branding, but also for commerce. Let’s take a quick look at what these Creator Programs are aimed at –

  1. Amazon – It aims to build a strong creator/influencer ecosystem, has launched a Creator University. The upskilling of creators is expected to drive higher commerce for the platform.
  2. LinkedIn – It aims to build a strong professional authority of the creators, attract audience and influence their decisions. There is very little scope for commerce here, but LinkedIn aims to strengthen its creator-led professional media.
  3. Meta – The program called as ‘Creator Fast Track’, is aimed at bringing creators to one platform, provide them extended reach and guaranteed pay. Meta aims to attract creators who are currently very active on competing platforms like YouTube.
  4. Google – YouTube Creator Partnerships along with expanded Shopping feature was an icing on cake for the existing YouTube creators and also attract a few more to join the bandwagon. It was a win-win situation for YouTube creators and brands. The creators were monetized and brands could find a marketplace of creators in one place, who would push the commerce.

The entire ecosystem has evolved. Who is going to benefit the most from these developments? Are brands going to benefit the most? Will the walled-gardens drive more revenues through these partnerships? Will it be beneficial for the content creators? Also, there are a section of industry professionals who feel the influencer marketing agencies will find it difficult to survive.

In my opinion, following could be the scenarios for each of the stakeholder –

  • Influencer Marketing Agencies – They will have to heavylift the conversation between the brand, influencer and the platform. Moving on from just identifying the influencers, negotiating rates, they have to now own the end-to-end value chain including creator strategy, creator selection, content / IP development, community strategy, paid amplification, attribution and business outcome.
  • Walled-gardens – Their pitch has to move on from efficient targeting, ROAS to quality pool of influencers, better attribution and increased commercial value. On the supply side, they will have to sweeten the proposition for influencers to join their partnership instead of the competition.
  • Brands – It would be a respite for brands to not have separate media strategy and influencer marketing strategy. The combined one-stop destination approach will be easier to navigate and have better attribution to the commerce, ROAS, LTV and so on.
  • Consumers – They will be receiving more opinionated content from the influencers. As the influencers monetization and competitive relevance within the creator partnership will depend on the ROAS and volumes they drive, consumers can expect better recommendations to come from influencers.

The shift in the digital media platforms operating model and focus from just media inventories to commerce driven deliverables is the next leap.

There is something for everyone from this new pie and till will say who benefits the most.