The European Commission has imposed a €2.95 billion fine on Google after finding that the company holds a dominant position in the digital advertising technology market. The investigation revealed that Google’s tools – DoubleClick, Google Ads and DV360 – were used in a way that gave preferential treatment to its own AdX exchange, affecting competitive conditions in the advertising ecosystem. Since the Commission’s decision is also likely to influence future developments in digital advertising in Slovenia, Marketing Magazin sought the opinions of local experts on its implications for the domestic market.

At the Weekend Media Festival in Rovinj, Aleš Popič, Head of Marketing Communications at SPAR Slovenia, and Žiga Komac, Chief Revenue Officer at iPROM, talked about the SPAR Tailormade project. The discussion focused on how advertising can transform loyalty programs into platforms for building new customer relationships and driving retailer growth. Using a concrete example, the speakers demonstrated how enriched first-party data, proprietary technological infrastructure, and artificial intelligence can redefine the relationship between retailer and customer.

At the Superbrands Club event, Miloš Suša, Head of Digital Media Specialists at iPROM, spoke about moving beyond the traditional understanding of digital advertising measurability. He emphasized that advertisers usually focus on indicators such as clicks, conversion rates, or return on ad spend, even though these reflect only a small part of user behaviour. As much as 99 percent of ad impressions do not result in a click, which makes the question of how to measure their impact on the brand essential to understanding the overall value of advertising activities.

In the September issue of Marketing magazin, Simon Cetin, founder and head of Retoba Laboratory as well as co-founder and partner at iPROM, reflected in his column on the role of personalized artificial intelligence, which he describes as our “other self.” This concept refers to a digital twin trained on an individual’s “professional DNA” – their decisions, values, language, and knowledge – capable of reasoning, writing, and performing tasks on their behalf.

In today’s digital landscape, user attention has become one of the rarest and most valuable currencies, measured in just seconds. In this brief window, advertisers make a series of micro-decisions: which content to select, when to display it, and through which channel to deliver it. The shift from static, one-way advertising campaigns to dynamic, multi-channel, data-driven campaigns delivered in real time has become an essential part of modern marketing.
The importance of this transformation was also highlighted in an analytical article by consulting company McKinsey Unlocking the next frontier of personalized marketing. In it, the authors emphasize that the success of digital campaigns increasingly depends on a brand’s ability to reach users with the right message at the right moment. Personalized and timely offers are not merely an upgrade of existing practices but are becoming a sustainable competitive advantage.

In the first part of this article, I wrote about how SPAR Slovenia placed the SPAR Plus loyalty program and first-party customer data at the heart of its media strategy, enabling the expansion of personalized offers to more than one million user profiles. In this instalment, I will explain why SPAR Slovenia decided to build its own advertising infrastructure and which technological solutions enable real-time micro-segmentation and personalization.

In the digital world, where user attention is fragmented and competition is only a click away, the most important factor is no longer who advertises louder, but who understands the user better and addresses their needs effectively at the right moment. Data, especially that which companies collect directly from their customers (so-called first-party data), has become the foundation of trust and relevant communication. Particularly valuable are data gathered through loyalty programs, which are now becoming a central pillar of advertising and media strategies.

Since 2018, Marketing magazin has been presenting the award Zlati likalnik at the DIGGIT conference to individuals for their contributions to the Slovenian digital landscape. In seven years, these awards become a significant professional benchmark. In its July–August issue, the Marketing magazin editorial team presented this year’s recipient and looked back and spoke with previous winners, including Simon Cetin, founder and partner at iPROM, who received the award in 2019.

In its July–August issue, Marketing Magazin featured a best practice case study on Ljubljana Airport FLY, an advanced digital advertising platform developed by iPROM in collaboration with Fraport Slovenija. The solution is based on the use of artificial intelligence and first-party data, enabling real-time automated ad optimization. By integrating reinforcement learning and behavioral microsegmentation, the platform increased conversions by over 30% while reducing the cost per conversion by nearly a third. The project was awarded both the Golden and Grand DIGGIT Awards for innovative use of data and advertising effectiveness.

A new chapter is opening in the world of digital advertising. Success is no longer just about running campaigns effectively. While these remain important, the real difference increasingly lies in a company’s ability to understand advertising as a complete system. By 2025, the focus will be on seeing advertising as an integrated structure that combines business objectives, data, communication channels, and technology into a single, coherent platform. While advertising campaigns still hold value, they are most powerful when they are embedded in a broader, strategically designed approach. Fraport Slovenia is already implementing this approach. The company is focusing on building systems that ensure the resilience, scalability, flexibility, and long-term impact of its advertising activities.