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How Ecommerce Brands Are Finding Customers During A Tempest Of Headwinds

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Rok Hladnik CEO and Founder

Americans are dealing with tumultuous change at the moment.

I know it.

But consider the situation for a Slovenian ecommerce ad agency, navigating the same tariff craziness, as well as the flood of Temu advertisements that are being pulled from the US market. And that’s not to mention the platform AI solutions all looking to replace human agency services. Oh, and Meta’s ad platform for humans has gone haywire.

In this week’s episode, AdExchanger sits down with Rok Hladnik, founder and CEO of Flat Circle, a performance marketing specialist that works primarily with DTC brands on the major social platforms and post-purchase channels, like email and SMS.

Based in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, Flat Circle came to be in 2019, following months of Hladnik’s own tinkering with the then-Facebook ad platform. At the time, he was CEO of the regional newspaper Primorske novice and was looking into potential social distribution. He enjoyed the ability to test and learn and to understand customers or readers at a granular level.

“The dopamine boost that you got five years ago, when the data was appearing in the ad account instantly,” Hladnik reminisced.

Would any of that magic still exist if a young Hladnik began tinkering with the Meta platform?

Unfortunately, definitely not.

Meta remains the biggest and de facto channel for online customer acquisition, though.

Also this episode: How specialist agencies and advertising consultants are thinking about agentic AI coming for their jobs, where Temu crap goes without the American market and the prospects for social-based DTC brands.

For more articles featuring Rok Hladnik, click here.

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