Abstract
The Romanian digital advertising market is growing at a rapid pace. However, it remains opaque and poorly regulated. The study uses data collected over the last 15 years by the main Romanian professional associations to analyze its functioning, offering a valuable insight into the workings of both ends of the market: advertisers, representing demand, and publishers, representing supply. It also delves into the workings of market intermediaries, the big AdTech platforms that connect offer and demand, creating the marketplace, namely Google and Meta. Our research reveals that the Romanian online advertising market operates in a sub-optimal way, giving certain players disproportionate market power. This imbalance threatens free competition and calls into question the fair distribution of value among participants. The current market structure is particularly detrimental to Romanian digital media and could jeopardize the business model of local publishers.