Since its birth and the general opening to the masses in the ’90, the Internet has changed the world we live in. We have come so far that we can no longer imagine this world or our daily lives without the access to Internet. It has changed the way we live, the way we study, the way we have fun, the way we cook, the way we learn or hunt for jobs and, of course, the way we shop. The global ecommerce market has skyrocketed in the past few years, reaching an unimaginable $1,700 billion (statista.com). Is there even such a number??

Following the US and China, Europe is the next incredibly big E-commerce market. Even though, as expected, Western Europe is holding the lead, Central and Eastern Europe is doing a pretty good job in keeping up with the big players.

E-commerce has generated an immense adjoining industry – from shipping, online payments to other marketing services. One of the marketing channels that has been and still is used by Amazon.com – the world’s biggest E-commerce player, is affiliate marketing. It has also been introduced and largely embraced in the European market and has been seen as a game changer in the industry.

How does affiliate marketing work?

The concept is pretty simple: online marketers or publishers (affiliates) are promoting the stores’ products and they are paid by the latter a percent of each sale they are generating. The webshops (also known as advertisers) are buying sales for a price they set out. The affiliates have the job to make those sales happen.
The easiest way to do this for both sides is to have access to an affiliate marketing platform that accommodates them both and that offers the required technology for the tools and tracking methods, and monitors that the rules of the game are respected.

Marketing democracy is here

2Performant Network is one of the young but bold players in the Central and Eastern Europe that promotes marketing democracy: a place where everyone’s given equal chances, be it a big or a small advertiser, a blogger, an email marketing or a pay-per-click specialist.
One of the issues that most advertisers face when it comes to marketing is the lack of control over the channel. 2Performant decided to change that and it turned affiliate marketing into a totally controllable advertising channel. Thus, an advertiser is the almighty master of his own affiliate program:

• He decides the terms and conditions (the rules he wants his affiliates to follow in promoting his business)
• He decides which affiliates to accept and for how long and can also set customized terms/commissions for each one of them.
• He sets the commissions he wants to give and the cookie life
• He decides on what tools to use

The power and ability to control is also given by other features provided by the platform:

• Access to data through clear and valuable statistics. These come in handy for the affiliate manager who needs to know everything about the program – affiliates and results, but it is also offered in a structured manner, through a powerful and well-structured dashboard. The dashboard can always be used for an overview of the program’s performance in the decision making process.
• Affiliate marketing is about performance, but performance can only be achieved through the efforts of a team: the advertiser and its affiliates. That is why communication is the backbone of this channel. The network provides direct communication via its internal messaging system.

2Performant Network has grown out of the biggest affiliate marketing network in the Romanian market: 2Parale. The story of 2Parale set off back in 2009, when it won a start-up competition and received seed money for development. Back then the Romanian E-commerce market was just starting to grow.

The face of Romanian E-commerce Market

Presently the Ecommerce Market in Romania has topped 1.4 billions euro (Gpec.ro), this figure excluding event tickets, plane tickets or travel packages, which, by the way, are all on the rise categories.
Known as one of the countries with a very high Internet speed, there is no wonder Romania has about 11 million Internet users, which is 56% of the country’s population. Out of these, about 6.7 million are online shoppers. The average online customer has made 8.2 purchases in a year and 90% of users opted for paying cash on delivery. The average cart value for domestic orders is 40 euro.

There are approximately 5.000 active online stores in the Romanian market, with over 200 that have at least a 1 million euro annual turnover. The highest sales levels were recorded in the IT&C, Fashion, Home&Deco and Children’s Products categories.
Black Friday has already become a tradition for the Romanian E-commerce. 2015 Black Friday has brought 100 million euro worth of sales in the market.

How it all began and foremost, how it will keep rising

This is the dynamic market where 2Parale grew and developed to be the biggest local affiliate marketing network.
After its first year on the market, in 2010, the lead was taken over by Dorin Boerescu who has managed to increase the turnover 10 times the next year, reaching an 100.000 euro milestone. He continued the ascent and 2011 was a year of expansion for 2Parale who opened up a similar network in Bulgaria – 2Leva. Following an investment round in 2014, the international network – 2Performant was launched in several countries in Central and East Europe.

Before the merger of the 2 platforms, 2Parale has accommodated about 500 advertisers and over 50.000 affiliates. Throughout its history, 197 million clicks and over 1.78 million sales were generated through the network, 0.6 million only in 2015. Up to this date the highest commission ever recorded was of 857 euro for one sale and the most money made in a month by an affiliate was over 60.000 euro.
Elefant.ro, Vola.ro, Orange Romania, Telekom Romania, Vodafone Romania, Avon Romania, Answear.ro, Zoot.ro are only a few of the biggest players that grew their sales through 2Parale network.

On 2015 Black Friday extended weekend 2Parale network recorded 42.000 sales worth 3.5 million euro, with a speed of 37 sales per minute in the first hour of 20th November (00:00 – 01:00).

In 2016 2Parale network is merged with 2Performant Network – the new international affiliate platform that gives advertisers and affiliates a one stop spot for performance marketing.

2Parale’s 1.78 million sales experience has determined the belief that only the win-win partnerships can truly aim for performance. Advertisers are able to migrate their other marketing partners (PPC, email marketing or bloggers) to the platform. This simplifies all the marketing processes, enabling both parts to only focus on their projects and results and forget about the operational, tracking or payment struggles. For instance, none of them should think of means of differentiating new customers from returning ones, because that is what the platform can do to ease up their mission.

For the more expansionist business owners or affiliate managers, a regional network is a good opportunity to test new neighboring markets.

So why not give it a try? Sign up here as an advertiser, if you want your ecommerce business to be promoted or here, if you want to be an affiliate.