Romanian tech: 2Performant’s 2021 in numbers

Newsroom Business, e-Commerce

One year after the listing on the Bucharest Stock Exchange and a successful capital increase operation, the reorganization of the company into two Business Units, but also numerous affiliate campaigns and new partnerships, have all marked the year 2021 for the technology company 2Performant (the leader of the affiliate marketing market in Romania, listed on BSE’s AeRO market – stock symbol 2P).

2Performant is a marketplace based on an in-house developed technology platform through which digital marketing professionals collaborate with online stores. The platform helps these two categories of users discover each other and collaborate on a cost-per-sale basis, providing full contractual and commercial support through technology, but also accurate tracking and allocation of traffic and sales. In 2021, 2Performant brokered 21,300 productive business relationships between 800 online stores from 30 industries and 7,900 affiliates. Productive relationships are defined as relationships where the traffic sent by an affiliate has materialized into a customer who placed an order with an online store.

At the same time, by the beginning of November 2Performant had already surpassed the 1 million threshold for the number of sales generated in 2021, just as many as during the entire previous year, so that by the end of this year estimates show that sales will be in excess of 1.3 million. The result is a spectacular one considering that November is traditionally the month with the most sales of the year due to the Black Friday event.

In the first 11 months of this year, 2Performant.com achieved:

  • 61.2 million clicks, or over 5.5 million per month, which translates into quality traffic sent to online stores;
  • A sales index of almost 16 euros. In other words, on average, in 2021, for every 1 euro invested in affiliate marketing within the 2Performant network, an online store got almost 16 euros back;
  • An average conversion rate of 2.2%;
  • An average value of the shopping cart of 52.92 euros, in an online store, 6.4% higher than during the same period last year;
  • Product categories with the highest number of sales: Fashion with over 318,000 sales, Books Movies & Music with over 284,000 sales, Beauty with over 125,000 sales, Pharma with over 123,000 sales, Electronics IT & C with over 71,000 sales.

Gamification in affiliate marketing and two important competitions in 2021

With over 9 years experience in organizing competitions for affiliates, 2Performant has proposed this year the concept of professional gamification in marketing, a premiere for Romania. The company has organized motivating competitions based on total transparency and public rankings while following affiliate-marketing-specific criteria, such as conversion rate, value of sales generated, or volume of traffic sent.

The latest example is Open World, in which 65 top affiliates became competitors in a race with stages and challenges and with very concrete results. This year’s Open World was a competition with serious business stakes, in which, after 11 weeks, 11.6 million euros in sales had been generated for online stores in 2Performant and 735,000 euros in commissions for affiliates.

The National Marketing League, organized at the beginning of the year, became the first competition in Romania dedicated to team marketing, based on the same ideas of competition, performance, and merit recognition. Digital specialists have teamed up with online stores and, for 4 weeks, 12 mixed teams competed with each other and ended up generating a total of over 9,000 sales worth over 350,000 euros.

An extended Black Friday and sales of over 6.9 million euros in 2 weeks

Located at the intersection of online commerce and digital marketing, two industries with spectacular growth in the context of the pandemic, 2Performant manages to capture market opportunities and maximize the potential of traditional sales events. Black Friday 2021 at 2Performant has translated into significant figures: between Nov 1 and Nov 14, 462 online stores which had launched discount campaigns, operating in 25 different industries, achieved 115,000 sales through the 2Performant.com platform, amounting to 6,929,804 euros + VAT, 47.8% higher than last year. 1,282 affiliates obtained commissions amounting to 418,500 euros + VAT, 37.5% more than last year.

Over 5.3 million lei in investments as a result of the BSE capital increase

After the technical listing on the AeRO market of the Bucharest Stock Exchange on December 9, 2020, 2Performant became the first technology company on the Romanian capital market with a 100% focus on in-house product development. In 2021, the company carried out a capital increase operation against cash contribution and obtained investments of over 5.3 million lei to finance the company’s main growth directions. After the completion of this operation, the company made a capital increase granting 4 free shares for 1 owned. Beginning October 2021, 2Performant is part of the BET AeRO index launched by the BSE with a share of 2.47%.

Reorganizing the company in two business units

In 2021, 2Performant announced the reorganization of the company into two Business Units: 2Performant Romania and Bulgaria, which targets operations for validated markets where the company is already active and has a strong position, and 2Performant Growth Unit, which tests and validates new markets and business approaches, both externally and on the local market. This business move is part of 2Performant’s plans to consolidate in the local market and expand regionally and capture new business opportunities.

At the same time, the company has launched a dedicated Business Support Department this year, an investment meant to increase the company’s capacity to provide technical and business support for absolutely all its platform users.

Internationalization through technology

In 2021, 2Performant enters into a partnership with Admitad, an affiliate network present on the European, Asian, and South American markets, and launches AliExpress (one of the world’s largest online marketplaces) on its affiliate marketing platform, in a first for Romania. Such integrations with other networks, that have large and very large customers from a multitude of markets in their portfolio, are an effective strategy for expanding a technology company such as 2Performant, which thus can become an international player in affiliate marketing. In 2021, 35 new affiliate programs have been launched on 2Performant.com, including: AliExpress, Zaful, Hawes & Curtis UK, or Lacoste Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia.

Conversion attribution – platform technical upgrade

In 2021 2Performant launched Big Bear, a major platform upgrade developed by the company’s internal team of developers, which will allow for conversion attribution in first party cookie mode. The first test results with a number of stores on the platform have validated the product, which generated good results on all browsers, and thus Big Bear is currently in testing with 12 of the largest advertisers, including Cărturești, Elefant, Vivre, iHunt and a few hundred affiliates.

2Performant is a Romanian technology company that develops, operates, and monetizes 2Performant.com – an integrated affiliate and influencer marketing platform. Through this platform, businesses can call on partners, affiliates, and influencers, with whom they can work through the two collaboration models available at the moment: affiliate marketing and influencer marketing. 2Performant is a company listed on the AeRO market of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, under the symbol 2P. According to company data, 2Performant is the largest local source of traffic for Romanian online stores, generating about 4.5 million monthly clicks for clients in their portfolio.