Simona Farcaș: “The Plan for 2027 Is to Expand into Markets Outside Romania”

Ever since the summer I’d been wanting to sit down and chat with Simona, but look—the commissions only just aligned now. My colleague Tudor had warned me she might say no, that she’s not the type to step into the spotlight, yet this time she said yes—and I was thrilled. So here we are: two introverts on a rainy autumn day, in a lovely café in Cotroceni.

Simona works with over 100 stores in BusinessLeague and was kind enough to walk me through, among many other things, how she chooses her partnerships: a mix of years of affiliate experience and criteria like a company’s track record, the quality of its social media communication, and how the store’s website looks and is maintained.

From Books to Fashion and from Auto & Moto to Health, Simona’s accounts have seen it all, with growing success—so much so that, as I write these lines, she is breathing down the neck (even if from a distance for now) of the #1 all-time spot in BusinessLeague.

As far as I could tell, Simona’s versatility and the way she adapts without giving up ground in the rankings help her stay motivated and genuinely enjoy the work she does.

But don’t just take my word for it—our full conversation is below.

From insurance to affiliate marketing

Simona started in affiliate marketing in 2019, when she took over her husband’s business because she wanted a career change. Before that, she worked in insurance—a fiercely competitive industry—which is precisely why she immediately liked what she found in BusinessLeague: rankings, numbers, transparency.

She operates across two accounts, DTA and PriceAlert—the latter being her main account—and took over everything related to affiliate management, while the technical side remained with her husband. In the beginning, the business relied on a handful of large stores, “but that’s how 2Performant was back then, too.” Today, she works with both large and small stores across very different verticals.

One huuuundred

She works with over 100 stores. For a long time, her portfolio was dominated by books; then she pivoted, and right now her biggest client is Aronia—meaning dietary supplements, a vertical completely different from Fashion, for instance, where she also has extensive experience.

How does she pick her partners? She tests them right away rather than waiting to see how they manage on their own. At the start, she looks at three main things:

• how the website looks and performs;
• how the store presents itself on social media;
• what track record the company has.

Communication and stores that fade out

She speaks fairly often with her key stores. Some large stores don’t reply inside the platform, so she first uses whatever tools she has available there, and then turns to Tudor, who passes the message along.

She has also noticed the phenomenon of stores that start strong and then fizzle out. She doesn’t know the exact reason, but her hunch is a lack of communication. Her advice: when a store sees that a handful of affiliates are driving sales, it should reach out to them, jump on a call, and put a plan on paper. That’s the only way the affiliate can voice their needs and the store can see whether and how it can help.

She also believes every store needs someone dedicated to affiliate marketing who truly understands how it works. Many stores still don’t grasp the core principle of affiliate marketing, even after years, and lump it into the same bucket as influencer marketing, for example. It’s an education gap, Simona says, and part of the blame also lies with affiliates, who haven’t stepped up closely enough to explain it to stores.

“I believe you educate yourself through practice. You have to do the work in order to understand it and do it better.”

That’s how she learned, too: by doing, staying hands-on with the campaigns, and figuring things out mostly on her own.

BusinessLeague and the joy of competition

“Whoever designed BusinessLeague did it smartly.”

The leaderboard keeps her on her toes. She checks where she stands, of course, but also where each store ranks within its category—an insight she considers invaluable. In the beginning, she recalls, people didn’t want others to see how much volume they were generating. Today, she sees transparency as a clear advantage.

She isn’t a gamer, even though she understands that BusinessLeague is built around gamification. Still, she loves testing her strength, seeing whether she’s good at something or not—and wherever she realizes she falls short, she puts in more work.

Motivation also comes from variety:

“I’m running Auto & Moto campaigns now. When would I ever have imagined working with someone in the automotive sector?”

She has also tried affiliate marketing on Profitshare, but says “there’s no comparison”: there was barely anyone to talk to there, and she is no longer active on that platform.

#2 and the Unicorn ahead

PriceAlert sits at #2 in the Unicorns ranking and has plans to narrow the gap with #1. She enjoys the competition with Ovidiu in the top spot because it shows her just how far it’s possible to go.

Money to make money

Lucian Ionescu told me recently that nowadays it’s pretty tough to do affiliate marketing if you don’t have capital from the start. Simona agrees: “You need money to make money.” And that’s true in many industries, she adds. Her advice for someone starting without a budget: partner up with someone who has capital and pitch them a solid business plan.

Black Friday: product feeds above all

For Black Friday, Simona is currently reviewing nearly every single campaign.

“I might forget what I do during the day, but I never forget what I did in a campaign 😄”

She also checks product feeds closely alongside her clients. For CSS (Comparison Shopping Services), the feed is the foundation every campaign is built on. It has to be as up to date as possible and free of out-of-stock products.

AI, with guardrails

AI helps her a lot and she uses it extensively. Managing over 100 stores, she has built a workflow that blends AI with the hands-on experience she’s accumulated over the years—experience she “can’t just wipe away” simply because a new tool exists. However, she believes regulation is necessary.

2027: beyond Romania

Her plan for 2027 is to expand outside the country. So far, she has promoted only a few international stores, and running CSS in foreign markets requires approvals—a fairly lengthy process. Her primary targets are nearby markets like Poland and Greece, starting with stores that are already active in BusinessLeague. The main difference compared to Romania will be the higher cost per click abroad. As for the know-how she needs, she says she already has it.