International Women’s Day is celebrated across the globe on Sunday, 8th March. In the build-up, we’re highlighting the women making a difference in affiliate marketing.
Today we place the spotlight on Alexandra Mereuta, Affiliate Account Manager for Buffalo Partners.
Alexandra has a Master’s Degree in Online Management & Marketing. After completing that, she moved to London.
Since then, she’s worked up to her current position at the online casino giant.
In this interview, she reveals her full career story and the advice that she’d give to her younger self.
Affiverse: How did you get started in affiliate marketing? Did you always intend to enter this space, or did you do so by coincidence?
Alexandra Mereuta: “In my third year of college, I started working as a customer support agent for a well known and respected casino brand. I ended up staying there for the first four years of my career.
“Because I was invested in the job, I was promoted into the Retention Team within four months. This was a great opportunity for me. I started as a Retention Account Manager and, later on, advanced to VIP Manger.
“After moving to London, I began working for a marketing agency. This company was delivering data-driven performance marketing, mainly for the UK market and some of the top brands in the industry.
“That was my start on the affiliate side of the business. I got the great opportunity of learning about all traffic channels, from PPC to social, media buying, programmatic, and mailing. This change gave me the opportunity to delve further into the inner workings of this industry and gain a new perspective, whilst being a major learning curve.”
AI: What did you do to ensure that you excelled in a male-dominated industry?
AM: “I tried, to the best of my ability, to respect the saying: ‘if you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room.’
“I see myself as a marketing professional, who also happens to be a woman.
“I saw things that I admired in the individuals around me and I have adopted those qualities if I found that I didn’t have them.
“Due to my professional environment, I strongly believe that I have grown tremendously on a personal level. Moreover, my communication and listening skills have both improved.”
AI: In your opinion, how does having a more equal male/female split benefit both the workplace and industry as a whole?
AM: “From my experience, people communicate better with likeminded people because they are able to create a personal rapport. So, certain barriers – such as mistrust – fall away.
“That being said, men and women are intrinsically different. In a professional environment, this means that they don’t always find common day-to-day subjects to talk about. Therefore, it can be harder to create rapport and allow barriers to fall.
“Statistically and psychologically speaking, men communicate better with men and women communicate better with women simply because their experiences are alike and they can relate better to their own sex. That is why I strongly believe that accepting the differences between us, celebrating and learning from them. Along with developing good communication skills on a personal level, this would benefit us all.
“As I am seeing more and more women in the industry with each passing year, I tend to believe that maybe we are getting better at this communication business. That can only make me happy and hopeful for the future.”
AI: And finally… if you were to revisit the beginning of your affiliate career, what advice would you give yourself?
AM: “If I could meet up with my younger self, the only advice I would give her would be: “Have patience and keep trusting your gut, everything is going to work out just fine!””
We’ll be releasing more interviews later this week, so keep an eye out on our homepage. If you’d like more content like this delivered to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter.
