Building cashback in Brazil before cashback was a category.

Context

I joined Cuponomia as one of the early operators, when it was still primarily a coupon site. The team was small. Brazil's affiliate market was concentrated in coupons; cashback was not yet a category most consumers recognized.

Challenge

Two parallel problems. First, scale the content + commercial operation to support a fast-growing coupon platform — eventually 1,200+ stores in the database with ~450 monetized through affiliate networks or direct advertisers. Second, run a cashback pilot inside the company that would test whether Brazilian consumers would adopt the model.

Approach

• Built the content + affiliate function from scratch. Recruited and managed a team of five across editorial and affiliate management. Designed the workflows that connected content production to commercial monetization.
• Owned the partner side as primary commercial contact. Direct relationships with 10 affiliate networks (Afilio, Rakuten, CJ, Awin, Lomadee, ShareASale, Webgains, Net Affiliation, PampaNetwork, Viglink) plus ~20 direct advertisers (C&A, Natura, Walmart, Amazon Brasil, Chico Rei and others).
• Drove SEO as the primary acquisition channel. Keyword research, metadata structure, content formatting standards. Organic traffic grew +25% during my tenure.
• Ran the cashback pilot. Worked on the operational side of the pilot that established cashback as a viable Cuponomia vertical — eventually positioning the company as #2 in the Brazilian market.
• Led LATAM expansion. Took the operation beyond Brazil into adjacent LATAM markets.

Outcome

• Cashback pilot succeeded — Cuponomia became the #2 cashback site in Brazil at the time of my exit (Méliuz is now the category leader).
• +25% organic traffic growth through the SEO program I led.
• Built a 1,200-store database with ~450 monetized accounts — a long-tail affiliate strategy that supported double-digit growth.
• International expansion into LATAM markets, operationally led from the BR office.

What it took

Being early at Cuponomia meant being commercial, editorial, technical, and operational at the same time — and treating affiliate networks not as faceless vendors but as relationships you actively manage. The playbook I built there is what I've kept applying for the past decade.