iGaming symphony of successful management: interview with Mikola, Team Lead Affiliate Manager
Today, the flow of data does not stop for a second — it is like a high-speed train accelerating to 300 km/h: decisions are made instantly, and the future of the company depends on their quality.
Tools, Control and Importance of the Team
— What management and control tools do you use?
— A huge amount of information accumulates in an affiliate network every day, and you have to work with it at a very high pace — again, like on a Japanese high-speed train: a mistake really comes at a high cost. To keep the analysis accurate, I constantly keep three questions in mind: what has already been done, what is happening now, and what my next steps will be. The toolkit depends on this, too.
For strategic planning and building processes, we use Power BI. To understand past and current results, we use end-to-end analytics tools: they allow us to track work with webmasters and advertisers and draw conclusions from actions that have already taken place. Task management is built around the Ukrainian product Worksection, which, by the way, is also quite useful for sales. We also work separately with Confluence by Atlassian — this is where monthly department reporting and our knowledge base are built, which we plan to improve and make more convenient for new employees. Some routine operations are handled by robot scripts, which saves the team a significant amount of time — wherever a process is repetitive, there is simply no need for human hands. And, of course, the classic — Google Sheets: it is hard to imagine someone giving them up, unless they invented an alternative themselves. The main rule here is not to create documents uncontrollably: if you make a new file every day, they turn into a dump that nobody looks at anymore, and there is very little value in that approach. We are also actively implementing AI in our work and following the development of AI agents that can automate most routine processes. But for now, they carry high security risks, so we monitor the market and wait for new developments.
When a team builds plans and follows a Mind Map, it sometimes becomes obvious that the goal was defined incorrectly in the first place. In that case, it is better to admit the mistake in time and rebuild the strategy than to see it through just for the sake of completion — we all know that pointless work produces no result.
If these conclusions are not taken into account in future planning, the company will start losing money — so methods should be chosen rationally, rather than grabbing a “trendy” tool from yet another forum or chat simply because someone “liked it.” You can collect dozens of such recommendations from different sources and believe that applying them alone will drive growth, but without linking them to the actual strategy, the result may not be what you expected.
— What did your work look like when you first joined the company? What has changed as the company developed?
— I’ll talk both about myself and about the company in general. At the start of any business, a small group of people often covers many areas at once — we went through that as well.
At this stage, it is important to check whether your business model makes sense in the market at all and whether it can compete — and only then scale it. As the company grew, specialized employees appeared and took responsibility for individual tasks. As a result, the quality of task execution immediately improved, and so did the results. Our approach to working with partners also changed: at first, the metrics were different, but over time it became clear that the focus needed to shift. For example, quantitative indicators alone do not always generate profit — it is more important to look at quality, and we refocused on it before eventually combining both approaches. This is an ongoing process: a company develops only when it is ready to change. If you stick to one direction without adjustments, sooner or later you hit a dead end instead of a profit point.
— Did you go straight into affiliate marketing? What fields did you go through before entering this niche? Was there anything related to affiliate marketing?
— At first, I was planning to go into construction — I wanted to become an architect; I was drawn to engineering, calculations, and so on. But after university, I realized that I was much more interested in everything related to computers: even as a child, I could take equipment apart and install any software. So I went into digital — developing and promoting websites on Google, Facebook, and so on. Then SMM emerged as a separate area, and I was among the first to develop it and sell it as a service to clients. At the time, we had to explain things that seemed obvious to us: if a business has no website, you can consider that it has no business, and far from everyone understood this. People also found it difficult to accept the idea that having a presence on Facebook or Instagram directly affects sales.
I got acquainted with affiliate marketing, specifically physical products, around 2015 — so I have been in the field for about eight years, and have been seriously involved in it for the last 4–5 years. So, my path started in digital. What drew me to this field was its dynamics: new tasks emerge every day, and it is not about failing to plan something — the market itself is constantly changing the rules. And it presents you with challenges that did not exist yesterday.
— Who works better on your team — guys or girls? Is there a difference?
— I can’t say that someone is better or worse — we have all professionals on our team; we just don't work with others. But there is a nuance: before setting a problem, it is important to understand how many processes a person can keep in their head at the same time. I have noticed that girls sometimes manage to do this more easily than guys. Of course, all people are different, and they also work differently. Guys should be given tasks with clear priorities and a sequence of execution. For anyone in our profession, emotional intelligence is important, and this does not depend on gender, but on life experience. So it’s not about gender, but about the approach to work organization.
— How critical is the role of the team to the existence of a successful affiliate network?
— I recently heard a thought that really resonated with me.
I completely agree with it. At One Partners, both guys and girls are genuinely passionate about achieving results. Sometimes people ask, “What time do you start working?” — formally, I answer that it is from 10:00 to 18:00. But when an experienced player in the affiliate marketing market asks that question, you want to ask in return: “How many hours do you actually think you need to work here?” There is no standard schedule in this field: you have to stay focused and resolve issues constantly, because this is not a machine that gets switched off at 18:00 and everyone goes home to rest. Processes do not stop. That is why the team and its composition are among the key factors in the development of a business and product, and people are the ones who determine what the company’s future will look like.
— What advice can you give for successfully passing an interview for a position on the team? What do you look for when choosing a candidate?
First of all, it is important to understand exactly what tasks the company wants to solve with this vacancy — often there is already a clear candidate profile in mind. Sometimes even weak juniors are considered if they simply understand that affiliate marketing exists but have strong motivation. There have been cases where people offered to work for free in order to gain experience and knowledge — the company agreed to this to, firstly, test the sincerity of their intentions and, secondly, see the actual result. If everything works out, such a person can grow into a strong specialist with a good salary and a significant role in the team. So everything depends on the person’s own motivation. But even if a candidate is not a fit for the company, there is no point in turning negative: the affiliate marketing field is relatively small and relies on the reputation of well-known market players, and you may cross paths with the same people again. So it is worth behaving appropriately — later, others may well be asked whether such-and-such a person came to an interview and what they said.
— What exactly is taken into account during the interview?
Even a technically strong specialist can spoil the atmosphere in the team — and this will already have a negative impact on the team’s results. In that case, a conversation about their skills often does not even get started.
There may also be hard skills that are lacking — those can absolutely be developed; the main thing is to learn the basics. In general, it is important to clearly understand what is needed for a particular vacancy.
— Which departments report to you, what tasks do you assign to them, and how do you control execution?
— The structure includes a technical department headed by a lead and responsible for stable data transmission, an affiliate department, a finance department, an account management department, a PR department, and media buying, with which we work closely. Interaction between departments is built around joint planning and clear goals for each area. Control is handled through CRM systems and task management — for example, in the aforementioned Worksection, where you can see process readiness and deadlines. Some processes are organized through Mind Maps, some through Google Sheets, with the sheets usually containing temporary, test processes: if a process becomes permanent, we move it from the spreadsheets elsewhere.
— Is there a ready-made CRM spreadsheet template specifically for iGaming?
— At one point, I wondered why there was still no dedicated CRM for affiliate marketing. I started searching online, looked through several forums — and it turned out that there really was no ready-made solution. Then the question was “why?”, and eventually I realized: there are so many products available now that can be adapted to your own needs that a dedicated CRM simply never emerged as a category. For example, we have been using Worksection for a long time, but only recently started adapting it for sales — before that, we had never even considered the possibility and worked through inconvenient Google Sheets. The problem is that when tasks are scattered across different tools, it becomes difficult to put together a complete picture later, and confusion arises.
Another option is end-to-end analytics across all traffic campaigns: it shows on graphs what budgets were spent, what profit was generated, and the other metrics. But for this, you need to maintain regular reporting in a disciplined way yourself — then the tool can actually calculate profit and analyze processes. Accurate data entry is the foundation for understanding where you are now and what to expect next.
As for a single spreadsheet template, everyone has their own system, and you cannot simply hand a ready-made solution over to someone else. We cannot share some of our processes at all, while others simply will not fit someone else’s specifics.
— Where can you learn the basics without the “fluff”?
— First, you need to define which basics you mean. General knowledge can be found freely online, but the best way to gain practical experience is at Arbitrage Up — the courses with a coach let you go “from A to Z,” see how buyers work, test things, and create creatives yourself. There is a lot of information online overall, we wrote about it as well, but without a systematic approach, there will be no result. So before learning, it is worth building a structure and sequence — for example, the technical part first, then creatives, then campaign launches. If a person lacks self-organization or a basic understanding of the field, it is better to turn to a mentor or school right away. And it is worth remembering: people rarely share information for free unless you are a close friend or relative.
— What are the main pieces of advice you can give a beginner media buyer?
— Run traffic with One Partners. Overall, though, a buyer would give a more detailed answer to this question.
— Where is it better to run traffic for iGaming — Facebook or Google?
— The question is essentially rhetorical. Choose the traffic source you already know how to work with.
