Traffic Cake interviews its PR Manager, Taras Huz

Added: April 13, 2023

The iGaming affiliate company Traffic Cake has prepared an interview with its PR Manager, Taras Huz, who talked about his experience in the affiliate marketing industry and shared his insights on how the firm aims to stand out from its competition.

1. Tell us about yourself, how did you get into affiliate marketing?

My name is Taras, and I am a PR Manager at Traffic Cake. I started my journey in affiliate marketing with whitehat niches, like many others.

I worked at an advertising agency for about two years as a Media Buyer. I launched campaigns on Facebook, Google, set up and configured Tag Manager, Google Analytics. It was there that I first encountered greyhat niches (in my case vitamins) and started working with them on Google. I found it interesting because I was getting tired of working with whitehat niches.

I left the agency and shortly after that I was invited to join an Israeli affiliate team but they only worked with crypto offers. It intrigued me, even though I had not worked with crypto before. I agreed, the team taught me the nuances of the vertical and I started running crypto offers on Facebook. It was interesting but I realized it wasn’t quite my thing. I always aspired to something more creative and I have a hard time sitting still and being patient.

And then came the position of PR Manager at Traffic Cake. That’s when I realized I was in the right place for me.

2. What does a PR Manager for an affiliate program do?

A PR Manager for an affiliate program is responsible for everything related to the company’s image, including communication with partners, representation at events, organizing events, establishing contacts with affiliate teams, media and more. It also involves developing advertising strategies, media publications, promotional campaigns, collaborations and implementing special projects for specific events.

Constantly generating new ideas for content, new sections and approaches is also a part of the role. There is always plenty of work for a PR Manager in our industry.

3. What did you do before affiliate marketing?

During my first year at university I was actively looking for a job to make as much money as possible. I came across an advertisement for selling something near the metro station, promising huge earnings. Looking back, we all know that it smelled fishy, but at that time, I was naive. In short, the job involved smoking pots with a blowtorch and then washing them with some super sponge on people. Plus it was late autumn and I had to constantly work with cold water. I quit after just a couple of hours realizing that it wasn’t my thing.

After that I found a job at a call center but they paid me almost nothing, despite promising mountains of gold. That’s when I landed my first serious job as a PR manager at a publishing house. I spent a year and a half there constantly traveling to book fairs, organizing book signings for authors and so on. But in reality, most of my time was spent drinking with writers and editors as they really enjoy that.

Then I worked at an advertising agency in Kyiv where I dealt with whitehat niches. I spent about two years there. And as for what happened next I already mentioned that in a previous question.

4. What do you do in your free time?

In my free time I enjoy watching movies, listening to music and reading books. I also like playing tennis, spending time in nature and exploring new places. I have a passion for photography and own several film cameras as well as a favorite film camera. You can often find me with my camera on the streets of Kyiv, capturing moments and scenes that catch my eye.

5. Describe the Traffic Cake team.

We are all fun and responsible individuals. Our partners know that we are always ready to help with anything related to traffic monetization and more. At the same time we often relax with our partners and enjoy spending time together, like having dinner and having a great time.

I always enjoy spending evenings with my colleagues from Traffic Cake. We have a fantastic vibe in our team. We can spend the whole day in the office without getting bored of each other. We regularly meet outside the office to have drinks together, talk and unwind. Of course even during these informal gatherings we often discuss work because it’s an important part of our lives.

6. What bonuses and activities does Cake offer?

We strive to constantly generate something new in terms of content and promotions. Before New Year we came up with and developed an advent calendar, where affiliates could visit our website and claim a new gift every day. Additionally, though it’s not a new practice, we try to delight our loyal partners with gifts for holidays, no matter where they are located.

We also hold meetings in Kyiv and other locations.

We currently have many projects in progress but they require time for development and implementation. Some releases may still be a few months away at least. However we will soon be able to announce one of the projects. Follow our social media accounts, it will be interesting.

7. How to stand out among competitors?

Simply not doing the same thing as everyone else. Not copying competitors but trying to come up with your own unique ideas that will be associated only with you. I understand that it’s easy to say but not so easy to do but that’s what the work of a PR specialist is all about. Many affiliate networks and teams do this, who have fully “appropriated” the format of interviews or live broadcasts, for example. It would be strange to do the same studio interviews while almost everyone else is doing them.

That’s why we created a section “Short Talk” on Instagram where we publish interviews in a carousel gallery. It’s a great format for Instagram because users of this social media platform love quick content. Or “Easy Geo” on YouTube – videos where we briefly analyze the audience of a specific geographic location. In 1-2 minutes we reveal all the details about affiliate marketing in one of the countries.

I really liked the format of live broadcasts on Instagram, where we hosted guests with our affiliate manager Irina. But this format didn’t get a lot of views and audience engagement, so we paused it for now. Maybe we’ll come back to it later, maybe we’ll reformat it. It’s hard to say for now.

For us, the main goal is to understand what we do and why we do it. Just doing things for the sake of doing them is a waste of time.

8. Tell us about your last event in Kyiv.

Sure! We organized a wine tasting event in Kyiv on March 17th. We rented a restaurant exclusively for our event and invited a professional sommelier to conduct a Champagne wine tasting for us. It was a great and educational experience. After the tasting we had hookah and snacks brought to the room. Everyone had the opportunity to mingle and get to know each other. I gathered feedback after the event and heard only positive comments.

Our goal was to organize a meet-up with our partners in a pleasant atmosphere, where there wouldn’t be loud music and people could have meaningful conversations. We value each and every one of our partners and are not only focused on working together but also building friendship.

In addition to our current partners, there were also potential partners and industry friends at the event. We had a limited number of spots so we opened registration and had to close it early because all the spots were filled. We apologize to everyone who registered but did not make it to our party. We had over 200 applications but the event venue was about four times smaller. Next time we will choose a larger venue.

9. Are you planning any upcoming events?

It’s too early to think about it as it hasn’t been long since our last event. But there definitely should be more similar events. It seems that people in Kyiv miss offline gatherings.

We would love to organize such meetings more frequently but event organization takes a lot of time, which is scarce at the moment. So if you have interesting proposals for collaboration and event organization, please let us know!

10. Top GEO’s and offers right now?

I recommend testing our new offer – Verde Casino, for Poland.

11. Which verticals have a promising future?

Gambling will always be relevant. People will always have a need for excitement and quick money. Many people spin slots just to relax.

In the past there were slot machines everywhere and I remember that time. When I used to go to such establishments it was hard to find a free machine to play. In essence, not much has changed since then, except for the format of the slots themselves – they have mostly shifted online.

12. Future plans

Increasing brand awareness, exploring new and exciting content formats, expanding our network of connections, publications and traffic!

Traffic Cake