Affiliate Interview Series | James - angrymob

Attachment 5015

Age: 23

Hometown: Swansea, Wales

Living in: Bristol, England

Favorite Food: Steak

Must Read Book: The Godfather

Sites:
freesupertips.co.uk
myracingresults.com

When did you launch your sites?

We started two Facebook pages at the beginning of 2013, and we launched our websites in mid-2014—myracingresults.com for horse racing results and tips and freesupertips.co.uk for football tips.

How did you become involved in the industry?

I was a poker player and managed to get a part-time job working for American poker affiliate FlopTurnRiver.com to help pay my way through university. The Facebook pages were started up with a friend (Jake Apperley) and we’re now business partners.

How long did it take for you to start earning money?

About a year I guess. The pages had an income, but we re-invested all of it either with Facebook or with giveaways and competitions to help grow the fan base.

Are you a one-person shop or are you part of a larger organization?

Jake and I ran everything together for the first year or so, but we now have a number of football and horse racing tipsters and social media workers who work for us.

Your site freesupertips.co.uk offers pretty good tips on a wide range of sporting events. Which betting tips are most popular with visitors to your site?

Thanks! Freesupertips.co.uk is mainly focused on football tipping, and that’s definitely the most popular. We’ve also recently started doing tips for other big sporting events, such as the Betway Premier League Darts and the Cricket World Cup, but the focus is still on football.

myracingresults.com has a very popular horse racing tips section which we promote on Twitter and Facebook. We’ve tipped horse racing 362 days a year for over two years now.

We keep hearing that interest in horse racing is on the decline. In your experience, is that the case, or are you seeing an uptick in traffic on myracingresults.com?

We’re not seeing any decline; myracingresults.com is growing extremely quickly and we’re seeing an increase in traffic each month. However, my personal opinion is that horse racing is struggling to gain interest from the younger generations, especially with the huge popularity and budget of football. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a decline in horse racing over the next 10 or 20 years unless the racing authorities can find a way to get more young people interested in racing.

Describe your work environment. Do you work from home or in an office? If you work from home, how often do you get to see and interact with other people in the industry?

Jake and I share a flat and a home office in a spare room. Neither of us are a fan of commuting, although it makes it very difficult to separate work from leisure. The iGB conferences are great for meeting and maintaining connections so we always try to attend.

What traits do you look for in an affiliate manager? How about in an affiliate program?

Clear, constant communication and honesty are the two key attributes for both a good affiliate manager and a good affiliate program, I would say. Creativity and openness to trying new things also help. There are lots of different approaches and I wouldn’t say any necessarily work best but Betfair has a good setup, communicating offers daily, and bet365 stands out as being extremely well run, clear and open.

What’s your preferred method of communication with affiliate managers?

We communicate nearly entirely by e-mail, occasionally on the phone if it’s something urgent. We try and meet face to face at least a few times a year.

What prompted you to join the GPWA? How has it helped you?

I was interested in meeting other people within the industry, mainly, and also to keep up with the latest news. I tend to read more than I post but there’s plenty of useful resources about SEO, advertising changes and affiliate programs.

What do you like about the industry?

The social side! Also, getting to watch and discuss horse racing and football every day. It’s a welcoming industry, even for new affiliates, and we’ve met an amazing variety of people. The conferences are a good excuse for a holiday too.

If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be and why?

It would be great if there were more basic talks at the conferences; there’s a huge amount of information available but it’s very hard to filter out the irrelevant parts at first.

What do your family and friends think of your work as an affiliate?

My family was supportive of whatever I wanted to do after university. I was talking about taking a shot about becoming a professional poker player so I think they saw this as a better option, to be honest. My friends all just think it’s pretty cool I get to watch a lot of sport and have a flexible work schedule.

Do you gamble online? If so, what do you play?

I used to play a lot of poker, but I struggle to find the time to play regularly online these days; tournaments are a huge time sink. I still bet on football and horse racing regularly.

How long do you give yourself to answer e-mail? What e-mail tips can you offer?

If I can reply in less than five minutes, I normally reply immediately; I’m at the PC most of the day anyway. If it’s something that requires thought or discussion with Jake, I note it down and aim to have it done by the end of the day. I sort all my e-mail into folders in Gmail at least twice a week, which helps pick up e-mails I’ve forgotten about.

How do you manage your “to-do” lists? Do you use any special software to help you out?

I recently started using a free web/mobile app called Asana and got a number of people on our team to sign up too. You can set up a To Do list, assign tasks, etc. It’s much easier to use than a pen and paper and I take my iPhone everywhere anyway. Combined with Sunrise (calendar app) I’m a lot more organized than I was a few months ago.

How much time do you devote to SEO and/or social networking in order to drive more traffic to your sites?

The majority of our time is still spent on social media to be honest, be it Facebook or Twitter. We’ve recently started working on SEO for both sites and we’ve seen some excellent results already so it’s something we’re looking into more now. The websites were initially set up to complement the social side of things so it’s a big shift for us.

What’s the most difficult thing about running your sites?

Probably the fact that we end up working seven days a week, all hours of the day. With a home office and a smartphone it’s impossible to step away from it, really. There’s always horse racing or football on, aside from Christmas Day.

What’s the best thing about running your sites?

Many things to be honest: The freedom to develop our own ideas and put them into practice ourselves rather than losing control over them; talking and watching sport; getting to visit conferences, horse racing meetings and football games; flexible working hours are a bonus, too.

What do you do to stay in shape – both physically and mentally?

I play a lot of football and a little squash to stay in shape physically. I’ve recently started going to the gym regularly, mainly to try and recover from Cheltenham Festival. I don’t really do much on the mental side of it; I still really enjoy the work so I don’t think I need to.

If someone were visiting you, what’s the one place you’d definitely take them to see?

There’s a pub/hotel fairly close to our house called the Avon Gorge. It’s got some great beers and there’s a huge outside area which looks over the gorge and the Clifton Suspension Bridge, which is well worth a visit.

When you need to get as far away from work as possible, where do you go?

Normally the pub!

What’s your favorite vacation spot?

I’m not a great one for relaxing on holidays. I went to Hong Kong and Shenzhen to see some friends over winter, including a trip to Happy Valley Races, and I’d love to go back. The food was awesome and it’s such an interesting place.

What’s your all-time favorite movie?

In Bruges. It’s just too funny.

If you could invite any five people, living or dead, to dinner, who would they be?

Huw Jenkins (Swansea City chairman) - he knows how to run a business. Doyle Brunson - a proper poker legend who surely has some great stories. Stephen King - I read all The Dark Tower books when I was younger. Richard Attenborough - to narrate. And Warren Buffett - just to try and get a glimpse into his mind.

What are three things that nobody knows about you?

1. My favorite drink is a Skittle Bomb.
2. I’m awful at drawing, even stick figures.
3. I’m a big fan of MasterChef, even though I’m rubbish at cooking.