Affiliate Interview Series | Taras - MrBinaryAff

[GPWA Dan]

Age: 24

Hometown: Tallinn, Estonia

Living in: Leeds, U.K.

Favorite Food: BBQ ribs and Russian Olivier salad

Must-Read Book: My Life and Work by Henry Ford

Sites:
mrbinary.co.uk
investorzzz.ru
casinoyay.com
pokerfear.ru

You launched MrBinary.co.uk earlier this year. How are things going so far?

All good, but it took a bit longer than expected as I sent my website for a check for language and design. By the way, GPWA members gave good tips to make the website look better, so thank you! I have already earned money from MrBinary.co.uk; the site launched in May and got its first deposit in July, so I am pretty happy with how things are going.

Most of our readers work with more traditional gambling affiliate programs. Can you provide a quick explanation of how binary markets work for those who aren’t familiar with the concept?

To be honest, it is very similar to gambling affiliate programs. I personally started with poker, then casino, and after that I came to the world of forex and binary options. You just need to understand that, statistically, every trader is going to lose sooner or later, so CPA and rev share deals do vary. I always went for deals where CPA was higher than the minimum deposit. Always stick to old brokers (operating for two years minimum) who are licensed by a regulating body (for example, CySec). The manager should understand the market and try to be open and flexible about their deals.

When did you first learn about binary trading? Did you start as a trader yourself?

I always heard about it while working with casino affiliates, but decided to get into the industry after the Amsterdam Affiliate Conference in 2013. We launched our website Investorzzz.ru, helping people invest in forex. After eight months I realized that binary options is much better for earning as an affiliate and found a trader who helped me to understand the whole concept, and we started to promote binary options in Russian on our website.

I don’t trade. I earned some pocket money by playing poker in the past. To be a decent trader you need around $10,000 and two years of training.

You’re only one year out of university, correct? Where did you go to school? And what did you study?

Yes, that’s right. Straight after finishing school back in Estonia, I came to Leeds to get my master’s degree in automotive engineering. Loved participating in the Formula Student event, where you have to build your own car to compete against other universities.

What are the most popular things to trade on the binary market?

People tend to trade currency pairs more on turbo options (60-second time frame).

How do current events affect volume on binary trading sites? When there’s big news about the value of Chinese currency, or Apple releases a new product, do more trades occur?

To be honest, I don’t analyze such data; our earnings as an affiliate are almost always the same during the year.

Is it easier to make money as a binary options trader or as a binary options affiliate?

Depends on how good a trader you are. My colleague earns around $300 a week by trading in his spare time. As affiliates we earn more, but you need to get a good client volume before you earn more than a trader.

In your experience, what’s the typical player value of a binary options trader? How long is the typical player “life cycle”? Is there a high churn rate? Or do traders tend to stick around for a while?

It is not that easy to answer as we work with brokers who have minimum deposits of only $10, which makes it hard to see and track a player’s life cycle. What I know for sure is that people lose about $250 before they start earning. Traders do take rests after big losses, so I believe a trader “lives” for around two to three months.

What type of online gamblers, in your opinion, are most likely to cross over to become binary market traders?

I think people who love sports and betting are more likely to switch to binary options. People should understand that binary options are not equal to casinos. The online casino always wins, whereas a trader can earn good money from binary options. Betting and binary options trading are similar in a way that you make a two-way bet (up or down) and if you make a good prediction, you win.

How is running a binary options affiliate site similar to running a casino or sportsbook affiliate site, in your opinion? How do these types of sites differ?

As I said previously, I’ve worked with all types of affiliate stuff. I believe that running a site is pretty similar — people look for no-deposit bonuses and that kind of stuff. Binary options traders are more like poker players who come to actually earn some money. Every month you have tens and hundreds of new casinos, poker rooms and brokers entering the market. Most of them don’t have any idea how to get a good conversion rate, don’t understand that you need a license to operate legally in most of the countries . . . so just choose your partners really carefully.

What, in your mind, are some of your sites’ unique selling points? How do you stand out from the crowd?

I have a unique design and my own branding. I love my Mr. Binary guy. Most of the websites use old website themes without any brand or name. I want people to remember my brand, not just a domain name like the others. I always give only truthful information about brokers. When binary options trading site give you only 30% positive deals and in 70% of the trades you lose, I am not going to promote that material. I try to provide unique content for my visitors. When I say unique, I mean an article written from scratch, not just a rewritten article from another website.

Tell us about your hometown, Tallinn, and your new home of Leeds.

I lived for 18 years in Tallinn, the lovely city on the coast of Baltic Sea. I have been a Leeds resident for five years now. I love the quietness of Leeds as it is similar to my hometown. I hate London with its busy way of life, so I love living in Leeds.

Your site targets the U.K., but binary markets are available all over the world. Have you considered expanding into other markets?

When I was only planning to launch a website, I had already thought about into which languages I was going to translate it. The list is: English, Russian, French, Dutch, Spanish and German. At the moment I have only translated my website into Russian; I didn’t have time to deal with the others.

You've stated in the GPWA forums that you’re a part-time affiliate, working from eight to 15 hours a week on your site. What do you do in your “day job”? Are you hoping to one day run your site full time?

Yes, that’s right. I do spend some time looking after my websites and improving site traffic with good content and SEO work. My other part-time job is in the Internet marketing field. I work for a pretty big agency called “ICS-Digital”; it is mostly SEO work and provision of Russian content. The idea behind the affiliate stuff for me is to get some extra money on the side, so it is more like a hobby for me.

How important is social media to the success of your sites?

Currently it has a very small influence on my success. I have tested Instagram for promoting binary options trading, but so far it doesn’t work as well as I wanted it to. I created a template to create unique quotes, and I do get likes and a bit of traffic, but no real registrations yet.

Are you a one-man shop? Or do you have other people working on your site as well? How often do you get to see and interact with other people in the industry?

As I have several websites, I have colleagues who are responsible for some specific areas. We all work distantly and communicate via Skype. My colleagues live in Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia and South Africa.

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

Personal approach. I hate when managers just e-mail you with a template without even checking your website. Some managers just want you to feature them on your website, and they don’t really care how you are going to benefit from that or why they have to be listed over other good brokers. A program can’t be fixed. I mean you can’t give 30% rev share to all of your partners who promote you. There are some programs like that in the industry.

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

E-mail is the best when agreeing on the deal. After that, Skype, as I like to get quick answers from managers.

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

I wanted to share my ideas, get new friends, chat and get some traffic for my “green” website. The people and administration are really friendly and helpful — I got some tips from visitors and found myself a pretty good content provider.

What do you like about the industry?

Flexibility of work hours and almost unlimited possibilities in earnings. You can smartly invest $2,000 to get $4,000 the next month. Good ROI, to be precise.

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

Fine companies who live on the market for about a year, who don’t care about their customers. I believe there are some people who open and close binary options brokers every month because they earn money like that. They take money, but don’t give it back. They are ruining the industry.

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

They just know that I work in Internet marketing, so they don’t hate it. If I were to say that I am looking for new casino players, they wouldn’t like it.

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

I do sometimes. Some betting to enjoy watching boring football games, and sometimes I play poker to relax.

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

Before I tried to be quick in responding, but now I tend to get more personal and thankful. After reading some books I understood how important the approach to every single person you write to is. Even when people write hateful e-mail to me because a broker is not paying them (they have failed to follow company rules), I try to calm the person down and explain the whole situation. Maybe I waste time on that in some cases . . . but guys, just try to be respectful, polite and truthful in your e-mail.

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

I use the Any.do application on my phone and extension in Google Chrome. This really helps me not to forget to fulfill some tasks. Sometimes I create to-do lists in my notebook for a specific day — it increases the efficiency by several times. I could write four articles in a day without a to-do list, but if I tell myself to write 10 articles and then do some other tasks on the side, I will complete them all!

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

SEO and content take the most time for me, like 80%. I can’t say in hours as it changes from time to time and I have several projects.

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

Hackers. I didn’t know about them before, but one day my website went down and I spent ages restoring it. Always back up your data and website.

What’s the best thing about running your sites?

The feeling of being independent.

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

I played football in the past, went to the gym. Nowadays it is morning exercises and some running in the evening.

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

If they came to Leeds I would take them to York (laughing). In one day you can see beautiful architecture, feel the British culture and try some good ales!

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

I work almost always; even when I am on so-called holiday I have to take care of my websites and answer e-mail. It does take around one hour a day, so it is not that bad a problem for me.

We know you just got back from a trip to Croatia and Serbia. How was the trip?

It was 35 degrees (Celsius) most of the time, so I really relaxed and gained some energy to work hard!

What’s your all-time favorite movie?

Peaceful Warrior — a good motivational movie that I recommend everyone watch.

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

Hard question . . . Richard Branson, Henry Ford, Jose Mourinho, Adrian Newey and probably Elon Musk.

What are three things that nobody knows about you?

Wait . . . if I tell them to you now, someone is going to know about those things. I prefer to keep them to myself.

Thanks GPWA for such a great community, and special thanks to my girlfriend who is truly caring and supportive about all I do!

[MMM]

Great interview. Although your dinner with Morinho will probably be very short, similar to some of his press conferences and jobs
you should go with Pep

[sweetbet]

I really like your casinoyay.com site. Although I don't understand Russian, the site's design and content are excellent.

[MMM]

I really like your casinoyay.com site. Although I don't understand Russian, the site's design and content are excellent.

Same here. Also that the backround serves as a selling point as well.

[Moonlight Cat]

Great interview.


p.s. Tallinn very beautiful city. I visited Tallinn only one time, at 1987 or 1986, when i was a kid, but I was delighted. Very nice city.

[Miles_FTA]

Great interview.Tallinn is very beautiful i also visited around 2 Years back and never wanted to leave loved it

[MrBinaryAff]

Thanks everyone for your kind words Tallinn is beautiful, can't see myself living in another city. Leeds is far behind Tallinn


P.S. Mourinho is a legend, but I still can't understand his logic, so would be glad to chat with him