Affiliate Manager Interview Series: AffiliateClub.com - Katerina Milfaitova

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AffiliateClub.com’s Katerina keeps everything spinning smoothly.

Age: 26
Country: Czech Republic
Favorite food: If you want to meet me at any conference, you will always find me by the dessert table at the lunch break. I could die for a pancake with chocolate sauce! I am of course a big fan of the traditional Czech kitchen, too.

How long have you been working in the gambling industry and how did you get started?
I came to the U.K. six years ago to learn the English language. I could not speak any English at all before that. A few years later I was feeling confident enough to look for a “proper” job in the U.K.

I tried to look for a job, where I could use English and also Czech as my native language. I was very lucky as the first CV I ever sent in the U.K. was to an online gaming company. I started to work for them a month later in the customer support department. Someone told me not to talk about my start in customer support. But do you know what? I am proud of my past and thanks to this job I learned everything about this industry – players, products, and, most importantly the support, which is one of the most important roles for affiliate managers! I believe that starting from the bottom makes you better on your way up. After one year, I was promoted to the affiliate department and moved to Malta.

What do you like about the industry?
I will never forget my first conference in Amsterdam in 2007. I was so shocked at how much money is actually involved and how VERY young people are! It is a fascinating environment. I have not met an unfriendly person and I wish that governments would not try to blacklist this industry.

What do you wish you knew when you got started in the industry that you know now?
This is funny and a bit out of the topic. Don’t forget, I am not a native English speaker. My surname is MILFaitova and I wish I’d known what MILF meant before I joined this industry and created a Facebook account with a shortened version of my surname!

AffiliateClub.com got its start in October. What went into your decision to leave your previous position and start a new job with a new company?
I was working in Malta for almost a year and I started to feel that, although it was a beautiful island, it was too small for me; I needed to move on. Just when I finally made my decision – and believe me, it was extremely hard – and handed in my resignation, I received the offer of my life...working for AffiliateClub.com with the chance to work remotely.

What has your experience with AffiliateClub.com been like so far?
On a personal level – GREAT. I am working with the most wonderful and experienced people, Claire Leighton, Chris Taylor, Nicole Sims and our “daddy” John Ryott. All these guys are extremely supportive and helpful to me and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them – thank you, guys!!!
On a professional level, we all work from home and I guess this advantage is driving us to work twice as hard to prove our quality. We are growing in the right direction, reaching our goals and getting busier and busier, which I see as a very good sign.

List three keys to being an effective affiliate manager.
1) Time management – you have to organize your day and week to work effectively (contacting affiliates, setting up and reviewing promotions, helping with support, working closely with your team, etc.).
2) Communication with your affiliates – get in touch with personalized e-mails, responses to their e-mails, listen to them and try to help them in the best way possible, be honest with them, keep them up to date on what is going on, meet them at the conferences or elsewhere, appear on forums, have your affiliates on MSN and Skype.
3) Working hard.

What are your three keys to success for an affiliate?
1) Work with affiliate programs of good reputation.
(AffiliateClub.com is certified by GPWA, CAP, AGD, and PAP).
2) Keep your site updated.
3) Be honest with your players.

Almost all of the affiliate managers we have interviewed said trust is the critical component of a good affiliate-affiliate manager relationship. What steps do you take to make sure you build up that trust right in the beginning of the relationship?
First of all we keep in touch and inform our affiliates about everything currently happening. You have to be honest with your affiliates. If there is a problem, you tell them and solve the problem. Affiliates are human, and so are affiliate managers – we can all make mistakes. Of course the best possible way to build trust with your affiliates is having your statistics correct and paying your affiliates on time.

What is the gambling culture like in the Czech Republic?
The Czech Republic in general has quite a problem with slot machines. According to the report of the Ministry of Finance, playing slot machines covers 53% of the whole market, followed by casino, sports betting and lottery. Over 90 million Euro was bet last year (excluding online gambling). Online, sports betting is definitely number one in the Czech market, and poker is growing rapidly. It has been estimated that Czech players bet over 160 million Euro on the Internet per year, purely on sports betting!

What is the reaction of people when you tell them that you work in the online gambling industry?
This job is so unusual for Czech people that it is always difficult to explain. For people it is hard to believe that someone can be at home all the time (since I work remotely), traveling almost on a monthly basis, visiting places such as Curaçao in the Caribbean (a promotion we run for our affiliates), Macau, and Las Vegas, and being paid on top of it.

Before getting into this industry you worked as a TV presenter and a radio news editor. What was that experience like? Is that what you wanted to do as you grew up?
Ahhh, great memories. I started to work in TV as a teenager and it was a fantastic experience. I was very lucky to win the casting. After my studies I got a chance to work in radio as a news editor and reader. It took me two weeks to learn the “news voice.” We Czechs “sing” when we read and that is not allowed in the news. I learned to sound serious and cold, so that even my family did not recognize me on the air. I always wanted to work in media. I feel very comfortable with a microphone and also on the stage. Unfortunately, I left this job to learn English in the UK.

You have also studied accountancy, economy, literature and German in the past. How has your diverse background helped you in the online gaming industry?
I am happy my grandma will not be able to read this magazine because she was the one choosing the studies for me. I found my studies of accountancy and economy very boring, and the only thing I am pleased about from my studies is that I learned how to touch type!

If there was going to be a movie made about your life story, what actress would play the lead role? What genre of movie would it be?
A romantic comedy with a cross between Nicole Kidman (nice, kind and very classy) and a bit of Jim Carrey, as I can be a bit crazy. I cannot really think of one female actress describing me.

What are your some of your favorite hobbies?
My sister just had her second baby, so I love being around my two beautiful nieces. I missed the first two years of my first one when I was living abroad, so I want to enjoy this new baby as much as I can. Babies grow up very fast.
I also love attending my spinning classes at the local gym!

Describe what a “perfect day” would be like for you.
My wedding day? :-) Seriously, I hope I will get married one day without looking old….

Peeps, she does have a weird obsession with desserts and hats!