As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? I had two completely different plans. I either wanted to be a famous singer, on a big stage with the artists I loved at the time, or a veterinarian. I’ve always loved animals, and as a child I felt especially sorry for them because, unlike people, they can’t tell you where it hurts. I wanted to be the person who could understand them and help. I became neither, although with the amount of public speaking, events and traveling in this job, maybe the stage part didn’t get away entirely. Tell us one thing about yourself that people reading this would never guess. That after a conference I go almost completely silent. Communication is a huge part of my job and I love talking to people. But after three days of meeting and speaking with dozens of them, my social battery is empty. The journey home to Ukraine can take around 20 hours, and I will spend nearly all of it in headphones, barely saying a word. Sometimes there’s nothing playing. I just keep them on, because my conversation limit has officially been reached. So yes: someone whose whole career is built on communication occasionally needs a few days of silence to recharge. Marina Matviichuk You are at most of the major events, from iGB Affiliate in Barcelona to SiGMA Rome. What separates the programs that get real value out of a booth from the ones that just turn up? A booth should never be a beautiful construction with a logo on it. You can spend a huge budget on a stand and still leave the conference without much to show for it. The strongest booths have an idea behind them. The concept, the visuals, the team, the meetings, the activities and the communication all tell the same story. And you need to know why you are there before you walk onto the stand: who you want to meet, what you want partners to remember about you, and what you want to happen afterward. We put a lot of work into that. I want people to recognize V.Partners from across the hall, but recognition is only the first step. The value is in the conversations and the relationships that carry on long after the stand is packed up. What do you look for in an affiliate partner? What tells you early on that a relationship is going to work? Transparency, first. We’re a direct advertiser, so we want relationships where both sides can talk openly about traffic, expectations and results. I also value partners who think beyond a single campaign. Markets change, performance changes, brands evolve, and sometimes you need to test and adjust before you find the strongest combination. When communication is easy, both sides are open and there’s a shared focus on quality and sustainable performance, you usually know quite quickly that the partnership has real potential. What are the most common mistakes you see new affiliates make, and what do you tell them? One of the biggest is trying to scale before understanding what actually works. More traffic doesn’t automatically mean more profit. Start with testing. Understand the GEO, the audience, the brand and the numbers. Talk to your affiliate manager, ask what is already converting well and use the data you have. And don’t be afraid to ask questions. A good affiliate manager has seen a huge number of campaigns and markets. Use that experience rather than spending your own time and budget rediscovering it. “The achievement I’m proudest of is that you don’t always need to see the logo to know something belongs to us. Sometimes the color, the energy and the visual language are enough.” 67 GPWAtimes.org
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