A personal blog based on 20+ years of hands-on experience: campaign breakdowns and a practical CPA glossary.
Traffic loss between a tracker and an affiliate network, between a source and a tracker, or farther down a redirect chain is unpleasant. Even a 1% loss can be expensive. Sometimes finding the cause is hard because the ping-pong starts. Tracker vendors say everything is okay—and often that is true. With self-hosted trackers, you have … Read more
Everything is cyclical (in Russian), as usual. For several months now I have been watching a big new cycle begin in affiliate marketing. 1. A long, long time ago Many, many years ago, when I was just starting (in Russian), traffic arbitrage combined several things: the solo model worked the ability to invent an approach … Read more
Recently I saw an ad for a Facebook comment-boosting solution in several channels. After the ad came a discussion: whether comments work, which verticals they work for, and all that. This is kind of like cap stuffing—the subject has been tested every which way and is easy to understand. But if people still have questions, … Read more
It is summer here, and I have analysis paralysis. I want to write about AI and I do have things to say, but I cannot start—there is too much I want to unpack right here, right now. I have two drafts about AI, agents, media buying, and creatives, but I do not want to post … Read more
I had been suffering from phantom pains over my shut-down blog for a long time. A thought buried deep in my mind that would not leave me alone, though something kept getting in the way. One of the things that stopped me—and lately the only thing—was that I had lost the backups. Buried them somewhere … Read more
Hi, experienced media buyers! Hi to the inexperienced ones too! Can you guess which screenshots show a useless A/A test and which show an honest A/B test? Where the winner is obvious, and where you need to keep sending traffic? The answer is at the end of the post. tldr; A/B tests are often run … Read more
A CPI rejection is when an advertiser refuses to count your installs as payable. Why? Read on. This post is by Alexey Pisarevsky, CEO of the Mobio agency and the MobioNetwork affiliate network. The quality of CPI traffic and refused payouts are more relevant than ever. Advertisers are in complete eclectic disarray when it comes … Read more
People on the forum were discussing approaches to traffic arbitrage, and a post by Finch about where he would start with $5,000 came up. I decided to write down my take on it. Traffic arbitrage has always been an interesting way to start making money outside your day job. I always put the minimum starting … Read more
Updated August 13, 2026. In a chat we were discussing “who could spill what secret.” I’ll spill a few super-angles. Bad news: there is no single secret angle. ROI is moved by dozens of boring little things. Good news: you can count and tweak them. What ROI Means Specifically in Affiliate Marketing ROI shows how … Read more
MO SMS: a message from a phone to a network or application. MT SMS: a message from a network or application to a phone. That’s it. Those two letters describe the direction of an SMS, not the rate plan, subscription, or way money is charged. Updated August 13, 2026. Parameter MO SMS MT SMS Direction … Read more