Hey, community! Today we have a really cool guest: Vadym, the creator of the “De Depy, Lebowski” channel. The conversation turned out to be candid and extremely interesting. Most importantly, we touched on plenty of topics that will be especially useful to beginners. Enjoy the interview!
Hi, Vadym! How is your move away from media buying going? Judging by your channel posts, you’ve been busy with other things for about two months now. Don’t you feel tempted to launch a new campaign funnel?
Honestly, I haven’t felt like running ads at all, seeing what’s happening in the market: constant bans and no conversions. At first there was vibe coding and some projects, and they took up all my attention. Sometimes I even deliberately stayed away from the computer just to do nothing. Seventy-five days without work.
What has your overall experience been like? Which teams have you worked with, and what’s the most valuable thing you’ve taken from it all? Not talking about money, of course.
Seven years in affiliate media buying, five of them in gambling. I’ve worked both on the product side and with a team. The difference in how work is approached is noticeable, but you can get results in either setup. What matters everywhere is the people and how quickly decisions are made in the company.
A lot of your posts refer specifically to gambling. How much do you like this vertical? Has it really changed so much in recent years that crazy multiples are no longer possible and ROI keeps getting more modest?
The vertical is great, as straightforward as a door, and it seems like the whitest of all the gray verticals. People get exactly what they see in the picture: their game! Things have changed. Before, everyone was making money, including the top buyers. Now only the top buyers make money, maybe 10–15%; everyone else is happy with their 2–3k.
Why did you decide to leave media buying in the first place? Is it just that you now need more resources to make the same money you could earn in a few hours several years ago, or is it simply burnout?
It’s more that things have genuinely become harder. I don’t want to be part of this mess. There are other cool fields where people also make money online and in dollars. You just have to broaden your horizons.
So are you leaving media buying because you’ve outgrown it, or because it stopped giving you what drew you to it in the first place?
I hit a ceiling. At some point you need to take on more responsibility and become a team lead, for example. So I stayed a buyer and developed other projects in parallel.
What annoys you most about today’s affiliate market?
Facebook.
Would you advise newcomers to work as media buyers on a team, or is it better to go solo?
Definitely join a team, for at least a year. Because there’s a 90% chance a person will otherwise waste money and time.
Overall, how high is the barrier to entry for beginners now? You once wrote that “affiliate media buying is still a great job with a relatively quick entry and good earnings.” What exactly did you mean? A lot of people genuinely think the industry is overheated and inexperienced affiliates can only watch everyone else make a profit.
The whole point is that Facebook has gotten harder, but there haven’t been more skills or tools. So you can start running traffic and get your bearings in two months. What matters is how hungry a person is. That’s the motivation that gets you hired even with minimal knowledge.
How different is the industry’s real picture from what newcomers see on Telegram: expensive cars, big checks, screenshots of profits, and stories of insane ROI?
It depends on who’s presenting that picture. I’ve never exaggerated or shown things I don’t have. But overall, the picture matches: nice places, clothes, and a used BMW.
What projects are you working on now? Is it still all about profit, or is it about something more?
For now, it’s still about making money. I’m not rich enough yet to become a visionary and have a mission.
So that’s AFFX, training for beginners; BLA, supplies and agency accounts for running ads; and the De Depy, Lebowski channel?
I tried to build a community, but it hasn’t worked out yet. I also tried getting into digital products, but didn’t quite pull it off either 🤷🏼♂️
Your agency: did it appear after you decided to work independently, or were you building it alongside your work with other teams?
The agency, and the whole business of ad-buying supplies, appeared almost by some strange miracle. We started with high-limit ad accounts, which I told a friend about, and he got excited by the idea. It took shape while I was still working as a buyer, and now it runs almost without my involvement.
What does your agency do? Do you only sell agency ad accounts, or do you also run traffic yourselves?
Right now, we handle agency accounts, high-limit accounts, account farming, and everything else needed to launch ads. We don’t do our own media buying.
You’re also a mentor for the gambling vertical at Affx Academy. What can you say about that experience?
Being a mentor is pretty interesting. I generally have no trouble sharing work-related information with people around me, because it comes back to you later. It was difficult to create a product from scratch, record lessons, and explain my thoughts in a structured way. But now everything runs smoothly. Of course, students don’t always listen to you, but by the end of the course there are people who know the fundamentals of media buying.
How do you see the “next generation” of affiliates? How different is their mindset from that of people you’ve worked with before, if it’s different at all?
Fortunately or unfortunately, I don’t talk much to buyers under 25 these days, or really to buyers in general. So I can’t objectively assess whether our mindsets differ. The main thing is that they’re hungry for money, take responsibility for their work, and have soft skills.
Could the new generation of affiliates change the market so much that the old hands get left behind?
Replacing experienced buyers will be quite difficult because they have expertise across almost every GEO and have seen so much in their work. The ones who get replaced will be those who’ve burned out or started getting lazy, because buyers also keep up with trends, using AI and modern tools.
What do you think the industry will look like in three to five years? Which niches have the most potential to take off, or will things stay more or less as they are now?
On the whole, things will stay the same. But of course there will be even more automation and AI. Maybe we’ll even stop launching all this stuff manually, although moderation will still raise questions. Maybe more global services will emerge that let you launch ads inside them, like GPT did. I’m also curious about how we’ll enter the VR era.
We increasingly hear and see stories about affiliate programs turning out to be scams. Do you think the era of hundreds and thousands of affiliate programs is coming to an end?
Yes, I think products will develop their own affiliate programs, as well as in-house buying, and work directly. Though big affiliate networks whose numbers add up will remain.
If someone reading this interview is wondering whether to enter affiliate marketing, what would you honestly tell them, without any motivational clichés?
Honestly, yes, you can confidently enter the industry as an affiliate or media buyer. Everything will depend on the person, their ambitions, how well they understand the field, and whether they apply what they learn in practice. Because salaries, after all, are still among the highest in the fields I know.
Conclusion
We thank Vadym for his great answers, which will certainly be not only interesting but useful too. We sincerely wish him success with all his projects. And we personally recommend subscribing to his channel so you don’t miss anything interesting!
What’s also great is that Vadym directly influences the industry and contributes to its development, including through his own project BLA SHOP, which specializes in digital products for media buyers. And despite all the difficulties in the market, they keep their standards high and create a great product.
We also remind you that it’s just as important to join our Telegram community, if you haven’t already!
As always, with respect, your Geek!
