Affiliate Interview Series - Florian - Freakspin

**GPWA Abby** · 5 April 2017, 9:43 am

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Age: 31
Hometown: Berlin
Living In: Berlin
Favorite Food: Everything with gratin cheese

Sites:
freakspin.com
daily-freespins.com
freespins-aktuell.com
merkurcasinos.com
daily-casinobonus.com

(This interview was originally published in the February 2017 issue of the GPWA Times Magazine.)

When did you launch your first site? How long did it take for it to start producing revenue?
I launched my first site, freakspin.com, in 2011. The first countable revenue was generated after more than two years.

You run a number of sites, each with a different focus. Which ones came first? How did you decide what to focus on?
The first one was freakspin.com, then freespins-aktuell.com. The main-focus was to promote free spins in German-speaking casinos. Before my affiliate-career, I was a player and free spin hunter. With these sites I wanted to share my daily free spins collections. At times I also offered sports and poker offers, but I realized that this is not my business and stopped it. Now I’m only focused on casino-offers. Merkurcasinos.com is administrated by a colleague. It’s all about Merkur slots.

How did you get into iGaming affiliate marketing? Are you a full-time or part-time affiliate?
Sometimes full-time, sometimes part-time. During the holidays like Christmas or for most of December it is a full-time job because of the many promotions you find in several casinos. But I actually do this in addition to my everyday life.

Do you have employees, or is your affiliate business a solo operation?
It’s not a one-man show anymore. We are three now in the team, each with a different focus: administration, author, IT and design.

How has the iGaming industry changed since you first joined?
The most visible change is that in short time so many casinos and multi-gaming sites started to get online.I think standalone casinos were rare ?at least in Germany or Europe. Now you can place bets in online live casinos or betting on sports events.

Freakspin.com leads to some of your other sites. Is this the main portal by which other people find your sites, or do you mostly market the other sites separately? How much traffic does each site get?
Freakspin.com was my first and for a long time my only site with a lot of content, daily articles, casino, sports and some poker offers. It was a lot of work, every day. I had less and less time to do this permanently. So I had to go another way. And this was when I started to run a short blog with the daily free spin offers; just two to three sentences, no big pictures or banners; just "click here, get this." I started freespins-aktuell.com and daily-freespins.com and it worked. I had less to do and more visitors. Then I decided to stop freakspin.com. But I guess and hope it's not forever. I like this domain!

How do you decide which casinos and sportsbooks to promote?
First of all, I always need a free spin offer for my sites. So just a casino with a bonus is nothing for me. When they have free spins ?with or without deposit ?I try to test the casino myself. Then I put them on my sites.

Your currently have sites in English and German. Do you have plans to add additional languages at any point?
If I could I would love to do that, but my foreign language skills are not the best. Maybe I will find someone ?for example, someone from the Scandinavian countries ?who can work with and for me.

Germany's online gaming laws have changed a lot in the past few years, and some of them were deemed unconstitutional by the EU earlier this year. Has the legal landscape of online gaming in Germany impacted your business? If so, how?
No, not really. Here in Germany we know the current, and past, situation of the gaming law and that the law changes every several years. Or at least they try to change the law, but every time it gets revoked. I don't think the Germans take the situation very seriously.

What are some of your sites' unique selling points? How do you stand out from the crowd?
I've never found a German website like mine where you can find so many free spin offers every day.

Do you gamble online or in brick-and-mortar casinos?
I’m not allowed to talk about this, because my wife could read this article!

How often do you get to see and interact with other people in the industry? Have you attended any conferences? If so, which ones?
The most interaction is ?of course ?with the affiliate managers, via Skype or e-mail. On the other side I only know one guy, an affiliate. My first conference was 2015 in Berlin. I liked that and I’m sure more visits will follow.

What traits do you look for in an affiliate manager? How about in an affiliate program?
An affiliate manager is the first and sometimes only contact you have for a brand, so it’s very important that the AM is already there for you in case you have questions or you want to negotiate a new deal. The affiliate program must be transparent and clear ?and, of course, it must keep its promises, like payday.

What’s your preferred method of communication with affiliate managers?
E-mail. I’ve always been a fan of e-mail, so I have all topics in written form. After a telephone call, the probability is very high that I will forget half the call.

What prompted you to join the GPWA? How has it helped you?
I was looking for some contact with other affiliates and affiliate managers, and the GPWA is the best and biggest way to find them. Some issues could be resolved via the GPWA. Also it's nice to have a platform to find some of my affiliate managers quickly.

What do you like about the industry?
I like the individual slots and games and the thrill behind playing these slots. Nowadays you can play whenever and wherever you want due to mobile gaming. And of course I like the possibility to win some money.

If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be and why?
For the players, it is important to have the possibility of contacting a casino every time a player has a problem or just a question. Unfortunately, some casinos don't have the best customer support. So, if I could change something, it would be a unified customer support system that a casino can implement online.

What do your family and friends think of your work as an affiliate?
Only a few friends and some family members know what I’m doing, and they are OK with it. The others don’t really care.

How do you manage your to-do lists? Do you use any special software?
Outlook and its task planner are my friends!

How much time do you devote social networking for your sites?
At the moment, actually, zero. Social networking for gambling in or from Germany is an "unclear situation." In Germany we say “Grauzone?(grey zone).

What’s the most difficult thing about running your sites?
To be up to date with all the offers from the casinos. Sometimes they change a welcome bonus without communicating to their affiliates, so I have to check my offers at regular times.

What’s the best thing about running your sites?
To see the permanent growth. And, of course, the ups and downs. It’s a bit of a thrill.

What do you do to stay in shape ?both physically and mentally?
I walk from the couch to the kitchen and back. It’s hard.

What did you dream of doing, both professionally and personally, when you were a kid?
I wanted to become a bus driver. And who knows? Maybe it will be some day!

If someone from out of town were visiting you, what’s the one place you’d definitely take them to see?
That’s not easy. You can see so much in Berlin. But at the “Fernsehturm,?you have the best view over the whole city.

When you need to get as far away from work as possible, where do you go?
I really like my home and I’m not a travel guy. So, I guess I would go home.

What’s your all-time favorite movie?
I do not watch many movies. But one movie I've watched about 50 times is Braveheart with Mel Gibson.

If you could invite any five people, living or dead, to dinner, who would they be?
Kevin James, Britney Spears, Bud Spencer, Terence Hill and MC Tha Watcher.

Name three things that people reading this magazine don't know about you.
1. My favorite music is hardcore techno.
2. I have a fear of flying.
3. I’m a “Chilihead? I like sauces with 500,000 Scoville.

**celena** · 5 April 2017, 11:12 am

J'adore this interview.
I think we recognize a little, all!

The highs, the downs when Google has its 5 minutes, the growth, the bonuses to be up to date,
we lose a lot of time because often we are not warned.

Great Job Florian.

**sweetbet** · 5 April 2017, 3:53 pm

I think that Kevin James would be an awesome dinner guest

**Miles_Videoslots** · 6 April 2017, 3:05 am

Funny one for sure...

**Roulette Zeitung** · 6 April 2017, 3:21 am

"I’m a “Chilihead”: I like sauces with 500,000 Scoville."

OMG!
Your water consumption must be immense!
Here an idea for your next birthday party:

Leopold

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