An entrepreneurial approach in traffic arbitrage means treating media buying as a business, not just as campaign execution. It combines budget ownership, testing discipline, creative thinking, GEO analysis, offer selection, team processes and the ability to learn from failed campaigns instead of simply moving to the next ad set.
In this GBC Time interview, Valeria Borisova, HR Generalist at Just Traffic Pro, explains how an entrepreneurial mindset changes the way media buyers work with budgets, teams, advertisers, creatives, traffic quality and long-term growth.
Key takeaways
| Topic | Practical takeaway |
|---|---|
| Mindset | A strong buyer treats the company’s budget as carefully as personal money. |
| Testing | Hypotheses, competitors, creatives and funnels need constant testing, not random launches. |
| Traffic sources | Facebook is the team’s core traffic source, with interest in PPC, UAC, TikTok and other sources. |
| Verticals | The team works mainly with Nutra and Gambling, while also testing whitehat offers. |
| Team structure | Buyers perform better when technical, design and routine work are supported by specialists. |
| Growth | Entrepreneurial buyers can become team leads, junior partners or project owners when they prove consistency. |
Why traffic arbitrage needs an entrepreneurial mindset
GBC Time: Your company says that team members have an entrepreneurial mindset, not just an “arbitrageur” mindset. What makes these specialists different from buyers who only generate traffic?
Valeria Borisova: First, it is their attitude toward money: the money they earn and the budget they spend on advertising campaigns.
Many arbitrageurs think: “I closed the month with a $5,000 loss. It happens.” The buyers we work with treat the company’s money as their own. They know how to manage significant budgets and understand when to scale, when to slow down and why a campaign deserves more investment.
They also have strong analytical skills. They can study unsuccessful campaigns in detail and reduce the chance of repeating the same mistakes. Average traffic providers often do not look deeply into what went wrong or why something worked. If there is no curiosity, there is little room for growth.
Another difference is initiative. A passive buyer wants everything ready-made and waits for instructions. A buyer with an entrepreneurial core looks for autonomy: which traffic to generate, which GEOs to test, what algorithms to use and which goals to set.
We treat such buyers as partners. We invest in them, provide tools and give them freedom to act. In return, they generate value for themselves and for the company.
Technical and marketing approach to acquiring traffic
GBC Time: How do you use technical and marketing approaches to acquire traffic?
Valeria Borisova: We work with two verticals: Nutra and Gambling, and each requires a different setup.
For Nutra, we use Keitaro and work with links, combining whitehat methods with landing page builders. That is the technical side. The Nutra team also includes a promotion specialist.
For Gambling, we use Binom and Android and iOS applications. We pay special attention to creatives and creative experiments, which is why the team includes professional designers.
On the marketing side, our teams constantly generate hypotheses and test them on traffic. We study competitors, analyze their methods and use those insights to make decisions. We also watch market trends closely.
That testing discipline is important across paid traffic. Google Ads, for example, explains how campaign budget and bidding choices affect traffic volume, spend and ROI, while its Search ads guidance stresses relevance, landing-page match and testing creative messages. The same principle applies in traffic arbitrage: the buyer is not just launching ads, but managing risk, data and feedback loops.
What keeps a media buying team motivated?
GBC Time: What helps your team stay driven during difficult periods? Many companies close when challenges appear, but your team has operated for years.
Valeria Borisova: Our longevity comes from many factors, not only motivation. The existence of a team depends on each member fulfilling their role: owners, team leads, buyers and other departments.
Professionalism is one key factor. We do not hire inexperienced people for training. Our entry threshold is high. The only exception may be an assistant to buyers when needed, but even then we look for juniors with specific confident skills.
We also allow buyers to focus on essential processes and delegate routine or technical tasks to other specialists. Staying motivated is difficult when one person must be a jack of all trades.
A systematic approach is also crucial. If a process is planned, structured and scalable, the chance of success is higher. Media buying changes quickly, and without structure, chaos appears. Each company needs to choose its development pace and attract people who are ready to move at that rhythm.
Adapting quickly to market changes is also essential.
Can buyers become partners or project owners?
GBC Time: Have your buyers ever opened projects together with you or become partners?
Valeria Borisova: At the moment, we do not have joint projects with buyers, but we are open to these opportunities.
We have had cases where two employees joined as buyers at the start of the team’s existence. Later, they became team leaders and then junior partners. Besides financial motivation, they gained the opportunity to influence process optimization and company development.
That is one of the clearest examples of an entrepreneurial approach in traffic arbitrage. The buyer does not stay only in the “launch campaigns” box. They begin to think about infrastructure, people, processes and long-term business results.
Markets, GEOs and exclusive offers
GBC Time: Which markets are you currently working with?
Valeria Borisova: We focus heavily on Facebook, so we do not have strict market limitations. In general, we operate worldwide.
Our priorities are European markets and Latin America, mainly because language adaptability makes it easier to customize advertising funnels. We work less with Tier 1 countries. We do not work with an aggressor country or the CIS region.
GBC Time: You also mentioned working with exclusive offers. Can you give examples?
Valeria Borisova: We try to create opportunities for buyers to run exclusive offers. We work less with affiliate programs and prefer direct advertisers when possible. Sometimes that lets us work under complete conditions, take all the caps or compete with other teams for caps and rates.
For example, we have worked with a Nutra offer on exclusive terms with SkyLead.
Case studies, ROI and vertical priorities
GBC Time: Do you have case studies with strong previous results?
Valeria Borisova: We periodically share case studies in different media. One of the latest published examples was about an adult offer from SkyLead in the Mexican GEO. We worked with this offer for 11 months and reached $239,000 in profit with 107% ROI and an average lead cost of $2.5.
GBC Time: What verticals are most important for you now?
Valeria Borisova: In addition to Nutra and Gambling, we are experimenting with whitehat offers. For now, we plan to focus further on these directions. In the future, we will probably test new ones.
Traffic sources: Facebook, PPC, UAC and TikTok
GBC Time: What sources do you mainly use to generate traffic?
Valeria Borisova: Currently, 100% of our traffic comes from Facebook. This year, we decided to expand the range of traffic sources, so we are looking for media buyers with strong experience in PPC, UAC, TikTok and other sources.
Regarding Facebook, it is relatively easy to start from scratch because there is a lot of information about creating advertising campaigns and many educational materials. The hardest part, as before, is finding a working combination.
That depends on market knowledge, offers and the initial bid.
Exploring new sources is much easier inside a team than alone. Solo work for media buyers is becoming less common because one person has to handle too many processes. More teams will be formed into media buying companies where infrastructure is set up, processes are organized and buyers can focus on their expertise: hypotheses, campaigns and scaling working combinations.
How traffic quality is maintained
GBC Time: How do you maintain traffic quality from different sources for partners?
Valeria Borisova: For Nutra, we conduct split tests, refine promos, get regular feedback from partners, proofread promos and target according to partner recommendations.
In Gambling, we use highly relevant creatives, popular slots, push notifications based on events and targeting based on advertiser requirements. Our experience with Facebook also plays a major role because that is where we currently concentrate.
For gambling traffic specifically, teams must also think about compliance, audience restrictions and responsible advertising. Strong media buying is not only about volume; it is also about whether the traffic fits the advertiser’s rules and the market’s restrictions.
Spy tools and AI in media buying
GBC Time: Do you use proprietary spy services?
Valeria Borisova: No, we use what is available on the open market.
GBC Time: Which AI technologies are useful for traffic work?
Valeria Borisova: AI is a hyped topic, but the market is still in the early stages. Our designers test AI for creative production and have also experimented with ad text generation.
Artificial intelligence will probably help media buying significantly in the future and simplify many processes.
Hiring: what Just Traffic Pro looks for
GBC Time: Do you have open vacancies, and what criteria do you use to select candidates?
Valeria Borisova: We have an open Business Development Manager position for gambling. We are also always looking for media buyers, which is our high priority.
We consider specialists with solid experience in Gambling and Nutra across different sources. The criteria include:
- Strong work experience. This means the buyer can work effectively at every stage of the funnel, from lead generation to scaling.
- Case studies with numbers. Candidates often embellish their experience, so statistics help us evaluate the strongest people.
- Personal qualities. Internal motivation, discipline, resilience, enthusiasm and the ability not to blame others when facing difficulty are important.
In general, we are always looking for talent. If a person is an expert in any affiliate marketing role, we communicate with them and see what we can offer now or later. Sometimes an offer creates demand.
How a novice arbitrage specialist becomes an entrepreneur
GBC Time: What conditions help a novice arbitrage specialist become an entrepreneur and partner?
Valeria Borisova: First, do not spread yourself too thin. You can allocate time to test different verticals and traffic sources, but at some point you need to focus on priority areas. If you try to grow everywhere at once, you will not develop deep expertise in any direction.
The people you follow, learn from and surround yourself with also matter. Many beginners hear stories about “overnight success” and easy money in media buying, join a team and wait for everything to work out by itself.
The beginning always requires diligent work. First you work for experience, and then experience works for you. Only hardworking and determined people succeed in this industry. Laziness will not help anyone become a team lead or partner.
Another important quality is the ability to find solutions in difficult situations. Even when everything seems to have failed, a professional keeps looking for options and opportunities that others do not see. That is what separates a true achiever with an entrepreneurial mindset.
