PRO insights from expert in affiliate marketing – Luke Kling

More than 3 years ago, we created our first thread for iMonetizeIt on affLIFT forum and met its owner, Luke Kling. Even then, we were impressed by his 100% dedication to his business and his growing media resource.

It was an incredible feeling to see that over these 3 years, affLIFT has become one of the most useful and most recognizable English-speaking communities in the affiliate media space! It’s a place where everyone can get and discover something new! Let’s take a look behind the scenes of affLIFT Forum for the latest first-person insights!

1) Hey Luke! I have a feeling that we have known each other for many years😊 I am really excited that you found time to talk with us and share your priceless experience with our audience.

Hey guys! I am very pleased to see you and join this interview! Let’s start!

2) What is it like to be a forum owner? What is your job? I often see that you try to help every new member, moderate the threads and actively participate in interesting discussions. How do you manage to do everything, and is there time left to run traffic?🙂

Originally, I thought affLIFT would be primarily a content and marketing project. I would need to produce content and do a good job marketing that content. That would bring people to affLIFT and build up membership (while providing value to the members).

Now, I spend a lot of my time not only doing those things, but also quite a bit of business development and overall business management.

I use Todoist to manage all my tasks and create systems to make sure I am getting everything done that I need to get done (answering these interview questions was one of my tasks today).

I start most of my days answering emails, PMs on the forum, messages on Skype, and going through quick little tasks and forum posts. Then, once I have some momentum and coffee in me, I’ll start working on more intensive tasks.

Being a forum owner is fun and interesting, but it is time-consuming. It seems to get more and more time-consuming as the community grows and grows. But, I’ve been lucky that I have been able to put together a team of Community Leaders who help me make sure we’re answering all the questions asked in the forum, participating in discussions, and creating new content like the 400+ affiliate marketing guides we have published 🙂

I make running campaigns a priority so I definitely have time to do that 🚀

3) How important is it to be able to use the forum correctly in order to get all the necessary knowledge from tutorials and guides? Please, share with our readers a couple of lifehacks on how to effectively interact with affLIFT?

Understanding how to use the forum definitely will make your life easier. We have had over 112,000 posts created on the forum since we launched, which is a TON of content.

We have a few guides to help you get started, including these Pro Tricks to Using affLIFT and our Mega Guide

Our members are very helpful, so if you run into any issues or you are not sure about something, you can ask in our Live Chat on the forum home or create a thread and ask!

Of course, you should also utilize our awesome search. We have essentially our own search engine built into the forum. So, at any time, you can search the forum for a topic and you should be able to find something about it.

4) The traffic sources are the hottest forum topics, is it true? In my opinion it is the hottest theme, full of advices, all sorts of disputes and other things. What do you think about it? For example, if you work with Dating, is it worth to choose TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube or smth else?

We have a lot of discussions around traffic sources. I primarily stick with more affiliate friendly traffic sources and ad networks than the social media platforms. But, I know many people that are making good money promoting affiliate products on TikTok, FB, etc. so I don’t blame anyone for trying it.

5) How long have you been working with Dating and how much experience you have with other verticals? I think to become the owner of the forum, it’s necessary to be an expert in literally everything 🙂 Have you really tested all verticals from Sweeps to Nutra?😎

I’ve been working in the dating vertical for a long time now. I started shortly after POF (Plenty of Fish) released their ad platform. I’m not sure if there is an ad platform that has ever worked as well as POF used to work for affiliate dating campaigns.

I’ve worked in most popular verticals though and some obscure ones too. I’ve definitely tested sweeps to nutra 🙂

6) As for Geos, what countries do you meet most frequently in the forum’s discussions? Your personal Top 3 Geos and why is it worth spending time on them?😉

I mostly run English speaking GEOs, but you can find examples from pretty much every country on affLIFT. That’s partially because we have members from all over the world.

7) The season of AWE, TES, Sigma conferences has just started, have you already visited one of them? Do you plan to visit some affiliate conferences? Do you find the offline format useful for affiliates?

I have attended Affiliate World in the past and may attend it again within the next year or so. I usually attend Affiliate Summit at least once per year.

Affiliates can benefit tremendously from attending an affiliate marketing conference and we have many threads on affLIFT talking about this like this awesome guide!

Conferences are great for networking and learning. I definitely recommend attending when/where you can!

8) Your predictions for the second half of 2023. What for your opinion will be in trend on the affiliate market?

It’s hard to make predictions because I do not have a crystal ball, but it seems that the industry is trending in a good direction and I believe it will continue that trend 😀

9) Tips from an expert in affiliate marketing and the owner. How to achieve the work and life balance? 🙂

Work-life balance is one of the most important things to me. I have built my entire business around work-life balance. In our industry, it’s popular to have a grind mentality where you focus 100% on your work 24 hours a day, work all weekend, and talk constantly about how hard you are working.

Yes, it’s important to put in a lot of effort. But, in my experience, persistence is key and it’s hard to stay persistent without burning out when you are grinding 24/7. Small and focused incremental improvements over time will likely win.

But, you have to be intentional about work-life balance.

Luke, thank you for joining us! It was an exciting experience to dive into the life of affLIFT forum!

Join affLIFT forum, develop your skills and earn even more. Remember that profitable networking began with a simple discussion on the forum.