Interview with Stas Slota, CEO of LeaderPrivate

Stas Slota is the founder and CEO of LeaderPrivate, an affiliate marketing agency with over 10 years of experience in the industry. Under his leadership, the company has established itself as a trusted partner in mainstream dating and lead generation verticals, working with major platforms like TikTok, Taboola, Outbrain, and MGID.

Tell us about LeaderPrivate. What does your company do and who do you work with?

LeaderPrivate specializes in traffic acquisition, analytics, and creative production, providing full-cycle marketing solutions for our clients. Our team of 20+ specialists covers everything from campaign setup to optimization and scaling.

We work primarily with direct advertisers in two main verticals: mainstream dating and lead generation, particularly in the insurance sector. Our clients are typically looking for long-term partnerships where they can scale consistently with reliable performance. We manage over $1 million in advertising budgets monthly and have successfully delivered projects for more than 400 clients across the U.S. and Europe.

What sets us apart is our partnerships with top-tier platforms. It gives us access to better support, optimized setups, and the ability to scale campaigns more effectively than agencies working through standard interfaces.

Mainstream dating is one of the most competitive verticals. What challenges do advertisers face today?

The biggest challenge is the internal infrastructure. Many dating platforms struggle to handle large volumes because their systems cannot process heavy traffic, which leads to budget caps and scaling limits.

Payment processing is another major issue. Finding reliable processors that can handle such transaction volumes is becoming harder every year. Dating is often classified as mid-risk by banks, especially in Western Europe and the U.S., where compliance is toughest, and regulations are much stricter compared to Asia and Latin America.

You are also working with insurance lead generation. What ensures lead quality in this vertical?

Precision targeting is critical, including state-level regulations, time targeting, and clear messaging in creatives. When people submit leads, they are contacted by call centers, so expectations must match reality. The information you are providing in the campaign should be about what awaits after registering. One of the biggest mistakes is misleading advertising, showing something that does not reflect what users will actually receive. It may increase clicks in the short term, but advertisers do not tolerate it. Success comes from honest creatives, correct targeting, and clear user expectations.

We focus mainly on the U.S. market since it is the largest, though each state has its own specifics. Some states, like California, New York, and New Jersey, do not process this niche, apart from some individual players. Additionally, traffic sources require campaigns to be marketed under special finance categories to avoid bans.

You have over 10 years of experience in affiliate and performance marketing. What operational processes do you rely on most to keep campaigns stable and predictable?

I wouldn’t call it a process, but the main thing is people – people who are creative and technologically competent. We focus heavily on building an organizational structure with a strong team culture where specialists feel motivated to experiment creatively, with space to experiment and try new approaches. Technology plays a big role, from AI and instruments that help creativity to analytics and tools that help analyze competitors and market trends. But at the core, it is about how people think and interpret data.

Finding truly strong specialists has become harder. The market is crowded, but not with creative talent. That is why our biggest value is team members who have been with us for three to five plus years. We focus on strong motivation, not just financial, but also on conditions that allow people to grow. 

You often highlight the importance of long-term relationships and professional trust. What does trust mean to you in day-to-day work?

Over years of cooperation, we understand each other and have confidence in each other’s decent intentions. We build trust through respect and transparency, combined with revision and control systems.

One of the biggest control points is daily reports, where all statistics, expenses, and revenues are noted. There is no micromanagement, but every department has responsible leads, supported by assistants and analysts monitoring performance. Our financial data is collected almost every day, and since I built these reports myself, I can quickly spot any inconsistencies.

In a recent LinkedIn post, you mentioned that 2025 forced you to rethink your company strategy, opening doors to new partners and channels like native advertising with Taboola and Outbrain. What exactly changed for you this year?

The shift came from advertisers telling me they were seeing strong results from native traffic, which pushed me to find the right connections. I began talking with managers whom I met later on, in July, in Barcelona, and that became a turning point. They helped us with blacklisting, correct setups, marketing strategy, budget distribution, and choosing the right ad formats.

What really facilitated our growth was communication with the right people from both sides. On one hand, advertisers in need of traffic who had known us for a long time and trusted our ability to handle new approaches. On the other hand, contacts from Taboola and Outbrain helped us get started. This level of close cooperation made a huge difference, as without strong relationships, entering these platforms is challenging. We had tried simply buying traffic through the platform interface, and it did not work nearly as well.

Success ultimately came from years of networking and building relationships with decision-makers who are open to communication and growth. I have known a specialist from Taboola for about six years. We stayed in touch through conferences, and in 2025, the timing finally aligned. My entire network was built at conferences like Affiliate World and other industry events. It took me about seven years of consistently building relationships, something many companies underestimate. You cannot expect instant results. Trust requires long-term investment.

You have been active in the industry long enough to see several major shifts. What changes in performance and native advertising do you think will matter most in the coming years?

AI is already transforming the industry and will only deepen its influence. Creative production is becoming faster and cheaper, and almost anyone can generate ad visuals now. This increases productivity but may reduce genuine creativity as content becomes machine-generated. After observing the growth of technology in recent years, I believe AI will eventually replace a large portion of manual content creation, while engineers, architects, and digital managers will become more important.

Looking at your journey, what lessons would you share with companies that want to grow sustainably in performance marketing?

Start with proper budgets. Testing without financial resources rarely works. Build partnerships with talented people who bring complementary expertise. That played a huge role in my own journey. Do not chase money alone. Choose an industry you sincerely enjoy and stay passionate about. It is what sustains long-term success.

Performance marketing is not a side hustle, and building business processes as you scale is essential, since without structured operations, chaos eventually destroys growth. After about one year of intense hands-on work, I realized this was the direction I wanted to grow in, and when the results appeared, I began building a team and a proper company. HR played a massive role once we scaled beyond five to ten people, because you cannot manage operations and emotional balance alone.