Interview with Kot Matroskin, Creator of CPA Mafia and CPA Live

We’re launching a new interview series. Today we’re sitting down with Kot Matroskin, creator of CPA Mafia, CPA Live, cpamafia.pro, and former owner of adult content sites.

Kot, hey! Let’s start with the most standard question — when and how did you get into affiliate marketing?
Hey everyone! 🙂
I got into affiliate marketing after I already had my own platforms. Back in 2014 I got deep into adult content — I was growing a couple of adult websites and a few adult groups on social media. Income came from direct advertisers (on social media) and teaser networks (on the sites). Then I started gradually testing affiliate programs. I made a couple of posts in my groups, got 4–5 leads over a couple of days — and then my account got banned “for fraud.” I switched to another network; compared to direct advertiser income, the earnings were terrible. I started changing verticals — ran traffic to cam sites, dating offers, and similar things.

Did you ever go negative? Tell us about your biggest loss.
You can’t go negative from your own platforms. Traditional arbitrage (buying traffic) never really appealed to me. I’m more into growing my own properties.

I heard you don’t do arbitrage anymore — is that true?
Yeah, I don’t run traffic anymore.
In 2016 I sold all my platforms and spent the summer blowing the money. I went through a rough patch mentally and checked out of everything. Then I started building new platforms, but I wasn’t running traffic from them anymore. Though I did have a movie site for a while — ran a bit of gambling traffic from it.

Why did you pick the alias Kot Matroskin? Why not your real name, Andrey?
How do you know my name?
Just kidding — I’ve never hidden it.
Back in 2015 my main page got banned for a month while I was stuck in the hospital — I couldn’t be without music. I quickly created a throwaway page and just typed in Kot Matroskin on the spot. It stuck. For a while I was completely anonymous, known only as the creator of some big adult pages. Later, when I met Alyona, I stopped being anonymous. But the page just kind of became part of me — and so did the nickname. 🙂

CPA Mafia — you own it?
Yes, though I’d say my wife could be called a co-owner — we run all of it together now.

How did you realize you needed to create CPA Mafia? When was it started? How did you build up such an audience? Any investment involved?
It all started with a forum. I was thinking about what niche to build a forum in — I needed a new platform to grow. Since I love marketing, arbitrage, and traffic, I decided to build something about CPA. After I launched it, people told me I’d copied the idea from a competitor, but I’d never even heard of them. 🙂
The whole project started with $11 — just a domain. That’s all I ever put in. Then advertisers showed up and I started reinvesting everything.

Do you have plans for CPA Mafia? Are you planning to keep developing it?
I have plans, but most of the actual work has long since been handled by the team. The project basically runs itself now — I’m putting most of my energy into CPA Live these days. I love building things, but once a project gets somewhat established, I honestly lose a lot of interest. It’s not that I’ve abandoned it — it’s more of an autonomous unit at this point.

CPA Live — I understand that’s your new project. Tell us more about it. Was the idea inspired by CPA.RIP?
In Mafia I never really focused on community — it was (and still is) a collection of useful information. Later, for chat and more casual content, we created a community page called CPA Mafia | Live — and that was long before CPA.RIP existed. Once the page started growing, we decided to separate it from Mafia proper. It became its own autonomous unit. Anyone who says we copied the idea from CPA.RIP just needs to scroll back to the very beginning of CPA Live’s feed. The timeline will speak for itself.

Have you ever thought about selling the project? Has anyone offered to buy CPA Mafia?
Look, people have made offers — but they were throwing around numbers that the project earns in a week.
I’ve never seriously considered selling, at least not at this stage.

You mention your wife a lot — how did you two meet? Did Alyona know what affiliate marketing was before she met you?
I once stumbled across an ad for an affiliate program and decided to test it. The manager turned out to be Alyona. After a couple days of chatting, well… let’s just say things moved quickly from there. Anyway, I’m getting distracted.
Alyona got into the affiliate industry somewhat by accident and didn’t know anything about making money online at first — but by the time I met her she was already well into it. She had to catch up fast. 🙂

Who are you in real life? Do you have a degree? Any big goals — like a luxury car?
Want the short version of my life story? Here goes.)
I’m only 21. After high school I enrolled at a Far Eastern university studying “Advertising and Public Relations,” but I got into a motorcycle accident that summer and my perspective on life changed completely. I never went back. I kept building my adult platforms instead. Right now I’m a family man — two kids, a wife, everyday life and all that. I have a lot of goals, and fortunately my wife and I are aligned on them, so we’re working toward them together.
A luxury car — yeah, but for me that’s a 2001 Toyota Crown Athlete. 🙂

Do you think the CPA market has a future?
Honestly, hard to say. For nutra — I’m not sure, generations are changing and people are getting smarter. I think wow-products aren’t forever. But e-commerce, betting, dating, gambling and that whole world — that’ll always be around. As long as there’s traffic, someone will always want to buy it. Non-monetizable people don’t exist.)

You’re not running traffic anymore, but give us a couple of tips for someone just getting started in CPA. Where do they begin? Or should they even bother? Is there actually money on the internet?
The most important piece of advice — never stop. If you start, finish what you started.
I’m having a beer right now and some philosophical thoughts are bubbling up.)))
Alyona actually tried to start running Facebook traffic recently, and it kicked off like this: “Kot, download that landing page.” “Kot, set up the API lead transfer.” “Kot, hook up the tracker.” And on and on. Affiliate marketing isn’t just launching an ad — you need to be technically solid. Personally I know a bit of everything — I can fix HTML when needed, put together a creative in Photoshop myself, etc.

Thanks for the interview, bro — it was really interesting. Wishing you success!
That’s it? Already? I was just getting warmed up!)
Thanks to you too — my ego grew at least twice during this.
I wish everyone reading this becomes an absolute traffic beast!