Earlier this spring, Riddick’s Yerevan Meetup brought together some of the sharpest minds in affiliate and performance marketing. Hosted by CPA.Club, Galaxsys, and Riddick’s Partners, the event centered around one key theme: influence traffic, not as a buzzword, but as a legit performance source.
Three top-tier speakers, Dmitry Shcheplyakov, Team Lead of Influence at Riddick’s Partners, Pavel Beynya, Founder of Chatterfy & Famesters, and Leonid Pudov, CEO at Mr. Booster, broke down what’s popping up in influencer performance: how it works, where it breaks, and what brings ROI.You can watch the full stream in Russian at Peaky Ads’ YouTube channel and use this article as a structured recap with speaker quotes, raw metrics, and the kind of field-tested insight you won’t find on LinkedIn.
What is Influence Traffic? Brief Explanation
Influence traffic is performance-driven user acquisition from trusted content creators, streamers, YouTubers, TikTok influencers, Telegram admins, and others, whose audience acts based on trust, not tricks. It’s not just views or likes; it’s targeted traffic with real intent, driven by authentic recommendations, not pushy funnels.
When done right, influence traffic delivers:
- Lower CAC
- Higher LTV
- Better compliance
- And a stronger brand reputation than most paid media buys
Unlike traditional ad placements or scam-driven flows, influence traffic scales with reputation, not just budget. It’s the sweet spot between brand and performance, and that’s why it’s becoming one of the most strategic sources in affiliate and gaming verticals.
Influence: Not Hype but a Working Channel
The old-school view of influencers was simple: eyeballs and brand mentions. That era is dead. Now, we talk about full-funnel influence traffic, tracked to the reg and LTV, with proper budget logic and retention metrics.
Dmitry Shcheplyakov highlights, “If your influencer’s locked in, the numbers will speak.”
Team Lead of Influence at Riddick’s Partners, Dmitry, opened his talk with a banger of a case: $86.5K NetDep from a $58K spend, all from one influencer drop.
“When you see a spread like that, first you double-check your tracker. Then you start scaling ASAP,” Dmitry said on stage.
The case breakdown:
- The promo code was baked into the script, not slapped on last minute.
- The influencer played with the product.
- The tracking was surgical, with data from click to repeat deposit.
- Audience trust was on point, no spoofed credibility, just real talk.
One key takeaway from Dmitry’s drop: influence traffic converts when it’s authentic. It’s not about reach. It’s about absolute conviction from the creator.
“A promo code needs to be part of the narrative, not just a line at the bottom of a caption,” he emphasized.
And that’s what makes the traffic valuable: not manufactured hype, but legit user intent triggered by a trusted voice.
Influence vs. Cheap Scam: Know the Line or Get Burned
Pavel Beynya, CEO of Famesters and founder of Chatterfy, has been in the influencer trenches since before it was cool. His talk focused on the fine line between influence and scam.
Pavel highlights from the beginning: “If there’s a chat manager involved – it’s not influence”. Pavel laid it straight out of the gate: “90% of what people call ‘influence traffic’ is just whitewashed scam.”
He broke down the difference with sniper clarity:
| Feature | Influence | Scam |
| Chat manager | No | Always there |
| Decision-making | The user does it solo | Forced via hype/fake urgency |
| Retention | Long, clean LTV | Short burst + ghost player |
| Promo | Soft bonuses | “Guaranteed win,” fake odds |
He didn’t stop at definitions. Pavel blew open the retention problem behind most scam-driven campaigns: “When you run users through chatbots and fake VIP clubs, yeah, you might hit KPIs, but you torch your trust and churn the player instantly.”
“Real influence means the user chooses to join. No carrot, no fake win rate, no psychological squeeze,” Pavel said. “Those users stick. They deposit again. They trust the flow.”And that’s the gold standard: sustainable traffic that doesn’t need a retarget every 5 minutes just to break even.
Twitch isn’t Dead: You’re Just Using It Wrongly
Third on the mic was Leonid Pudov, CEO at mr.Booster. While others wrote Twitch off as burned, Leonid showed what happens when you rebuild the flow from the inside.
Leonid Pudov highlights: “We built ads inside the stream UI, doubled conversion rate.”
Instead of the usual Twitch ad setup, link in bio, banner nobody clicks, the mr.Booster team rolled out an in-stream gamified widget. Think: wheel spin, prizes, bonus drops, but inside the Twitch player.
The data:
- Click-to-reg.
+23% over standard format - Reg-to-dep.
2x lift - Cost-per-dep.
Cut in half - Stream watch time.
Up 15–20%
“People were asking the streamer to reroll the wheel. It became part of the show,” Leonid said.
What killed Twitch for affiliates wasn’t the platform; it was the lazy placements. “Links in chat? Dead. Static banners? Ignored. We had to bring the ad into the content, and let users click during the hype,” said Leonid.
He broke down the three keys to making it work:
- Emotions from the streamer
- Gamified ad formats that reward clicks
- Tailored bonuses (not generic cashback nonsense)
Influence Traffic: Long Game, Real Metrics
If there’s one throughline across all three speakers, it’s that influence traffic isn’t soft. When done right, it’s just as measurable as media buying, just as scalable, and way more brand-safe.
What defines good influence traffic:
- Clean funnels.
No fake promise-to-dep hand-holding. - Legit creators.
Not paid actors or farmed TikTok pages. - Retarget-free LTV.
Users come back because they want to! - Performance-first mindset with actual creative strategy.
Just numbers, engagement, and conversion – all with brand lift.
Conclusion
In a world full of fake stats, hype dashboards, and recycled creatives, influence done right stands out and sticks. Whether you’re a brand, a product owner, or a traffic buyer, you can’t afford to sleep on it.
To stay aware of industry trends, subscribe to the Peaky Ads YouTube channel for full interviews and podcasts from the teams pushing performance marketing forward. Reach out to our team to boost your efforts to the moon: we don’t chase trends – we scale them!
