Preview of Post Affiliate Xpress 4
The new version 4 is build on whole new engine that enables many advanced features.
As said in the previous post, Post Affiliate Xpress is still in the development, and it will be released on 31st August 2008.
User Interface
first thing you’ll notice in the new version is it’s revolutionary user interface.
Merchant panel in Blue Aero theme
New Post Affiliate Xpress is Web 2.0 applications that can (but doesn’t need to) look very much like normal desktop software, with windows, start button with taskbar, sidebar and quick launch.
- Sidebar - allows you to dock your gadgets and statistics on the right side, so they are always visible.
- Gadgets - are small “applications” that can do anything., from displaying data, weather, to write notes or even play games. Except our build-in gadgets you can also use gadgets written for Netvibes and iGoogle.
- Flash charts - they offer interactive visual view of the trends and statistics
- Start button with taskbar - just like on MS Widows, you can click on Start to display menu, and you will see all the opened windows in the taskbar.
- Quick launch - a feature that allows you to create your own shortcut icons that quickly open any panel screen
- Quick actions gadget - an example of gadgets, it offers intuitive list of most common actions
Themes (look & feel)
PAX supports theming, so you can choose from different multiple themes for your merchant, affiliate and signup panel. The themes are independent, so you can have one theme for signup and another for merchant panel. All themes are based on customizable Smarty templates.
Sample themes
 WideSingle theme |
 Classic theme |
 Blue Aero theme |
Plugins
perhaps the most important feature, plugins can extend the application functionality.
Some features that will be not in the current release will be added as plug-ins. An example of such plug-in is GeoIP support (in development).
You will be able to easily choose and install the plug-ins you like, by just copying the plugin to the system directory.
More linking types and DirectLink
we added support for few more types of linking (the way how affiliate links look like) including SEO friendly links with no URL parameters.
Possible linking:
| Standard (redirect) | http://www.examplesite.com/affiliate/scripts/t.php?a_aid=1&a_bid=2 | |
| New style (URL parameters) | http://www.examplesite.com/?a_aid=1&a_bid=2 | |
| SEO links (with mod rewrite) | http://www.examplesite.com/1/2.html | |
| DirectLink (no parameters) | http://www.examplesite.com/ |
DirectLink linking
DirectLink is a special feature that allows your affiliates to link directly to your website, without any additional parameters in the link URL.
It is the most search engine friendly linking method possible and guarantees the best SEO results.
Affiliate link protection / cloaking
it is now simple for affiliates to cloak their affiliate links.
Channels and SubId tracking
this feature allows affiliates to create advertising channels, and watch which channels bring the best results for the same banner type.
For example, you can create channel for AdWords, and channel for normal website. Then you will be able to compare the results of the same text link placed on AdWords, or on your page.
New banner types
new version has native support for generating viral PDF e-books. Also generating Flash banners is much easier than before. We will be adding another banner types in the future releases.
Public API
again this is more important for developers than normal users. The new engine allows us to publish Post Affiliate API, that can be used by external programs to communicate with the core affiliate system engine. The API can be used to programatically manage and control every part of affiliate program, you can even create your own client user interface for example in .NET that will communicate directly with affiliate server.
The API will be useful whenever you need to connect PAX with some external system, or when you want to perform some action (create affiliate, approve commission) programatically.
These are just my picks of the most important features. There are much more of them, including better VAT support for EU merchants, generating invoices, auto-signups to newsletters, etc., etc.
Some more screenshots
 Gadgets on the desktop |
 Campaign editation form |
 Banners list in affiliate panel |
 Edit text link |
If you have any comments, or new ideas, please let us know.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:16 am
Hello,
how do you know which affiliate linked to my site, if they use Direct Linking? How do you track the hits then?
How does the HTML code of banners look like? In the current PAP version the generated HTML code for banners is not very good. I would like to *fully* customize the generated HTML code (choice between upper/lower case, HTML/XHTML, proper quotaion marks, alt and title tags, inline style to remove borders). Will it possible?
And it would be very good if the affiliates could choice between HTML and XHTML code.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Hello,
DirectLink recognizes referer user from the referer information (domain) sent by browser. Big majority of browsers send this information, so the reliability is very good. And as said in the text, it is best from the SEO point of view.
In v4 the banner formats will be fully customizable, so you can change upper-lower case letters, quotation marks, add classes, etc.
Most probably we will not support choosing between HTML / XHTML version of banner code, I think it would be very confusing for affiliates.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Hello,
so if an affiliate wants to use DirectLink, and he/she must list all of his/her referrer URLs? Because I think PAP4 will lookup the referrer domain name in the database, and then it will bind the referrer domain to the appropriate affiliate, right? But if PAP doesn’t found the referrer domain in the database, no one will earn commission?
You could create an “Advanced options” menu, which will be hidden by default, and affiliates could choose between XTHML and HTML codes there. The tag is different:
in XTHML
in HTML
August 19th, 2008 at 3:40 am
Directlinking is clever. My boss is so excited about your product however, I want to ask some questions.
You said…”DirectLink recognizes referer user from the referer information (domain) sent by browser. Big majority of browsers send this information, so the reliability is very good.”.
it looks like it only works with those affiliates having their own website?
Affiliates without a website cannot use directlinking. Moreover, directlinking cannot be used outside your domain.
Please tell me if what I’m thinking is right or wrong so we know what to tell our affiliates should we buy your product.
August 19th, 2008 at 4:40 am
yes, affiliates need to have their own website to be able to use direct linking. The webpage can be even on a free hosting, as long as affiliate uses some unique subdomain or directory.
It works as follows:
Affiliate registers his domain(s), for example:
http://www.somesite.com*
Merchant has to approve this domain, and when he does then all traffic that comes from this domains will be tracked as referred by the affiliate.
The star in the domain is standard wildcard character, so
http://www.somesite.com* will match http://www.somesite.com or http://www.somesite.com/page.html or http://www.somesite.com/dir/page.html, etc.
Affiliates who don’t have their own webpages can still use normal linking with use of parameters.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:57 am
1. And can affiliates use both DirectLinking and normal linking?
2. SEO links: Is it possible to generate such affilaite links like this?
http://www.examplesite.com/affiliateusername
3. My current affiliates use the old linking method. Can I upgrade to PAP4, then provide the new directlinking option, without losing the existing incoming links (affiliates could swith to the new linking method gradually)?
August 19th, 2008 at 6:43 am
1. yes, affiliates can use both DirectLink and normal linking
2. yes, it is possible. It is a variation of SEO links method. This method allows you to customize how the link should look like
3. yes, all old links will still work and PAP4 will be backward compatible.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:55 am
If I as affiliate directly link to the merchant’s site, how can use tracking IDs? They are important because I want to know, which keywords convert, and which don’t.
Can I setup subpages on my own site, to mimic tracking IDs? Like this:
http://www.example.com/campaign1.html
http://www.example.com/campaign2.html
http://www.example.com/campaign3.html
So that I could track the converting keywords as affiliate, will it work?
August 19th, 2008 at 9:46 am
WOW!
With normal linking style, people do erase the parameters which results to lost commission for affiliate.
Here comes the directlinking to save the day for all of us affiliate marketers.
GOOD WORK!
August 19th, 2008 at 10:40 am
The 2 features here that I’m most excited about are the SubID tracking and the public API. The plug-in architecture is also very promising, especially since it supports easier expansion and would allow us to remove unneeded features.
SubID tracking will allow my affiliates to do their own ad testing, and the API will allow me to integrate the affiliate program into my shopping cart to make it easier to recruit new partners.
And yes, the direct linking is cool, as are the SEO links.
PDF support - yes, I’ve wanted that one too.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:26 pm
to Bence: yes, there will be this functionality to track advertising “channels” even with DirectLink, it will work pretty much how you described it.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Great to see that there will be updates for PAP. A very important point i was disapointed was the update.
PAP is very powerfull, but there are still some glitches which need to be changed or even gives the possibility to change it by our own easy.
The PAP code structure really is hard to understand even for a skilled coder
The main point why I am writing this comment is about a very important point which i also see in the new Screenshots is not improved: The Affiliate Banner list where Affiliates can choose the Banners.
The Problems of the Affiliate Banner list are:
- It should be as easy to understand as possible. Actually i see confusing numbers like 11111100011. This is not userfriendly for a new Affiliate which got a hard time in trying to configure the Bannerintegration correctly.
- There also is missing the Info about the Bonus % of the Compaign the Banner is in. In the current PAP Version there even is NO info about it, maybe a bug or just not coded.
Another big point i was disapointed about is the Flash Banner integration. There is a bug for IE 6 Browser which makes it impossible to click a Flash banner and open the Link. IE6 requires 2 clicks due to the bug. First clicks is for activating the ActiveX element, and than the second click is opening the Link. This is confusing to a Visitor and will end in losing some clicks.
Additionaly to this one very big point you have forgotten: sometimes Banners get changed from jpg/gif to Flash format. Now there is a problem you see, because the code the visitor has integrated is not ready to handle it.
Due to this I created a solution for it on my own.
The solution is using iframes in the Affiliate Banner containers which can handle Flash and jpg/gif at the same time.
Than I coded a little php file which outputs all content: Flash and JPG/GIF Banners. For flash it outputs the flash object code, for picture files the img tag code.
=============
with the new created php file it is easy not to add new Banners. I just have to add the Bannername to the pap file, and for the Affiliate Bannercode i just use the iframe code with changing the ID overgiven to the php file. but however for the iframe code i have to change the with and height manualy.
Now i hope you see the problem and maybe you can get rid of that in the new pap version - i hope so
if you want i also can send you my php file as like as the iframe code for you making better to understand.
If you need any serios feedback for your new pap, feel free to contact me anytime on the provided email.
best regards
August 25th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I forgot to mention that with the iframe + php file method it is possible to change the banner content in php file without the affiliate have to change anything on his code. full controll about the content independend from fileformat.
Also with iframe code the IE6 bug is solved, thats why using iframe.
August 26th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Are you still set from Aug 31st release? It would be a bummer to see that launch date delayed. Also, any idea on pricing? Will the source code still stay open like the pervious versions?
thanks!
August 27th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
hi,
yes, if nothing unpredictable happens, PAX will be released on 31st August.
The code will stay open, but I believe nobody will need to hack our code.
It will be possible to extend the functionality with plugins.
Tom:
I’m not sure I understand your iframe solution correctly, but it seem to have one disadvantage - that the affiliate links will be not be placed on his site directly, but they will be inside an iframe.
From the visitor’s point of view it makes no difference, but it is not SE friendly. Or did I misunderstood it?
I take your comment about the banners displayed for affiliate, we already changed the way they look, and I’ll add also information about the campaign commissions.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Hi, reading from your website, upgrades are free.
So older customers will get to upgrade to it, true?
Thanks a lot!
August 27th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
More questions (regarding upgrade I read the comments in another post so don’t reply here):
Will the API be ready on Aug 31st? Will API be available in smaller version?
Can you put up a demo of the product or some screenshots from the end-user (affiliate) point of view?
Thanks
August 29th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Sub Id tracking in PAP is long overdue and will give merchants an edge over merchants using inferior scripts which don’t support it.
Heck, even 1shoppingcart doesn’t have subid tracking which is shocking.
Can’t wait to give this a review.
August 30th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Hurray! 31st Aug!
Will pax out today?
August 31st, 2008 at 4:27 am
yes today!!!
August 31st, 2008 at 9:39 am
I can´t wait to see it. But as far as I can´t move on from pax to pap4 it makes no sense to upgrade to pax.
Any date for pap4?
August 31st, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Where is pax?
August 31st, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Today is holiday… Be patient.
August 31st, 2008 at 8:24 pm
There is one function I would love to see and I also would pay for it. So if there are other guys out that would like it … just post it somewhere. Possibly we can get enoght money and drive togehter to get it as a new function or add-on in pap4 or pap5.
The goal is: Track sales lifetime. Even, if the custommer deletes his cookies and doesn´t come from the affiliates-page.
After one sale is done, it should be possible to track him permanently. The identifier should be the eMail.
How could it work?
When the eMail is transfered to papx and saved in the database, including the referral, then there is a connections. So in each and every new sale, pap can check with the database … if the incomming eMail was with a sale before, it just should put the sale to the same affiliate as before.
So the onliest needet thing is to track the eMail of the custommer in the pap-database. And this would really guarantee a lifetime-commision, even if the user blocks cookies and so on. For me this would be a great quality-benefit to promise lifetime-commissions to my partners. What do you think?
Best wishes, Ju lian!
September 1st, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Thank you for your replay mark.
i forgot to say that the iframe was inclued in a tag, which means only with activated javascript it will be shown. google is not using javascript, and instead it will show the tag = a link. So it also does have SEO value.
iframe PRO (with using a php file request instead of direct file):
- the administrator is able to change banner type from GIF/JPG to FLASH (and vise versa) without the need for the affiliate to change code on his website.
- the iframe is in a javascript tag, google is not using javascript, instead it will show a tag with the link for SEO.
- for solving the IE6 Bug (which requires a user to do 2 clicks on a flash banner for opening the link), the iframe gives a good solution. Because: The fix for it is a external .js file (google for AC_RunActiveContent.js). Normaly it would mean to include this in the affiliate banner code. but now with iframe the affiliate will not see an external .js file is included.
- the iframe code comes with a fixed with and height, so the affiliate can be sure that there wont’t be any oversized banner by mistake.
===============================================
Another suggestion:
Bannerplacing - a similiar method google is using. google is scanning a website page with the AdSense bannercode for the content keywords. depening to the keywords it will place same-content banners.
now for pap it would be great if it could use same method.
A scanfunction which scans the page with the affiliate code for the keywords (maybe cronjob every 1 hour). depending on the content it would choose a content-similar affiliate banner (banners would get keywords when creating them).
This will result for affiliate having less work with banner placing code. its like 1 code for all, and pap will do the rest.
however i dont know the functions behind it, so maybe it will be to much work to integrate it. However i am sure it is possible to use external apis for scanning a website for the contentvalue and priority.
Another advantage this will bring: you could give customers one more good reason why buying pap: its similar to adsense bannerplacing method. customers like to be in controll of software which does have same functionality like big external providers, its creating a worth value for them.
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:15 am
Hello Tom,
I’m trying to understand how you mean it. If it will be possible, we’ll make it. Maybe not in this version, but in the next update or as a separate plugin.
To Julian: we’ll make the lifetime commissions, they will be available from the first release.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
–> To Julian: we’ll make the lifetime commissions, they will be available from the first release.
You´re God!
As a “Thank you” for that I will directly buy PAX when it is published, even if I already have PAP and I don´t need a second license.
The point is: I offered a lot of times that I would pay for that function, so I think it is fair, to pay something now. When I put the money in PAX I also can test the software before the official upgrade to pap4, so we bouth have a benefit.
Best wishes, Julian!
October 12th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Gadget…
Great article, Go Gadget go…