Eighteen already! The stable release of AlterCPA version 18 is out. And naturally, the most important innovation in it is the digit three getting dropped from the version number! As for the other fifty-odd improvements — eh, strictly for enthusiasts. Let’s share the news with those enthusiasts.
Laziness turned out to be the engine of progress — we now have an automatic update system. If you set up your server recently, it’s already enabled and working by default. For the old-timers, everything can be configured following the instructions in your account. You’ll always have a fresh version of the system and a fresh license, which especially matters if you haven’t switched to lifetime licensing yet.
Bit by bit, in small steps, we’re adding machine learning mechanisms and imitation artificial intelligence to AlterCPA. In this version, gender stats for offers are back in action — the system can once again recognize the buyer’s gender from their name, and this time not just for Russia. Sure, the accuracy isn’t perfect, because our buyers can’t even write their own name without mistakes, but it’s plenty for setting up targeting.
Facebook royally screwed the whole industry this fall. We survived as best we could. Not everyone made it. But those who did got to use FB’s server-side pixel and stop burning their sites’ real addresses. The price of that convenience is a long, painful ordeal extracting the API token. At large volumes it’s a real pain in the ass — whether the game’s worth the candle is up to you.
Everyone’s favorite FB pulled another dirty trick on us — it sued one cloaking service for a hefty sum. We’re not fans of that trend, so we’re forced to strip all cloaking tools out of AlterCPA. But so as not to upset our users, we’re adding a new toolset — traffic filtering.
On top of that, we’re releasing the traffic filtering tools as a separate service — AlterCPA One. This cloud service is available by subscription for a modest monthly fee. You won’t need to sell your secretary’s kidney and buy the full AlterCPA Pro just to use the filtering mechanisms.
Several nice little things were added to the new traffic filtering tools:
- Downloading ready-made script files, browser-check simulation pages, and AlterCPA White archives
- Filtering by the Internet protocol version in use
- Integration for exporting blacklists and checking IP addresses against your purchased IM KLO database
- Subscribing to AlterCPA One’s smart blacklists right inside your AlterCPA Pro
Not long ago we told you that hiding phone numbers in the call center is completely stupid. We gave in. Now, in the CC team settings, you can hide phone numbers entirely, or leave just the call button.
We’ve polished up cost-price accounting for orders. You can set prices for goods and additional services while working an order, and then calculate income on product traffic based on the buyout rate. Pricing can be set either for offers as a whole or in the warehouse goods settings. Delivery analytics now also shows expense, revenue, and profit data.
Of course, there are a few more nice little things:
- Affiliates can now set up their own personal direct-parking server
- Lead statistics got the long-awaited Excel export button
- All statistics sections can now display figures in any currency convenient for the affiliate, in both mono- and multi-currency networks
- Statistics and analytics reports broken down by affiliate have been brought to a unified format — you can use usernames or emails in them, whichever you prefer
- The utilities now include daily statistics recalculation and bulk order status changes
- Offers now have selection checkboxes and quick actions right from the list
- Offer goals can now have several code aliases, so you can use different codes in the postback for the same goal
- The network’s user management interface has been updated, with new filters by manager, referral, and arbitrage team
- The user registration form got additional contact-data fields
- Added the ability to track network registrations via a postback request
Of course, that’s far from all the improvements in AlterCPA Pro 18. The most serious work was done under the system’s hood, invisible to users. We completely rethought the mechanisms for storing and optimizing large tables. For the most heavily loaded networks, the problem where the network could turn into a pumpkin for a couple of minutes at midnight is gone. No more limits on click retention time. Want forever? Let it be forever, why not!