We’ve developed a tradition of tying new releases to IT industry holidays, and today wouldn’t have been an exception if not for natural laziness! On System Administrator Day we didn’t manage to present the stable release of AlterCPA version 3.17 to you, so, by another tradition, we’ll just do it on the fourth of an even month! Summer releases are never famous for a huge pile of features around here, but we still have plenty to make you happy!
We’ve learned to count your money better. The centerpiece of this version is the ability to calculate ROI on ad campaigns for affiliates. And of course, the new ROI calculation is available across all affiliate statistics reports, letting you count cost per click by any parameter you’re interested in. We already covered this in detail on our blog: Calculating ROI — and we can’t put it better ourselves, so just go read it there.
Speaking of statistics, we can’t skip over the massive rework of its internal core. You no longer have to worry about things like click retention periods — everything can now be stored forever without hurting performance. Or almost without hurting it, but you won’t notice the difference anyway. We took the whole thing apart, greased it up with vaseline, and gave it a magic kick for maximum speed. Just set the click archiving period somewhere in the depths of the advanced settings.
In the previous version we rolled out the first rudiments of dropshipping mechanics, but forgot to back it up with statistics. We’re fixing that — we’re just cute like that. Now the affiliate statistics section lets you turn on columns for receipt amount, cost price, and projected profit, plus display real finances as income–expense–profit. Of course, cost price data has to be pushed into the order through an integration — our own built-in cost calculation is still in development.
Payout handling for affiliates can now boast a brand-new mechanism — a payout generator. You can make all your payouts manually, without giving affiliates the option to request them themselves. Really, why would affiliates need payouts at all? Using the new section, the administrator can also check a user’s account balance as of a specific day — for example, for a period payout or an advance payout that accounts for orders still coming out of hold. Very handy if you’re using AlterCPA as a tracker for your own arbitrage team.
We’re also still building our own cloaker, built right into AlterCPA. Or not just built-in? You’ll find out soon! For now, we’ve tidied up how the cloaker works and got UTM tag passthrough working properly. For easier code insertion, we made our own ready-made JS mechanisms with redirect and iframe embedding. We’ve also added integration with IM KLO, letting you work with their databases right inside AlterCPA. Down the line we’ll make a single unified solution that you’ll be able to plug all your previously purchased cloakers into.
We’ve also added a couple of nice little extras:
- The outdated TinyMCE text editor has been removed from the system, replaced by the modern Summernote — with convenient image insertion and text handling. Fast, convenient, and cute.
- On the network’s main page, admins can now review errors occurring in the system — for example, from incorrectly configured landing pages or unstable site storage servers. Now you’ve got one more reason to bug your tech guys.
- The order analytics section got extra columns for hold finances. Extremely useful if you like keeping affiliates waiting in suspense, and won’t get in the way at all for those who don’t use hold.
- The built-in CRM can now automatically track Kazpost parcels, moving leads between statuses as delivery progresses.
- You can turn on filtering for bots trying to register in your network using reCAPTCHA v2, the most reliable option these days. We tried the third generation — it doesn’t filter anything.
Very important! This update will put a heavy load on the database. Hopefully for the last time, thanks to the new click storage structure.