Review of Post Affiliate Pro4 Network (ongoing)

The following is my experience with a product from the Slovakia based company "Quality Unit". The specific product I'm referring to here is the Network version of their popular product "Post Affiliate Pro4" software.

First a little about the company, easily gleaned from a visit to their website. Quality Unit (forthwith referred to as QU) describe their services as providing "Innovative Web Applications for your Business".
They offer a small range of products and it is understood by the author that their primary product is the Post Affiliate Pro Affiliate Tracking Software, allowing users to quote "Build your own affiliate program powered by award winning and full featured affiliate software. Post Affiliate Pro is complete solution for all types of industries".

The company is fronted by co-founders Andrej Harsani and Viktor Zemen, and employs around 18 people, listed as developers and support staff on their company website.
Contact Information is published on their website as follows -
Sales
Quality Unit, LLC
616 Corporate Way STE2 4000
Valley Cottage NY 10989

Development and support team
Quality Unit, s.r.o.
Tomanova 80/C
SK-83107 Bratislava
Slovakia (European Union)

Web data extraction office
Quality Unit, LLC
99 Connelly Rd
Rising Sun, MD 21911

My requirement on approaching this company was for the Post Affiliate Pro4 Network version of software, to be used on a collaborative project involving several online web stores.
I spent a good deal of time researching the various options for Network software and it basically came to an easy choice, since QU had the exact range of features I was looking for.
I researched the online forums to learn more about end-user experiences using the PAP4 Affiliate Software and the reviews were predominantly positive. I could not however find end-user reviews of their PAP4 Network software.
I placed a call to tech support during my evaluation and the phone was answered almost immediately by a support person who was both knowledgeable and helpful. There was a minor language issue as the individual spoke with a heavy Eastern European accent, but I was soon able to dial-in to the accent and the call took place without real issue. During the call I requested references and links to other websites using PAP4 Network, and this request was denied.

On June 28 I moved forward and ordered the hosted version of the software and received my account access information promptly via email.
Before I go further I should add that I am not a software engineer or programmer but I do have a lot of experience using affiliate program software from various vendors, setting up, configuring and managing programs for a variety of clients, including for my own online businesses.

Getting started was a little rough. QU provide a very basic wizard to complete some of the preliminary configuration, but the documentation lacks a more detailed overview - a flow-chart showing how the program handshakes between Network Owner, Merchant and Affiliate would be a good place to start.
I decided from the outset that I wasn't going to spend too much time trying to figure my way through unintuitive setups, rather, I would send an email and involve QU tech support.

My Network setup on www.hitmine.com took around 30 minutes to complete. I then went ahead and created both a Merchant account and an Affiliate account. The first Merchant I have lined up for system access is MuchBetterJobs.com (MBJ). They use a Joomla/Virtuemart/Paypal configuration which I'm very familiar with so I went ahead and tried to follow the PAP integration documentation for that particular arrangement.
I utilized the "Direct-Link" feature, which involved registering the affiliate domain and approving it within the Merchant CP. This supposedly tracks all clicks coming from the affiliate domain without the need for specific tracking codes.
I ran through a test transaction, which did not appear as expected, the sale was not tracked and no commission was awarded.
So I made contact with tech support and was allocated to a support agent named "Laci Acs".

After some going back and forth with Laci for the first 2 days, on July 4 I received an email containing this comment -

"I see some interesting stuff in the logs.. i need to discuss it with the developers, so I will transfer this ticket to their department".

So clearly there were issues beyond my basic capacity to resolve, and beyond their tech support.
On July 5, Laci emailed to say that he had found something wrong with the integration, apparently I missed a step in the PayPal setup, I'm not sure where exactly, but Laci 'corrected' it and we were now ready to try another test transaction.

But again the software did not work as expected, nor as it should. The transaction through the MBJ website was logged in the Network CP, but not in the Merchant CP as it should have been. Also, level one commission should have been awarded to the referring affiliate, but it was not. No affiliate received credit for a level one commission, the referring affiliate was awarded a level 2 commission in error.

On July 6, at 3.36pm I received this email -

Hello,
I will try to have a developer look at it..

Regards,

Laci Acs
Support Team
Quality Unit

So my case has gone from being puzzling, with "interesting stuff in the logs", and "I need to discuss it with the developers", to "I will try to have a developer look at it" - I seem to have been downgraded on their priority list.

After hearing nothing for a couple more days I decided to go back in and do a more analytical examination of where things were at. On July 8 I emailed Laci with my findings as follows -

I've spent more time today looking at the program and find several things which don't seem to be working properly.

1 - when I'm logged in as network owner, it won't let me login as a merchant, even when trying to login from a different computer.

2 - Inside my network CP I see tracking, sales and commission activity for my Merchant, www.muchbetterjobs.com However, when I login to the MuchBetterJobs Merchant panel I do not see any sales, commissions or tracking activity, everything is zero

3 - When I place a test order at Muchbetterjobs.com the first tier commission is logged to 'unreffered sale' when it should be logged to the referring affiliate at webdesigndoorcounty.com The second tier commission is logged to webdesigndoorcounty.com mistakenly.

4 - The percentage commissions allocated on both first and second tiers do not reflect the percentages setup within the merchant CP. For example, on a $1.00 test sale, the level one has paid 30% and the level 2 has paid 10%, yet in the Merchant CP these commissions are set at 55% and 15%

I'm wondering if some of this might be related to the TLD redirect on hitmine.com ?? Will your system track www.hitmine.postaffiliatepro.com the same as www.hitmine.com ?? I believe some of the links were created before the DNS change and TLD assignments.

Otherwise I'm awaiting your developers response quite anxiously. I have a lot invested into this and it seems to be more than just an issue with Paypal and shopping cart integration?

My findings as outlined in the above are extremely disconcerting. The affiliate software did not track and award level 1 affiliate commissions as it should, and it did not work with the affiliate commission percentages that the Merchant has setup, instead it uses the default campaign values from the Network owner. So the wrong commissions were being applied to the MBJ sales.

I also experienced some unusual Login issues whilst testing the system. Whilst logged-in as the Network owner on one computer, it would not let me login as a Merchant on another computer, without first logging out the Network owner.

On July 8 at 2:18pm I received another email from Laci with various comments relating to the issue and a request for me to perform another test transaction.

Most disturbing however was Laci's apparent "brush-off" of the serious tracking issues I'd encountered -

Here's an extract from Laci's email in response to my highlighting that the system was not applying Merchant commissions, but applying commissions from the Network default campaign instead -

"I checked the commissions at Transactions > Commissions. Let's take a look at the commissions assigned to the "first ampaign".

So, the 'sale' type commission settings of the first campaign are as follows:
1st tier  commission: 30%
2nd tier commission 10%
see the screenshot:
http://awesomescreenshot.com/015g9mz5b

Now we can check the commissions at Transactions > Commissions:
http://awesomescreenshot.com/08bg9nhfe

it proves, that Post Affiliate Pro 4 is good at Maths ;-)"

Well, it Proves that PAP4 is great at math, but also that it is performing its calculations on the wrong set of data.

Common through the various emails from Laci has been the implication that PayPal integration is somehow responsible for all of the tracking issues. Late evening July 8 I received this in an email from Laci -

"Now I definitely see that the integration is correct, but the issue will be more likely in the  PayPal IPN handling plugin or some internal tracking script.. I will address this issue to the developers and ask them to treat it as a high priority issue. Unfortunately it is already 1am Saturdady morning and the developers work between 8am-4pm during business days.

I think Laci is either missing the point, or trying to hide the true severity of these issues. So in response I sent the following email -

Thanks for the update Laci....
I guess I'm really not understanding this part-
[from Laci's previous email]
2) the manual transaction is the only one that belongs to the MuchBetterJobs accounts. All the other transactions were assigned to the default account (network owner account).

How can an affiliate register, enter Direct-Link URL for a specific Merchant, make a referral for that Merchant, sell a product, but have the commissions applied from a Network campaign??? That doesn't make any sense. What if the Merchant commission were 10%/5% and the network default campaign commission were 50%/15%.....then the merchant would be paying a MUCH higher commission than agreed to.
Surely, if an affiliate refers a sale, the ONLY commission that can be applied is the MERCHANT commission, NOT the Network commission??

This seems quite fundamental to the function of the program and could lead to a very expensive mess.

Please clarify.....how did the affiliate generate a sale with commission set by the Network campaign and Not the merchant whose product was sold???

Thanks again

Carl

In the email I'm again reiterating the fact that the system does not track correctly and does not apply commissions from the correct Merchant.

So as of July 12, entering my third week since placing the order, I am once again in a "holding pattern" waiting for Laci.

I have a concern that I may be among the first using the Network version of this software and that it has some fundamental bugs. What is also a concern is that there may be other companies using the software, oblivious to the way in which it mis-tracks and mis-allocates sales commissions. I'm fortunate in that I'm able to create all three accounts with my system (Network, Merchant and Affiliate) and see the interchange of data between each stage. Other Network owners may not be seeing the issues that I'm seeing because they do not have access to all steps of the setup?

So to summarize, at the time of writing this, July 12 2011, the following problems remain unresolved.

1 - The system appears not to be handling IPN data from PayPal correctly
2 - The system records and shows Merchant activity data in the Network CP, but that same data is not shown in the Merchant CP as it should. The Merchant can only see tracking/sales activity that has been manually entered by the Network owner.
3 - Commissions to affiliates are incorrectly allocated. Top level affiliates do not receive the full level one commission, they receive the smaller level 2 commissions.
4 - The system uses the incorrect commissions, taking the figures from the Network default campaign and not the Merchant. So the Merchant could be asked to pay MUCH higher commissions on sales than the rates he/she has set.

In addition, the overall reliability of tracking through Direct-Link has not been established. Some clicks were tracked, others were not.

I will update as more information becomes available.

 

#STATUS UPDATE 7/13/2011#

On Tuesday July 12 I sent an email to their tech support as follows -

Hello Laci,

I'm concerned that we are now entering our third week and I am still unable to use the software.

I'm concerned also that your developers may not be aware of all the issues, since you seem to keep saying it's all down to PayPal integration and I don't believe that it is.

The Merchants whom have committed to this project are starting to ask why these issues haven't been resolved and I don't know what to tell them.

So I can communicate effectively with people on my side I've decided to post an ongoing summary of events at my development website, which I will update as and when the status changes.

Could you please direct your people to this link http://webdesigndoorcounty.com/affiliate-marketing/review-of-post-affiliate-pro4-network-software.html

If there are "issues" which I have not properly articulated, I would be happy to hear your version of events.

Please update me at your earliest convenience on how your company intends to resolve these outstanding problems, and how long it is expected to take.

Sincerely,

Carl Hruza
Connect Online Services

 

As of 8.21am Wednesday July 13, I have not had a correspondence from anyone at QU since Friday July 8.

#END UPDATE#

#UPDATE JULY 13 9:38AM#

I'm happy to report that I've seen several test transactions coming through the system in the last hour, and have received an update from QU as follows -

Hello,

I am working on this issue, I am sorry for delay. I found problem in your
VirtueMart+PayPal integration. Because you uses PAN you need speciy
accountId there. I am updating your integration and I will make test PayPal
order.

Regards,

Matej Kendera
Support Team
Quality Unit

 

#END UPDATE#

Carl Hruza

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