Post Affiliate Pro 4 is firmly planted in the "top 3" and is determined to rise to the top of the competition. Post Affiliate Pro's strategy: offer every feature under the sun and include it in the standard "XPress" edition. While every affiliate software has a few unique features which it considers it's strong point, Post Affiliate Pro make it its business to include everyone else's unique features plus a few of its own.
The following review will not cover the standard features common to all the affiliate software reviewed here. Instead it will focus on what's special about Post Affiliate Pro.
Pros
Post Affiliate Pro also includes the most extensive collection of link types I've seen, including two different types of SEO friendly links – all in its standard edition. SEO links boost your sites ranking in the eyes of search engines because each affiliate link will double as a valuable "backlink" to your website. Since your affiliates will usually be running sites that are relevant to your site's subject matter and will use your links in context, the thousands of SEO-friendly links that your affiliate program will generate will likely give a huge boost to the performance of your site in the search engines – indirectly generating you more sales for no extra money. Considering that businesses commonly spend hundreds of dollars purchasing quality backlinks to boost their sites' ranking – this is a very valuable bonus.
One unique type of link included in Post Affiliate Pro is called "Direct Link," which creates affiliate links which are direct links to your website without any affiliate id numbers or other paramaters after the main URL. The affiliate link looks like this: www.yourdomain.com. Pretty amazing, right? Direct links are not only super friendly to Search Engines, but they also mean that customers have no way of knowing that they are clicking an affiliate link. Customers are getting increasingly wise to affiliate marketing, especially in the tech savvy industries. Even though it does not cost them anything to click on an affiliate link, they sometimes resent recommendations that includes an affiliate link. For this reason, bloggers and webmasters are sometimes concerned that using too many affiliate links will decrease their credibility in the eyes of their readers. With Direct Links, you get the best of both worlds – your affiliates feel free to link to your program as much as they like and customers have no way of recognizing or tampering with an affiliate link.
The Direct Link feature is set to change the face of affiliate marketing, and Post Affiliate Pro is leading the way by including it in their standard edition. (iDevAffiliate also offers it but it cost $99 extra.)
Another way that Post Affiliate Pro really stands out from the crowd is for being multilingual. The default language is English, with translations into Czech, Danish, German, Spanish, French, Hungarian, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Serbian, and Simplified Chinese available for free. So if you want to build a truly international affiliate program, working in one or more of these languages, Post Affiliate Pro really has your name on it. While the competition may advertise that they "allow" you to translate their affiliate software into any language, Post Affiliate Pro encourages you to do so and even offers a free Professional edition (worth $299) to anyone who will translate the software into a new language. So if you do need to translate it, you might as well take up this offer!
Post Affiliate Pro is the affiliate software of choice for many Multi-Level Marketing businesses – since it offers unlimited tiers and a forced matrix model. If you are into MLMs, you will know why this is good.
As well as offering an extensive range of commision options, Post Affiliate Pro offers another unique feature: Split commissions. This optional feature means that the commission for a sale can be split up to three ways if multiple affiliates were involved in making the sale. Smart customers often do research before buying a product, especially more expensive products, and will not base their decision on the recommendation of a single affiliate. Yet with a standard commission model sometimes the single affiliate who gets a commission is not necessarily the one who played the largest role in generating the sale. Post Affiliate Pro's split commissions feature allows you to choose to split the commission using any percentage model you choose. This is a great feature that I have not seen in any other affiliate software or even the top affiliate networks, and yet it makes so much sense. It is an incentive for hard-working affiliates to work harder to sell your products, knowing that they will earn a commission even if the customer visits other sites before the sale it made.
Cons
The only problem I have with Post Affiliate Pro is that for a company selling marketing software, their own marketing is not that great! Take their direct competitor JROX-JAM. JROX-JAM has awesome marketing, with a genuine free version, tantalizing incentives, and a funky look and feel that gives you sense that you are being invited to join the trendiest club in town. But don't be fooled Post Affiliate Pro has a solid reputation and great support, that JAM just can't compete with.
Officially, I don't know of real cons. Please let me know if you find out any!
Cost
Post Affiliate Pro's standard "Xpress" version $119 a year including full support and upgrades OR a $199 one-time license fee, including six months full support and upgrades. Both packages include installation on your server. The Xpress includes pretty much everything you could ever need to start an affiliate program, including some of the features that other companies charge extra for.
Recommendation
Post Affiliate Pro is an excellent option, but some people find it hard to choose between it and JROX-JAM. Post Affiliate Pro does include some valuable unique features besides being multilingual, so if these are important to you, it may be the right choice.
For more information, visit the Post Affiliate Pro website.
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