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Collecting Advertising Revenue

Once a month, or once a year?

         

Bradley

3:00 pm on Aug 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



With my website, I am looking to charge companies a nominal ($50) annual fee for being listed on our site. I am trying to determine if I should collect the $50 annually, or bill the customers on a monthly basis. Here is how I currently see things:

Annual Collection Benefits:
- Do it once and be done with it for 12 months.

Annual Collection Drawbacks
- After one year, we would probably have to contact the client in person to remind them that we are going to charge their credit card.
- Client might not have the same credit card after 12 months, thus we'd be calling the client to get the correct information (administrative problem).

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Monthly Collection Benefits:
- Our site will be top of mind because the client will see the monthly charge from our site.
- No "surprise" charges (like the yearly charge scenario above) because the client is getting billed on a monthly basis.

Monthly Collection Drawbacks:
- Small monthly collections

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Anybody have any thoughts regarding this?

rcjordan

3:41 pm on Aug 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Go monthly, or at least quarterly. I went yearly for the first 3 years and it became a major problem for all of the reasons you cite.

NFFC

3:45 pm on Aug 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



The UK has a standing order and a direct debit system, anything like that in the US?

rcjordan

4:03 pm on Aug 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>anything like that in the US?

Not sure, not into that "retail" stuff, personally.

>Our site will be top of mind because the client will see the monthly charge from our site.

Even if I had access to a debit system, I would not use it. The main problem we had was that once the billing went into the client's backoffice the advertising client ~more precisely, the advertising DECISION-maker~ dropped out of the loop and as time passed we became a 'forgotten supplier' of traffic. We switched to postcard-style billing, very popular with utility and tax billing here in the US, so that the monthly/quarterly bill had a branding effect. So far, it's worked very well.

Bradley

4:56 pm on Aug 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member




RC:

So do you send them an email or do you physically mail them a postcard? Additionally, I assume that you are saying "We are billing your credit card..." instead of "CAN we bill your credit card..."

Our ultimate goal will be to have 10,000 companies listed on it. Do you think monthly facilitation will still work with such a large client base?