Billing suggestion for Adwords

[Shak]

AWA,

here's one for your friday love letter to the powers that be ...

many a time an advertiser is having to use a different credit debit card then his/her company card.

could be his/her personal, or spouses card.

so why oh why, does Google not have a seperate section for CARD billing (for security and visa/mastercard purposes) and another section for Invoice purposes.

I can see many a taxman getting funny wanting to know why company X is claiming for spending done on Mrs Xs personal name and address.

anyone else agree ...

Shak

[AdWordsAdvisor]

...many a time an advertiser is having to use a different credit debit card then his/her company card.

could be his/her personal, or spouses card.

so why oh why, does Google not have a seperate section for CARD billing (for security and visa/mastercard purposes) and another section for Invoice purposes...

Shak! It sure is good to see your name again in the 'Started by' column - I've missed your presence on the Forum.

I'll certainly pass your feedback on, and quote you by name. ;)

I can see many a taxman getting funny wanting to know why company X is claiming for spending done on Mrs Xs personal name and address.

Yeah, I can see where this would be 'to be avoided'.

AWA

[np2003]

I would like Google to add the ability to enter up to 3 credit cards so if one is maxxed out it can switch to the other 2.

[toddb]

I would not mind have the ability to put a back up card in place. If you have a decent size camapaign it can strain a credit card pretty quickly.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

So, this seems like an ideal opportunity to ask for everyone's feedback on the topic of AdWords billing. I'll include a special section in next Thursday's Advertiser Feedback Report on that subject.

So have at it till then, and let me know what is, and is not, working - what your thoughts are as to solutions, needed features, enhancements, etc.

Lets create a wish list.

Thanks in advance...

AWA

[breny]

The ability to list backup cards would be most helpful for me. I keep a close watch on my campaigns and credit but a couple of times my campaigns have been stopped because of a maxed out card. One of these times was when I was out of town and didn't have internet access.

I have a card with a huge limit now (Amex--getting Skymiles for all the $ I pay Google) so it hasn't been a problem except when things got really busy during the holidays.

[buckworks]

Here's my contribution to the wish list:

- optional email notification when my card is charged (or my client's card, when I'm managing someone else's campaign)

[Shak]

AWA

thanks for your kind words, my travels across Asia have/are very exciting to say the least, currently in Hong Kong....

as to billing suggestions:

1, different credit card billing and company invoice address sections.

2, back up credit card entry.

3, sms alert for when payment fails (thanks for listening to my previous requests about email notification, which now works very well, but SMS alert at a cost of say $0,05 makes sense for all parties concerned).

Shak

[irish_john]

Part the problem with SMS notification, is that the SMS standard is not very common in the states, despite being standard in most other countries.

[bears5122]

I think a standard receipt would be nice for when a payment is made. Call me old fashioned, but I'd like to know when my card has been billed.

[Robsp]

While we are on the topic:

Change payment method is high on my list. Quite a few of my customers started on prepay and now want to switch to Creditcard payment. Now you have to set up a new campaign to do this which is absurd (and not an option).

Also mentioned before an e-mail when a charge to a creditcard does not work (like it is expired). If the system would be real smart it would warn people 1 month before expiry with an e-mail.

Implementing these few features will make sure more campaign will continue to run, hence bring in more G revenue.

[running scared]

Ah! The biggest bane of my life - Adwords billing! Thanks for bringing this up Shak.

The biggest single issue is client accounts going down. It is embarrassing and reflects very badly on us (makes us look uncredit worthy). The processes we now have in place are cumbersome and still not 100% full proof.

Some ideas for alleviating the situation:

•A grace period is also in order for accounts with a decent history.
•Overture style of a pre-pay by credit card and charging before the account runs dry
•Allow a back-up deposit to be put down that would only be used if the credit card failed.
•I strongly support the idea of back up credit cards as long as you inform us when the first one fails

SMS notification has got to be a good idea

I would also like to see the option of centralised billing for all accounts in an MCC (and its sub MCCs) so we only have one rather masses of different billing systems to monitor as well as fewer lines in the statement from the credit card to deal with. (Although not directly related to billing it would be useful to be able to get an end of month statement showing the amount spent on all accounts in an MCC and sub MCCs)

[running scared]

This FAQ about forthcoming changes to billing may be pertinent to some ideas that may be suggested

[adwords.google.com...]

Summary:
- simplification of billing period dates to make it easier to reconcile
- outstanding balance will soon reflect cost of clicks since last payment

[kaylowe]

That will help quite a bit; to be able to see charges since your last billing/payment.

However, I would like for them to set up SOME kind of "warning" before they bill. Send an e-mail when within "x" dollars of billing/charging card. Most of my automatic payments send a notice ahead of time that "$x will be billed on this date". I know that this is a different set-up for billing, but - as I said; send an e-mail notice when within $x of your limit. Just like some ppcs that require prepay will e-mail you (and e-mail you, and e-mail you, and e-mail you again!)when your funds are low.

This addition would certainly give value-added to we advertisers.

Kay

[limitup]

Pre-pay would be nice. Or just more realistic "credit" limits. It's an accounting nightmare to have G hitting our card every single day. We are stuck at a $750 "credit limit" and have spent more than that per day, for months now. Doh!

[shaka1978]

Useful additions:

• pre-pay flexibility i.e. you can chuck loads of money in if you're feeling flush but once that runs out the normal post-click billing system comes back into play

• consistency with charges/limits i.e. if you're going to charge every £500 spend (give or take a bit) keep it consistent. don't charge £500 one time then let it run upto £1-£2k the next (which has happened) because if you have multiple accounts getting hit with several £1k+ charges in a day is rather annoying.

Ta,
Neil

[pmkpmk]

Seperate email account where PDF's of the invoices are sent to. This way, I would not have an angry accountant standing in my office each month asking where the invoice for the credit card transfer to Google is...

[gopi]

Pre-pay with online money transfer from a linked checking account! .If my online brokerage can transfer money from my checking account and vice versa why can't Google? ...

The problem with creditcard/debit cards are most have a 10k daily limit and its a hassle when the spend exceeds it!.

An Optional Single Billing system for all the accounts in an MCC is great idea too!

[billygg]

hey guys, i feel the same way, adwords needs to work on there system a bit. i work for a travel company, and we spend tons of money monthly on adwords. it would be nice if they could ad these things (prob already mentioned)

-e-mail notices (NEXTAG DOES IT)
-a pre-pay method
-also something in place when ur card gets declined. i know with nextag, its kinda the same way, if u run out of money, they kill ur acct, BUT, they will send u an e-mail 2 days before ur acct is expected to run out, notifing u of ur funds, and that u need to deposit. adwords sends no e-mails of any kind.

[billygg]

sorry to post again, hehe, had a little more to add, also they need to add a double sort feature, that would be nice.
for example, u can sort my campaign order, cpc, what have u, but, say i wanted to sort all my campaigns a-z, then, sort by hightst cpc, u cant do a double sort per say. also, it seems there is no ryme or reason to their billing. they will just charge at any given time. instead of charging at a certian amount of dollars. so we can run through x amount of dollars, they will charge, then the next time around we will run though half x amount of dollars, and they will charge again. SET AN AMOUNT WHEN CHARGING. etc ( we will charge you once u hit 5,000 dollars, )

[bnhall]

AWA, I'd like to see 2 new features:

1) Advance notice of billing. ie an email that says "in 4 days time we will bill card ending in -1234 for $567.23"

2) Subtract adwords charges from adsense revenue - this would massively simplify my life!

[Karmatar]

I'd love to see more options in billing. We've been rapidly expanding our adwords program to the point where monthly spend exceeds the credit limit on any of our company credit cards (not the adwords credit limit). This means that every couple of weeks our account dies until we find another credit card. The option of a backup card, or to be able to prepay extra money to the account would really help.

An option for a PDF email of each invoice, with the option of setting a different address, would also be really good. At the moment I have to catch each bill online when it is created, save it out and then email it to Accounts... It can't be hard for that to be an automated process in Adwords.

It would also be useful if Google set higher credit limit, and stuck to it. In any given billing period (about every two days for us at the moment) our current credit limit can be exceeded by 10% (occasionally even more than that). If we were billed when we reached the credit limit it would help us budget.

[martingale]

Deduct money from any AdSense account that I have first, and then take the rest from my credit card second. There is no point to go through this dance where you send me a check and i send it right back.

[zeb]

It would be nice if Google acquired a company similar to PayPal, so that we could get paid and pay our Google bills with it.

[Itagnc]

adding an additional feature to add funds from Paypal would be very nice.

[gopi]

Seems PrePay is the most requested feature ...

I never understood why google didnt had that , its afterall an interest free loan which can greatly enhance their cash-flow!.

[Essex_boy]

How about using adsense balances against charges for adwords campaigns?

be permitted to pay with Visa Electron debt cards.

[running scared]

Seems PrePay is the most requested feature ...

Agreed but to reinforce what is IMHO an important point: it will work at its best if ads do not go down immediately in the event of card transaction failure.

[7_Driver]

Another vote for paying AdWords bills with AdSense income. Please.

[ipohopper]

I'm another vote for a backup credit card feature. In case my first card gets declined for some reason they will automatically try to charge the next card in the list.

Also a wishlist that affects billing and other aspects is a secondary or third entry for email alerts. This way any email from Adwords would be sent to multiple accounts like my mobile.