Google forcing monthly invoicing, bye bye credit card payments
- Thread starter eliquid
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Someone needs to lock every decision maker at Google in a closet for a month so they can calm down and stop making these pointless changes.
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Back in WF days - like in the very very beginning from the DigitalPoint jump, there audience was most likely affiliate marketers and you'd get people doing different types of marketing.
Then at some point SEOs started joining and the place pretty much got over-ran by SEOs to the point the real marketers' voices were drowned out cause of the SEO noise.
Then when Panda and Penguin hit you saw SEOs leave, but the other marketers never really came back - or at least added to the conversation again.
So most forums just talk SEO mostly - because it's "FREE" - which it's clearly not because time is the most valuable resource
Real marketing talk tends to die cause of lack of others in the field on the forum. Here is a prime example - the Market sub-forum has 484 threads, and 3.8K message, but the Search has 1.2K threads and 11.7K messages. Literally triple, yet search is suppose to be a subset of marketing. Some how the DevOps has more talking than the marketing sub-forum.
But the way to change this is to simple talk about different marketing going on and create the fertile soil for marketers to talk.
Who has time for that? I don't know, the people in my office building literally came knocking on my door tell me "it's time to go". Everything is shutting down... Everything seems to be changing all around us.
Well, it's time to head out I guess...
Time to pass the reins to the next generation.
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People that spend money on marketing don't have time to post on forums.
eliquid
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What's crazy about your post...
I'm coming to a "free" vs "paid" mentality again in my ferris wheel of focus.
I have certain topics in my mind and life that seem to come around every X years or X months. Right now on the ferris wheel, "free" vs "paid" is what is getting on board and it's strange you touch on it here too. SERPWoo conversations, same wavelength vibes, for sure.
The "free" people are dragging me down in all sorts of ways, unexpected ways. That's not to be disrespectful of other people, friends, and people in need... but a shift is coming. I go through this phase every few years.
We all grow and change, maybe this is my final form.
If all the real marketing talk people have took their ball and went home, maybe that is my cue to not be one of the last few one's standing in the cold anymore.
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I'm still not seeing monthly invoicing on mine. The only notifications I got were raised automatic payment balance limits. It's still automatic payments hitting a credit card. I'm sure this is probably the first step to invoicing transition, but so far nothing technical has changed for us.
eliquid
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Just gonna leave this here
- https://www.reddit.com/r/PPC/comments/1de6lz5
- https://www.reddit.com/r/PPC/s/5o64unM4fD
Say's high spending, but I see plenty of $1k a month spend people complaining too.
No one is really talking about this outside the forum either, these are just the 3 I find a few days ago.
Guess this is telling of who is really a "guru" and who isn't. None of the youtube fake guru's are talking about this either. Guess they really don't manage those "big" accounts they talk about.
- https://www.reddit.com/r/PPC/comments/1de6lz5
- Google Ads phasing out card payments
Certain high-spending advertisers will need to transition from credit or debit card payments to bank-based payment options by July 31.- https://www.reddit.com/r/PPC/s/5o64unM4fD
Say's high spending, but I see plenty of $1k a month spend people complaining too.
No one is really talking about this outside the forum either, these are just the 3 I find a few days ago.
Guess this is telling of who is really a "guru" and who isn't. None of the youtube fake guru's are talking about this either. Guess they really don't manage those "big" accounts they talk about.
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Another angle to think about is they seem to be trying to stay clear of the growing Credit card delinquencies which have gone up. By forcing bank statement they essentially are moving themselves out of the way of businesses on their last life line that use credit cards to keep the business open.
They will take a hit for this in the long-term as advertisers move to other Eco-systems if it is no longer profitable - I'm thinking of little guys. They are saying some people were using the "cash back" feature on credit cards, as well as other perks to justify the spend.
I don't see how removing payment options is "better" for buyers at any reasonable level.
They will take a hit for this in the long-term as advertisers move to other Eco-systems if it is no longer profitable - I'm thinking of little guys. They are saying some people were using the "cash back" feature on credit cards, as well as other perks to justify the spend.
I don't see how removing payment options is "better" for buyers at any reasonable level.
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I can see the credit card delinquencies as being a reason, that's a good call. I checked back at my notification emails and don't see anything about forced invoice option. The only thing I see is that our payment threshold was raised by a significant amount, but we're still paying by credit card.
The thing I see in those Google messages are "high growth" advertisers, so I wonder if it's less about total amount spent per month and more about spending rate of change. They might be flagging accounts that an internal algo thinks is an opportunity for a higher touch sales opportunity to keep them spending more?
The thing I see in those Google messages are "high growth" advertisers, so I wonder if it's less about total amount spent per month and more about spending rate of change. They might be flagging accounts that an internal algo thinks is an opportunity for a higher touch sales opportunity to keep them spending more?
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Same here. It's first of the month or until the limit.
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I wonder if this is impacting accounts where the ad spend fluctuates a lot or doesn't have enough history.
We have been spending close to the the same amount per month with some growth over the years and including some variance for seasonality.
We have been spending close to the the same amount per month with some growth over the years and including some variance for seasonality.
eliquid
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Not sure, but based on my own accounts:
1. Almost of all them are spending the same, no wild fluctuations. I guess it's time dependent though, right? We are spending more than last year, but it's at a decent clip compared to last year.. say a 15% or less difference YoY. But month to month... it's not much of a difference. I hardly touch budgets myself on any account.
2. All of my accounts have a ton of spend and age ( 4+ years at a min ). So would rule out the history part I think.
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Very similar then, probably a slow rollout. We do use a cashback card but ultimately not the end of the world if we have to switch to ACH.
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I went through the same thing with Google in about 2017—we were spending a little under 1mm/month, and they forced us over to invoice billing. This was at a time when I knew other companies were spending 3-5x what we did and were not being forced to switch at all. Rep said there was no choice.
I don't remember the details, but within about six months, I was able to change it back, and no one from Google has brought it up since. We ran multiple accounts for the same products because we had so many keywords and so it was easy to move spend overtime to whatever account was still on CC.
I am spending much less on Google, but certainly more than 1k/month, and I have not received any notice about this.
My guess is that every so often, someone at Google realizes how much they are paying in CC processing fees and has the bright idea of pushing everyone onto invoice billing. Then, spending lowers by more than the CC fees were anyways because people love CC points and would overspend to get them.
Then, Google allows CCs to spend again, and then the number rises again until some new executives try again a few years later with the same bright idea.
I'd guess if you are forced over to invoice billing, you'll be able to just switch to another account, and Google will stop caring again once they realize that this just lowers spending more than it saves in CC fees.
I don't remember the details, but within about six months, I was able to change it back, and no one from Google has brought it up since. We ran multiple accounts for the same products because we had so many keywords and so it was easy to move spend overtime to whatever account was still on CC.
I am spending much less on Google, but certainly more than 1k/month, and I have not received any notice about this.
My guess is that every so often, someone at Google realizes how much they are paying in CC processing fees and has the bright idea of pushing everyone onto invoice billing. Then, spending lowers by more than the CC fees were anyways because people love CC points and would overspend to get them.
Then, Google allows CCs to spend again, and then the number rises again until some new executives try again a few years later with the same bright idea.
I'd guess if you are forced over to invoice billing, you'll be able to just switch to another account, and Google will stop caring again once they realize that this just lowers spending more than it saves in CC fees.
eliquid
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Got some more info for you all after 2 more meetings with Google in their new Manhattan office. Gee I guess they need to pay for that Real Estate now and are hitting people like us. https://blog.google/inside-google/life-at-google/google-nyc-st-johns-terminal-office/
They claim there is no way out of this.
Strangely, we have an account outside of their "division" not marked for this. I brought this outside account up and they let it slip that if we brought that outside account into their division, it would also now get the forced monthly invoicing.
So I brought up the idea of, uncoupling the existing "under division" accounts since 2 of those accounts are essentially not only different brands and entities, but way less spend compared to our main account ( so 3 under their division total, 1 outside of them ). They said it would not change things for those 2 if we moved them out.
Odd, right?
The convo then got changed to, "Google spends a lot of money, time and resources in giving you reps, hand holding, backend help, etc for an account your size and it's not cheap to do that"....
I don't know if you all have ever really depended on your reps, but I can count on one finger how many times I've actually needed them, or they have given me good advice, in the last 15 years in my 25-year career buying ads. To say they give us help or we need their reps is a joke and a slap in my face multiple times honestly.
I never asked to have them and I had no option to get rid of them either.
So I did what any true Wickedfire alum would do and I proposed the question, "Can we go back to self serve, LITE edition of Google Ads and say bye bye to you all and the reps?". My co-working ended up actually saying, "Is there a Spirit Airlines version we can change to".
And they said that is not going to help us get off monthly invoicing either.
We brought up having a new brand we are going to start as well - what if we have a new brand ( we do ) coming out and it's not under this "parent company" and "parent company account"? They said we could probably get away with credit card billing on it, but eventually it would get caught and rolled into the same "division" at Google if the directors and management and login's where the same actors for it as our current accounts.
It makes you think it's some threshold they have always had and when that is hit, they just roll you in... but this was an announcement made on June 12th publicly so it must be a new threshold... or as @miketpowell has mentioned maybe someone new has came in and wanted to revisit this old idea again years later.
Either way, for our account alone we "guestimated" Google is going to save $750k yearly on 1 of our accounts alone, and we will lose $1.3m-ish yearly. I think they might save less than $750k since they do have Google Pay and I am 99.99% sure they don't pay the same rates for merchant processing as other mom and pop shops.
While this isn't straight "Amex" points, miles, or cashback type of loss... it is a true real loss when you have corporate financing agreements and CC processing milestones in place that basically say, "we agree to hit $X in spend this year" and when missed, you are hit with fines or % changes that result in a real loss to the bottom line.
^^ This is what we have in place and we will hit a real true loss in Q4.
We've asked if we can just "pre-pay" what our spend would have been, before this deadline so we can hit our corp. financing agreements and just roll with a large credit for Q4 - Google said no.
We ask for an extension to Jan 1st so we can at least hit our corp agreement without a loss - Google is basically saying no, but they gave us until Oct 1 for now.
We asked for longer terms. Right now it's Net 30, but we asked for longer terms and Google isn't budging on that one.
We've asked to speak to someone higher up the chain, and that is like pulling teeth and not sure we will even get that shot.
While I still love ppc/paid ads, this one is going to sting.
If Bilt only send checks to ad platforms and not just landlords.... j/k
They claim there is no way out of this.
Strangely, we have an account outside of their "division" not marked for this. I brought this outside account up and they let it slip that if we brought that outside account into their division, it would also now get the forced monthly invoicing.
So I brought up the idea of, uncoupling the existing "under division" accounts since 2 of those accounts are essentially not only different brands and entities, but way less spend compared to our main account ( so 3 under their division total, 1 outside of them ). They said it would not change things for those 2 if we moved them out.
Odd, right?
The convo then got changed to, "Google spends a lot of money, time and resources in giving you reps, hand holding, backend help, etc for an account your size and it's not cheap to do that"....
I don't know if you all have ever really depended on your reps, but I can count on one finger how many times I've actually needed them, or they have given me good advice, in the last 15 years in my 25-year career buying ads. To say they give us help or we need their reps is a joke and a slap in my face multiple times honestly.
I never asked to have them and I had no option to get rid of them either.
So I did what any true Wickedfire alum would do and I proposed the question, "Can we go back to self serve, LITE edition of Google Ads and say bye bye to you all and the reps?". My co-working ended up actually saying, "Is there a Spirit Airlines version we can change to".
And they said that is not going to help us get off monthly invoicing either.
We brought up having a new brand we are going to start as well - what if we have a new brand ( we do ) coming out and it's not under this "parent company" and "parent company account"? They said we could probably get away with credit card billing on it, but eventually it would get caught and rolled into the same "division" at Google if the directors and management and login's where the same actors for it as our current accounts.
It makes you think it's some threshold they have always had and when that is hit, they just roll you in... but this was an announcement made on June 12th publicly so it must be a new threshold... or as @miketpowell has mentioned maybe someone new has came in and wanted to revisit this old idea again years later.
Either way, for our account alone we "guestimated" Google is going to save $750k yearly on 1 of our accounts alone, and we will lose $1.3m-ish yearly. I think they might save less than $750k since they do have Google Pay and I am 99.99% sure they don't pay the same rates for merchant processing as other mom and pop shops.
While this isn't straight "Amex" points, miles, or cashback type of loss... it is a true real loss when you have corporate financing agreements and CC processing milestones in place that basically say, "we agree to hit $X in spend this year" and when missed, you are hit with fines or % changes that result in a real loss to the bottom line.
^^ This is what we have in place and we will hit a real true loss in Q4.
We've asked if we can just "pre-pay" what our spend would have been, before this deadline so we can hit our corp. financing agreements and just roll with a large credit for Q4 - Google said no.
We ask for an extension to Jan 1st so we can at least hit our corp agreement without a loss - Google is basically saying no, but they gave us until Oct 1 for now.
We asked for longer terms. Right now it's Net 30, but we asked for longer terms and Google isn't budging on that one.
We've asked to speak to someone higher up the chain, and that is like pulling teeth and not sure we will even get that shot.
While I still love ppc/paid ads, this one is going to sting.
If Bilt only send checks to ad platforms and not just landlords.... j/k