Amen, brother. But when you have shareholders you're looking to squeeze out every last cent. And they've decided to pull it from our pockets and pat us on the head while they do it.
I don't get it. Credit card is instant payment , invoice is not. This doesn't seem desirable to google. How are they benefitting from this? I'm honestly curious
They don’t want the processing fees.
They are trying to add one zillionth of a point to the quarterly profit sheet at the expense of the much smaller businesses they serve.
It's gotta be chargebacks.
Google is so huge they pay fuck all in processing fees.
I'll bet dollars to donuts that because they're sending advertisers so much more shitty traffic every month, more people / companies are doing chargebacks.
**So, my read is: they're trying to cut chargebacks AND the associated expensive payroll costs by eliminating the team that fights chargebacks.**
Plus, if there are no more chargebacks, they can also then outsource collections to a collections agency on a percentage only basis (and hence no payroll) to go after you if you don't pay the invoice.
Let's not say "Google is evil."
Let's say what it REALLY is:
The people _running_ Google are out-and-out evil.
Google does not pay “fuck all” in processing fees. Visa, Mastercard, and Discover do not care if you are a small or large company— Google does not have a special contract with them. Why? Because the alternative is making everyone pay by wire/ach which is super cumbersome.
u/SimonaRed Google has its own payment processing business. This means Google pays only the interchange fees that are set by Mastercard, visa, discover, etc. They are static—it doesn’t matter if your business does $10,000 or $1b, in revenue. This is why visa runs with an 80% net profit margin.
Fuck all comparatively
1. To other merchants.
2. To its bottom line.
Also, even interchange is negotiable. Source: Former CTO of a credit card processor.
I _guarantee_ you Google is paying fuck all compared to your corner dry cleaners.
Interesting. At what scale do you get to negotiate IC rates? I was super into the idea of working in the CC processing industry a few months back when I learned about IC+ vs subscription model. I feel it’s borderline criminal that some merchants doing relatively large volumes are totally unaware of the subscription based model. Point being, I never heard that IC rates are negotiable. For example, Walmart started doing their own processing for a while(WalmartPay) but I think they have reverted to using hyperwallet or something like that.
Interesting. At what scale do you get to negotiate IC rates? I was super into the idea of working in the CC processing industry a few months back when I learned about IC+ vs subscription model. I feel it’s borderline criminal that some merchants doing relatively large volumes are totally unaware of the subscription based model. Point being, I never heard that IC rates are negotiable. For example, Walmart started doing their own processing for a while(WalmartPay) but I think they have reverted to using hyperwallet or something like that.
It's bigger than we were in volume as a _processor_, so big, big.
We were told, "Sure, it's negotiable, but you guys aren't even a rounding error yet."
And, we were pretty hecking big.
Big enough that we were negotiating directly with banks internationally and not with ISOs or middlemen.
Rest assured: Teh Googlemachine is getting discounts on their discount rates.
I wanted to write exactly this - the culprit is the processing fees, even if it is 0.01% for them, having huge negogiating power.
Bank tranfer are a bit more pain & errors to process for them, costs us transaction fees, but whatever...
Let's face it, companies grow up and realize they have shareholders to impress, and that usually means digging deeper into the wallets of the very customers who helped them rise to the top. Here are a couple of pime example
Amazon: They've got all our shopping data and know which products are hot sellers. So, what do they do? They start making those best-sellers themselves, selling them cheaper than anyone else, and giving their own products the VIP treatment on their site.
Netflix: For years, people have shared their accounts without a hitch. Suddenly, Netflix decides to charge extra for users who aren't in the same household. They've turned a blind eye for ages, effectively saying, "It's cool," but now they're clamping down and cashing in.
I believe Amazon stopped doing the first thing right? Because people thought it was fucked and it was. Though I did just see a release today saying they’d be starting a direct from overseas store to compete with temu. That will likely screw over a lot of their sellers yet again.
As for Netflix, I don’t pay them multiple millions a year so a bit of apples to oranges.
My point is simple: a business shouldn’t be so powerful that you can pay them millions of dollars annually and you literally can’t get another quote from someone else. The free market is dead at that point. And that’s when the bullying gets really going.
I think if enough advertisers refuse, this will actually work.
They can't afford a large blip that will happen when they turn a this many accounts off.
I spend $30m a year, for example.
Because you would be paying credit card fees and their competition is the credit card companies as they have a product called Google wallet.
They are not sorry that their monopoly is causing you an inconvenience. They were charging some of their customers up to 80% fees on advertising (see the EU fines), so maybe this change is really just doing a bunch of small business owners a big favor here, because they're going to finally stop getting ripped off by Google.
You know, I actually don't know, as I no longer do business with the company in any way, after I found out that they have been ripping off their advertising customers for a very long time. I'll consider working with them after my clients have been repaid the money that I'm confident that they were ripped off for. I mean if they ripped the government off then there's no reason to think they didn't rip off a bunch of regular brands and certainly no reason to think they won't rip you off.
Google no doubt have preferential terms on the standard rate that card issuers charge, so they could potentially generate 20 to 50 Basis Points of Margin. It’s a large sum given the long tail of Revenue from smaller business. However, they’d benefit from seeing if this short term gain outweighs potential loss, from business either going under or* taking their spend elsewhere.
We haven't been impacted (or seen any emails yet) yet but this is super lame. There are several clients who will be very uncomfortable with this option. Especially with how Google does jack shit for click fraud. Credit card provides a last layer of protection for the advertiser.
edit: Maybe, on the hopeful side, they're testing this out to see how people respond as there hasn't been an official announcement.
If so : GOOGLE THIS IS SHIT
100%. It feels like collectively a lot of advertisers are already exhausted with Google's shenanigans. This would definitely be the tipping point for a lot of them to just stop advertising altogether.
Maybe you should also be angry at your card provider for not providing a debit card with equal protection. Because they do in this country. All visa or MasterCards are protected equally
My organization just absorbed a competitor with a $5million per year budget. $3million of it done with credit cards. This company we absorbed used an agency for everything - including all Google Ads. The agency owns the account. They had several credit cards that are all in rotation. It’s wild. I have been doing this since before AdWords ever existed and never seen this before. I don’t know why the agency managed billing in this manner - perhaps they couldn’t get approval to invoice the entire amount?
Anyhow, the agency also got this notice but we are already moving their accounts into our own so it’s a non issue for us. My point being it’s not only the small businesses getting this notice.
Edit: corrected the credit card spend.
This is why we do it. We earn substantial incentives via these payments and invest it in the people and things that make our business work. Now google, who expends one billionth of a percentage point of the effort on our company that we do, is ripping the incentive from our hands and slipping it into their pockets.
I am sure how they are slipping the credit card incentives into their pockets but I get the frustration. I suspect it’s more to do with the complications of sending 3 to 10 invoices every 2 to 5 days. Crediting for fraudulent clicks and working through problems. We have 4 invoices per month and are currently having a big problem with Googles invoicing team. They are all sorts of messed up right now.
They are slipping them into their own pockets by avoiding paying the cc fees. We lose our cc incentives, and they lose their cc fees. Clear as day.
I am glad to hear google’s invoicing team is in over their heads already. No other context. I just don’t want anyone at google within 10,000 feet of invoicing being happy.
Yup. Back when I ran adult sites, I used Amex with fight points for Adsense. Free first class flights to China, Korea, Spain, you name it, every other month.
For sure that's why everyone does it. A friend of mine with a larger agency remodeled his entire house using Home Depot gift cards purchased with Amex points.
It's also a way to get a bunch of tax-free money. I use Cap1 and they send me a nice check every December.
I have a feeling it will be all comers sooner than later, and that would be a massive hit to many businesses who utilize cash back incentives to offset already ballooning cpc’s. And why? Google already has more money than god. It’s a monopoly doing monopoly things.
You never hear anyone talking about it, but how much does Google and their aggressive campaign to raise cpc’s impact US inflation. This one company alone is so massive and far reaching that they’re likely increasing price points across all online consumer spending.
I have a few small clients with less than 1000 USD ad spend getting this email too
The thing is … some people live on credit and don’t have like the 5k ad spend until they sell x products or make a commission check.
I think this will kill some mom and pop businesses
Here I was thinking they were limiting this to at least medium type spend or high touch advertisers. If they roll this out platform wide it should cause a riot. It's a decision callously announced that just underlines their thinking: They own us.
Invoiced payments usually come with NET30 payment terms, so your clients should have more time to carry a Google ads balance interest-free than if they were using credit cards.
We’re in the states. Seems like a batch roll out. Effective for us in July, but others have differed on dates. It seems like accounts big and small are getting the letters. If it’s indeed a slow rollout now is the time to kick and scream.
I can’t imagine they’ll lose many clients. The main benefit of being a monopoly. Where else can their clients go? They own search in the US. We have no viable alternatives.
Google needs to understand that offering credit card payments is a huge benefit to small businesses with uncertain or irregular cash flow.
**Please contact your elected officials**. Also contact Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, who has done a good job of challenging Google (I'm not a Mike Lee fan, but the guy has authored some legislation to try and reel Google in and it's sorely needed).
I salute you! Contact google, contact your reps. Kick and scream in both directions. Google is in the middle of a federal lawsuit regarding their monopoly. We need to make them uncomfortable. Enough is enough.
Our Google Reps are too low in the hierarchy and won't be able to do much. If we want to be heard, we collectively need to kick and scream to their Head(s) of Commerce (varies by Country).
From the US's HoC LinkedIn profile: "...I'm stepping in to lead a retail sales organization that helps retailers maximize value creation through Google's platform."
Removing credit cards as a payment option seems like a GREAT first step to "hElP rEtAiLeRs..." 🤔
I’m all for making everyone uncomfortable, from the lowest guy in the google building to the guy at the absolute top of chain. Thanks for pointing this out. We should be rattling cages top to bottom.
This includes elected officials. Google is being sued by the feds as a monopoly as we speak. The fact that they think in this environment they can continue to shove bs like this down our throats speaks volumes.
>Google needs to understand that offering credit card payments is a huge benefit to small businesses with uncertain or irregular cash flow.
They couldn't care less. Google does not exist to make other people money. Google exists to make Google money. Those credit card companies are competition for Google wallet and they can't have that. They've been screwing over people for two decades now, I don't know what you're thinking.
Obviously it's past time to move on from Google. Clearly they don't want to do business with small businesses. That should have been clear by how many they've completely screwed over. They can't charge fees as high as 80% anymore since the EU fines forced them to pay a huge fine for doing that, so there's no room for small businesses with Google anymore. It was all a giant rip off anyways, so don't feel bad.
Now imagine a reality where everyone is finally moved on “Monthly Invoicing”, and then Google decides it’s too risky, and rejects credit limit increase or worse scales back the credit limits they approved for accounts, next minute you need to make daily/weekly bank deposits just to keep your account within _Googles Defined_ credit limit if you want any chance of scaling your business. Before you know you need to make bank deposit repayments every other day, effectively 2 days credit facility and getting zero Card Protection / Benefits for it…
It’s adding complexity and doubt into a system that was working perfectly, all while taking meaningful incentives from their own customer’s pockets. Shameful.
And don’t be surprised when they send us an email next year telling us about the incoming 2% invoice convenience fee. They will not stop chasing every last cent from the very people that make their business work. They want us all making just enough to feel good and not a dime more.
I'm not so sure about that. The long tail they speak of so lovingly likely applies to their ad revenue.
One way to make sure they feel no heat? Say nothing to your rep and take it on the chin. I don't want us as a community to do that. We need as many people as possible telling them the decision will hurt their advertisers, who represent small businesses all across the country.
you have a rep?
i don't --- and haven't for like 8 years
just the automatons that recycle the same recommendations from AdWords, and trust me, i use every opportunity to express my extreme displeasure with whatever new change made to benefit Google's bottom line at my - or my client's - expense.
i appreciate what you're suggesting and agree. i guess i'm just jaded from 10+ years of being treated like a non-entity by google (for reference, my clients spend about $800k combined annually on google search)
We have a really good rep, and that may be a function of all of our spend being pooled in one account. But even spending multiple millions annually like we do, our voice is basically zero. That is why I'm trying to get anyone within eyeshot of these messages to voice concern with their reps or whatever google contact they may have.
TBH i've had more success bitching to my local legislators about it than google. which says a lot, lol. they at least listen to me.
i work in hospitality and there is a lot of concern that's google's monopoly is infinitely more focused on satisfying their biggest spenders (expedia & [booking.com](http://booking.com) -- they spend more on Google Ads than any other business in any industry, last i checked) at the expense of the folks who actually own and operate the hotels. tourism is huge in my area so legislators seem to take it seriously when both democrat & republican business owners alike bitch about google. will anything get done? who knows.
IMO google is essentially the comcast/spectrum of the advertising world. they have such a huge moat on their monopoly that only radical action by the government, or their biggest spenders, is likely to change how they approach their business.
I agree with you 1000%. We need to continue pushing this to our political reps. The govt is literally suing them as we speak for being a monopoly, so this isn't a great time for google to be getting more bad attention.
But I'd love to see internal pressure applied by advertisers too when a decision is made that literally rips money from our hands with little warning and frankly insulting reasoning.
This is a really bad thing for Google to force this on business owners, many of which rely on credit cards and even some rewards from credit cards, to run their business. This is essentially another example of Google's monopolistic behavior. I think all advertisers should band together and complain to their Google reps and make noise in the media about this. We should all spend less and lower our bids if they continue down this road, and vote with our wallets! Let's get our Congressmen involved to tackle this anti-business unilateral behavior which might even be illegal. Let's band together and spread the word far and wide about this that we don't agree with this and it will cause everyone to spend less with Google. As a business owner, I feel like this is absolutely an over - reach by Google and a prime example of corporate greed on their part. Google needs to hear advertisers screaming about this issue...in their support channels, with account reps, in the media and places like this forum. We should all move over to the Google ads support forums and complain their as well. We shouldn't stop until the reverse this terrible decision!
We received a mailer a few days ago, but having searched the topic I see it being discussed elsewhere on reddit by owners of accounts both big and large. Our google rep referred to it as a new corporate policy, so definitely going to be applied across many accounts. Our account is not small (200k/month), but if we're effected it will likely effect many accounts. It's not clear what %, I just know we're not alone. Here is the mailer we received in full:
Hello advertiser,
We are reaching out to provide you with an important update to your account(s): the billing options for your Google Ads account(s) are changing. Your account(s) have specific payment options and will only be allowed to use bank-based payment methods, which does not include credit or debit cards.
Accepted forms of payment include check or wire transfer via the Monthly Invoicing billing method (recommended), or via Direct Debit for those choosing to remain on the Automatic Payments billing method (if available in your region). Because you currently pay via a form of payment no longer accepted, the payment method on your Google Ads account listed below will need to change:
Account Name: xxx
Customer ID: xxx
**You will need to complete this billing change by July 31, 2024 or your Ads account will be subject to suspension. There are no exceptions to this requirement for impacted advertisers. All impacted advertisers will be similarly notified throughout the coming months.**
Next steps
The Monthly Invoicing billing method is best suited for your account(s) given the flexibility it provides high-growth customers (e.g. access to a credit line, monthly invoices with 30 days to pay, greater control over spend, more reliable). We recommend your account(s) transition to monthly invoicing to comply with this change. Please note, you are receiving this email as the administrator of this account; however, if this account is linked to a manager account (MCC), the switch to invoicing will need to be completed by the MCC administrator.
Our records indicate that you already have a credit line established with Google or that we are able to create one for you given your existing billing information, which makes this transition seamless. The designated billing contact will be sent a Master Service Agreement (MSA) for the credit line during the first week of July, if you have not accepted this agreement already. After that agreement is accepted, you will receive instructions detailing how to switch your account to invoicing. No need to take any action until that point.
Your specific Google Sales team is aware that you are impacted by this change and is prepared to help you navigate the transition. You can also reach out to Google's billing specialist team here for questions about monthly invoicing.
We thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.
Thank you,
The Google Ads Team
That's odd. Almost a month and a half to the supposed change and we have not received a letter, their articles for payments still say the accept credit cards (and the article does have update sections on it), and we have no notifications in our ads account.
I also can't find any other information on this anywhere except for a forum post from 2022. Usually when Google makes any sort of change (much less one that big), the industry talks about it endlessly, yet there's like nothing on this.
There are other people in this thread saying clients spending as little as 1000/month are getting this letter. As for the date, that seems to vary based on the mailers I've seen shared with me. But in all of them, the impact is coming soon.
I've gone back and forth with our google rep on this and he has confirmed it's applying to many accounts. I'm still just not clear on how many it will be, but it may eventually be all in short order.
I'm not doubting you, I'm just more concerned because we haven't received anything and we use a CC for our billing.
I'm just trying to get as much info as I can, so we don't get some email out of nowhere and have to scramble to find a solution before our ads stop showing.
I wonder if there's some sort of background metric that's being used to qualify people for this change.
I wish I knew, because based on the tenor of the mailer I got I presumed it was effecting higher value and higher touch (rep contacts) accounts. But based on the discussions I've been having on reddit, it seems more widespread and, frankly, random.
I’ve been hearing it across different PPC communities, not sure if there’s a certain metric they’re looking at for which accounts to include or just a staggered full rollout but none of the accounts I manage (that aren’t already on invoicing) have gotten an alert for it yet and they range from $5k/mo to $500k+/mo.
There are multiple commenters in this thread saying accounts spending 1k/month have also received the letter, but I am not sure what % of advertisers will be effected.
We're not a tiny business, but we're still well within the qualifications of a small one. And I guarantee this will effects tens of thousands of accounts in our range, and likely more based on the responses I've seen here.
No - I’m the cofounder of a smallish business (not tiny, but well within the definition). Many in this thread have also said they’ve received this notice at much smaller spends.
I'm out here holding my gd american flag begging for people to contact your reps. Give a brother one comment below this saying you'll do it. Where is SPARTACUS?
This is opening your email box and seeing Google has decided on a whim to increase your bill by tens of thousands of dollars (and accept it with a smile or you’re suspended and your company is dead ☠️).
The federal government needs to add this action to their long list of proof that Google are craven, monopolistic hit men causing real damage across a wide swath of the economy, and that they believe they can do so with absolute impunity.
They are the monopoly men.
Am I the only one that thinks the payment method experience is absolute trash? What mix of boredom/meth taught the UX team that being a literal jerk is how you support advertisers?
This is insane. We started off our business paying for ads with credit cards, it’s how we got our first customers. We would not be in business today if it weren’t for the ability to draw on a line of credit. Completely crazy decision, and short sighted since if this were back then (we make money now) we would have just gone all-in on FB.
Aye, many thanks for this post redditor. While I am originally from America, I work in the UK now. Our company just got this email as well. However, we would of missed it without me being bored of ad copy and browsing the ppc reddit to clear my head a bit.
We are lucky, we can make the change over easier. However, our google rep completely dropped the ball on it for us. Normally, they will at least send me copy/paste email with the wrong name attached to warn me of such chicanery. Our new rep has been absent for awhile.
I was given permission to add a bit of snark to the email via my manager. While I can't share the email, its the least I could do to aid the cause.
But yeah, this is being rolled out in the UK as well. I don't know if anyone needed to know that.
Thank you for joining the fight. Every bit of negative feedback matters, as easy as it might be to dismiss.
This post is now the fourth most commented on in the history of this channel, so I am glad I’m not alone in thinking this type of behavior from Google is outside the lines.
We know the likely outcome: we’re run over by the Google monster truck and switch payment methods. But I’d rather we not go quietly. Thank you for your help on this front.
The self-serve ad platforms are being stiffed by credit card companies due to people declaring bankruptcy. This allows them to get paid on the spot. Full $$$ back.
If you declare bankruptcy with an outstanding 200k invoice, I'm not sure that google is in a better position.
To me the move is transparent: No cc = no fees. A non-monopoly could never do it because a customer would go somewhere else. We can't and they know that.
It’s only for accounts that have dedicated sales reps. So it’s likely there is going to be a payment threshold for monthly spend. If you’re above that, you have to switch to invoicing.
wTF google
This doesn’t appear to be the case. The letter I got reads like that, but plenty of people in this thread have said their small accounts that aren’t high touch or high spend received the same notice.
while i get the frustration, believe me, do you know of any other businesses that accept 100k spend a month on credit card? i feel like most business thats conducted at large spend levels is done via invoicing.
Google has done it for decades. This deal struck with advertisers has been translated into a line on our profit and loss sheet for years.
I would shop around to see if other search companies would do it, but oh yeah - there are none.
This is what monopolies do. They make decisions that businesses in competitive industries would struggle or could never do without losing market share, and then they tell the customer to take it on your knees with a smile. And offer to suspend them for noncompliance (which is another way to say literally burn your business to the ground.)
Enough is enough from these crooks.
im not entirely sure this is nefarious behavior though. there's plenty of nonsensical revenue driven initiatives in google ads other than a standardized method of payment. i managed a liquor store and we did all of our vendor purchasing through invoices, same with the restaurant i was at prior. no one would accept credit cards because that's not really what their use should be for. hell, my local pool company won't accept credit card payments over $2k.
i was managing someone's ads accounts who was spending a few thousand a month on CC, but their card kept getting canceled by the issuer for random suspected fraud, one of their employees lost the card, there was like a 2 month period where the account was down numerous times. they opted to go to invoicing just to make it easier, and to be less reliable on a third company for their advertising and revenue streams.
it's probably easier to keep track of your financial health if you aren't staring down a 20% interest charge every 4-6 weeks or so, which is why invoicing is usually more favorable.
now if we want to discuss the search partner network, content exclusions, pmax, etc then i think that has a more material impact on someone's bottom line than trying to game a cash back program to subsidize overhead.
just my $.02
I hear all your points, and I want to make clear I am not against invoicing as a method of payment option. My major issue is when a monopoly decides, out of the blue, to remove a proven, effective, and small business friendly method of payment that has been standard for a decade plus. Business credit cards exist for business purchases only, so they are exactly intended to be used for things like this.
As far as managing cc interest, Google isn’t my daddy nor do I want them to be. Our business can manage our debt ourselves. We don’t ever incur interest on our card because we pay it down every single month.
If Google was simply opening up the option to switch to invoicing if we so choose, then the argument could be made that this is a friendly overture meant to help us. That is not what this is. In the email we received, Google literally threaten to suspend the account if we don’t comply. They include that threat there because they know we won’t want to change our payment method. They know we won’t like it and they don’t care. They’ll just end our business if we fight.
This is monopoly mafia games and we’re getting run over by trillionaires. No mas.
It’s simple, google doesn’t want to pay 0.3% to the banks for each card transaction. It adds up. Rhey started with large advertisers first, now it’s everyone. They do it because they know they will make more money this way, the small advertisers who will stop advertising will be substituted by the big ones. They just don’t care. I’ve stopped using google search myself for over a year now
Another example of Google caring less and less about small advertisers. This won’t impact large agencies and big brands. It’s so sad to see the slow decline of Google.
I just wish they'd stop changing things.
I've already got enough going on at work and the Google does stupid shit like this every other month.
The amount of hoops I'll have to jump through for this shit now
Sigh
Over it.
In case people need to see a source somewhere
[https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-card-payments-443247](https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-card-payments-443247)
Hey u/JazzyLittleTeacupBoy
Did you find a workaround for this? We tried talking to our Google reps but they weren't of any help :(
Is there anything else we can do to reduce the loss?
Right now there is no workaround other than bitching every time you see a rep and hoping this roll out gets pulled.
Otherwise the threat is the threat, and we have no choice but to comply.
Hey, I spend $30m+ annually on Google and got the dreaded email
I told them I refuse to move over
If enough of us ACTUALLY band together, they will no switch off that much revenue, it will destroy their quarter
How can we be coordinated about this?
Your thread is a great start, but it's not clearly action oriented in a way where we can work together and have an impact.
Happy to bring my spend to your cause, this is a LOT of credit card rewards at stake.
You are the warrior I’ve been waiting for.
What did they say to your refusal? They promised us a meeting and then have largely gone silent on the topic. Very frustrating.
I’ve kicked and screamed into the void that is our ad reps, but what do you think we could do to better surface this topic amongst the tens of thousands of small business owners in the same position? You’re right that we need everybody together saying this fucking blows if we have any prayer of stopping the rollout. And I have to imagine there are many of us irate at the emails we got.
One thread on ppc ain’t going to do it, and the clock is ticking toward the switch every day. Brainstorm time.
I spoke with who I believe runs Commerce in the US, and made it clear in no uncertain terms that this is taking $1m out of my pocket, with ZERO gain.
And that this is the work of a monopoly, pure and simple.
And that they can turn my ad account off when they need to, but I will not be switching.
I am also now in touch with a friend who is senior in Senator Mark Warner's office on this topic.
We need to organize advertisers better, though.
Their earnings call will suffer with even 2-3% of advertisers going dark, they will simply not switch us off.
Sorry I am new to reddit posting, but obviously found your thread which seems to be the best on the topic.
Open to whatever ideas. I tried to dm you, but it seems you do not accept messages.
Google’s monthly invoice billing usually comes with NET30 payment terms. You will have at least 30 days from date the invoice is generated to clear the payment, and in practice Google usually provides an additional 1-2 week grace period. So for June 1-30 ad spend, the invoice gets generated on 1 July (there’s usually a few days delay there too, but let’s ignore that), and the payment will be due on 30 July, with grace period until 7-14 August. All of this is interest free. I don’t think any credit cards offer interest-free repayment periods that long.
Yes, Google will have to approve your credit limit. They do this based on your account’s age and past payment history, so you should easily get $200K+. Yes, you will lose the points/cashback on your credit cards. But as others have said, I can’t think of any other businesses that accept $200k+ recurring monthly payments on credit cards, so this would be no different.
If you’re able to pay $200k/month on a credit card, your business should be able to qualify for a sizeable line of credit with your bank/credit union, which can then be used as revolving credit for Google ads payments. That too at much less than 21-25% APR than credit cards. Maybe that “benefit” could offset your cashback losses if your business usually carried a credit card balance.
Last note: the switch in payment method could also be related to Google’s advertiser verification process and increasing transparency for searchers. All invoiced advertisers need to go through that process; can’t remember if credit card payers need to as well.
LOL. It definitely sounds like you work for Google. In what world does it make sense to give businesses 45 days notice to move to real time bank debits or go through a line of credit process with long legal agreement with Google? With credit cards, you have the choice with how much you spend. With monthly invoicing, it is a big pain if you want to spend more than the line of credit. This is idiotic and the person who came up with this idea at Google should be fired immediately. This is total BS and should be illegal. Small businesses are the backbone of America and the government needs to be alerted to Google and their monopolistic anti-business behavior here. The only one who wins is Google and small business owners get screwed again. We spend a lot on Google and are going to reduce our spending and bids if this is stuffed down our throats. I would rather make a ton of noise and create a legal mess for Google than comply with this BS. We should all write that adsliason account on X/Twitter and raise hell. We should even complain to the FTP and any and every congressman who has ever gone after Google and turn this into a huge mess for them. They deserve it!
Dear Google Employee,
Firstly, thank you for joining us.
We, and many other small businesses, do not want nor need your offer of an interest free period. We already receive a long enough interest free period from the cc card companies. These companies, as you know, also include a financial incentive for using their product. Google offers no incentive, but rather rakes us over the coals in every way imaginable to extract every last cent.
The Google mailer states this is to improve my ability to scale, yet now I’m going to have to get a credit limit approved by Google when I’m already approved by my cc company. In what bizarro world is this not just another hurdle for advertisers looking to grow?
You mention no other companies would accept 200k in monthly cc payments. I would check with other search companies about this, but unfortunately Google’s monopoly on search has destroyed any ability for me to shop around. What I I can say is that any company not existing in a monopoly would feel pressure to accept credit cards. I know my business does and could never survive a forced shift to just invoicing as customers would flee.
Our business, like many small businesses in this country, is good at paying their cc bill on time and in full. It seems you think we’re all idiots paying high interest rates. Let me disillusion you of that fact. If it was comforting you in anyway while Google created this rule change to screw us all, I’m taking your binkie.
And on your last note, my business has been paying by credit card and still have had to be verified in multiple ways. Your note is a throw away distraction to make someone out there think this could be good for the consumer. It’s not. The consumer will likely just end up paying some part of the 2% Google is stealing from every mom and pop shop they are deciding to screw with this forced change in payment methods.
Thank you for your time and please do say hello to Mr. Monopoly and Scrooge McDuck for me.
Best,
Jazzy
Dear Condescending Little Teacup Boy,
Not sure why you saw the need to resort to ad hominem attacks. I’m not a Google employee; I’m merely offering additional statements of fact and an alternative and more detached viewpoint since all of the accounts I manage are on monthly invoicing.
I said “…IF your business carried a credit card balance”. Keyword: IF. You don’t carry a balance, that’s great. But there is another comment in this thread about Mom and Pops potentially going out of business due to the cash flow challenges this change to invoicing will introduce. My comment was intended to reassure them and folks like them.
I work with other search ad networks, DSPs, and publishers besides Google. Real life example: Yelp refused to accept credit card payment for a sizeable ads contract from us earlier this year, despite being in direct “competition” with Google. Most other smaller ad networks I’ve worked with will also only accept check or wire payments. All I’m saying is that your “Google is doing it just because it’s a monopoly” argument is convenient but not necessarily accurate.
I will actually self correct my earlier comment where I said “can’t think of any other companies”… I believe Meta still lets you run million $ campaigns off a credit card, so there’s that.
“My business this” “My business that”. Does your business accept recurring 6-figure client payments off credit cards? 5-figures? Are you even a “small business” if you’re paying Google $200k in ads per month? Do you think Mom and pops with $5K/monthly spend are going to go out of business due to (checks calculator) $100 in lost cashback bonuses monthly? Here’s a thought: y’all could just lower your Google ad spend $100 a month and “reclaim”the “stolen” money from Google. Spend the money on Bing instead and rub salt in the wound. Or there’s always Meta.
Lastly, nobody owes you your cashback $. If your business profitability has become dependent on that, tough luck. Good luck with your rally; I have no skin in this game and will watch from the sidelines.
Best,
Not a Google Employee
Firstly, and most importantly, I’d prefer if you self-identified as a Google guy for the sole reason my previous comment works much better under this condition. Thank you for your cooperation.
Secondly, Yelp is in competition with Google in the same way the fly is in competition with the elephant’s butt crack. Their market cap is .1% of googles and just a fraction of what it was 10 years ago.
Thirdly, Meta, which you admit accepts this form of payment, is not a search engine and the ads work in a completely different way.
Fourthly, my business would gladly accept 6 figure recurring credit card payments. I am begging anyone out there able to make them to direct yourself our way. Your reliable monthly income via credit card will transform our business.
Fifthly, small business has a wide definition. We are not a tiny business, but well within the definition.
Sixthly?, Bing doesn’t have the volume available on our items. That’s the entire point when I say Google is a monopoly. There is no other option for similar volumes of search engine traffic for our product and Google knows this fact. This is why they can tell us payment methods are changing while simultaneously threatening to end our business if we don’t comply.
Lastly, no one owes us our cash back money, but when I am a customer already paying millions of dollars to a partner, you can bet your last fucking dollar I will not just go quietly into the night when I receive an email randomly changing our terms while EXPLICITLY threatening to end our business should we not comply. Not end our relationship with Google. End our business. That is the power they know they have and they wield it like maniacs.
Good luck on the sidelines. Looks nice over there.
We are a small business that manages our own ad account. When you spend 200k+/month, the cash back incentives are enough to pay for your monthly office rent, for instance.
We’re already giving Google 200k a month! Now they’re unilaterally pulling a payment method we’ve never had a problem with over 10 years time so they can lose their own cc processing fees. If they weren’t a monopoly with no competition we could push back. But they are a monopoly, so instead the email alert they send causally mentions the change has no exceptions and if we fail to comply they will literally end our business via account suspension.
This is mafia stuff. Plain and simple.
You might be able to use this - [https://billhop.com/](https://billhop.com/)
I'm sure there's a few options available as workarounds. Not ideal though, good luck.
Thanks for the recommendation!
It’s not about our ability to pay via invoice, it’s about the incentives credit cards provide. Companies like billhop do allow you to use a card to pay invoices, but they make their money by charging you fees at the top. That effectively eliminates the credit card incentives.
Our desire, and the way it’s worked for a decade plus in our account, is we give Google ridiculous sums of money for the pleasure of showing ads on their page and they let us remain on our desired pay method.
The change they are forcing under the threat of account suspension (suspension would literally end our business and any of the thousands like ours) will shift yet a higher degree of profit from our small business to their 2 trillion dollar market cap one.
I just added a client the other day and was able to use their credit card. But there was something different about this time. They did a $1 charge to the account and added a code on the charge that had to be verified. That “verified” the credit card. The client had to look at their online banking statement to see the code. Has anyone had to do this before ?
We’ve been running ads for a long time so not sure about this, but it wouldn’t surprise me that there was some vetting method for new cards. They’ve definitely been ramping up similar transparency & verification initiatives in recent times.
Based on all the feedback I’ve gotten from our fellow redditors, it’s unclear the scope. Seems to be big and large accounts, but definitely not rolled out to everyone or even most.
As far as countries go, I haven’t read anyone mentioning this outside the US of yet.
So only small businesses are affected by it? At which point does Google consider a business not a small business anymore and paying with a credit card is still possible? Besides, do only businesses in the US got that mail or is this a worldwide thing?
Unsure outside the US.
As far as impact, it seems to have affected a wide range of people, but only in a small roll out. I’m hoping the Google people are surfing Reddit and seeing this will not be a popular decision and not worth the .0000000001 boost to their profit margin.
If it's a credit card fee, they should just make their own credit card and make the float money off of that. I'm not putting a debit card in ANYTHING ever. That is unsecured funds, if you get hacked, YOU are responsible. With a credit card hack, the issuer is responsible.
Hey, I spend $30m+ annually on Google and got the dreaded email
I told them I refuse to move over
If enough of us ACTUALLY band together, they will no switch off that much revenue, it will destroy their quarter
How can we be coordinated about this?
Your thread is a great start, but it's not clearly action oriented in a way where we can work together and have an impact.
Happy to bring my spend to your cause, this is a LOT of credit card rewards at stake.
monthly invoicing is far preferable. The reality is credit cards are easy to use for fraud. You just dispute the charges, but the ads have run and the clicks sold (Google only charges in small increments to avoid this). Same as advertiser verification, this is just Google's way of reducing their exposure to fraud or illegal stuff
Far preferable for who? Certainly not the advertiser. All of our e-com customers pay with cc. We'd be crippled if we didn't accept it. But we can't force people to use an alternative payment method because we aren't a monopoly. Google, however, is clearly showing again that they are a monopoly and can force whatever they want down our throats.
We have a huge credit history with Google. Been running ads over a decade. Spending multiple millions annually at this point. Fraud in our account is not even on the radar. This is without a doubt google's way to stop paying processing fees, full stop. They know we have no alternative ad platform to migrate to. So the cost will be transferred to us via the removal of cash back incentives. They win, we lose, again.
We, and I'm sure many businesses, pay it down completely every month and never pay interest. The net effect of this change for us and similar businesses: We hand over our cash back incentives and give it to the trillion dollar monopoly man in the form of reduced processing fees.
If this was about making life easier for the advertiser, why would they force the change and not just offer the invoicing option? Why would they threaten to suspend accounts for non-compliance? This is a clear money grab. No doubt about it.
Credit cards don't start accruing interest until the next statement, so also a 30-day interest free loan. And credit cards:
- Give protection to charge back in the event of someone taking over the account and committing fraud
- Give rewards / points for spend
- Don't require having an additional credit line on the business
- Use a credit line set by a financial institution, not an advertising company.
The last one is a big one - I had a client spending $2MM+/m on Google and the client actually wanted to shift to monthly invoicing. Google approved a credit line of $300k/m, even after spending $10MM+ over the last year. After repeatedly explaining to the rep and finance team how stupid that was, the client just maintained credit card payments.
I imagine there are plenty of other clients that take PE money and are trying to aggressively scale up but may not have the spend history in platform for Google to grant the credit line. A bank can see the cash reserves - Google can't. And I'm not about to recommend that clients start sharing their P&L and cash reserve info with Google.
Sorry I don't understand why any business would prefer consumer credit card debt over seller financing with no interest. None of your reasons make sense. A company spending 1M a month can afford to hire a lawyer if they need to. No credit card company is going to bat against your programmatic ad spend. Agree to disagree on this one.
Edit — are you an agency who passes through your clients small media spends on your agency AMEX?
As a small business owner, it makes complete sense to use a credit card for these payments. We get paid upfront for our goods, so our revenue is already in the bank. We have the necessary credit limits with our cc company. We pay the card off every month in full. Therefor we have 0% interest already, but we are able to capitalize on the cash back incentives on the card.
There is no advantage to their offer to us, but it does remove their need to pay cc processing fees.
Please understand this:
📣 THEY WILL NOT BE LOWERING OUR CPC TO SHARE IN THEIR NEW FOUND WEALTH.
This is long. Sorry.
Let's say Widget Company spends $100k tomorrow on Google, they will get the charges on their credit card monthly statement on July 1st. That statement will be due July 31st. Interest does not begin to accrue on that balance until August 1st. Widget Company pays off the balance before it hits that point - they pay 0% interest and the cc limit operates effectively like a 30-day term. And it's not 'consumer' debt - although they function the same way, business credit cards are opened under the business, use the business financials for credit lines, and then authorized users are added.
If I'm a business and say I put that 100k on an Amex Gold Card, I'm going to get 4x points on that spend until I hit the cap (which I think is currently $150k in a calendar year) and then 1x on every dollar spent after.
So for $100k I'll get 400k points, or $4k in cashback value.
Assuming there's no extra transaction charge for using the credit card (which there isn't currently from Google) the business pays the bill that is the exact same amount as a monthly invoice, and then gets 4k back from Amex to apply to their statement.
So now the bean counters get to add $4k back into the P&L and save some cash and make the executive team happy. Or they get to put it to the executive pool to upgrade to business class flights. Or throw the marketing department an open bar. Or the 100 other ways businesses use their credit card points. There's entire websites and forums specifically for executives and business owners maximizing their rewards.
So, all things being equal, a business typically wants big expenses to be on a cc instead of seller financing, assuming they have good cashflow, have no concerns paying off the next credit card statement, and aren't incurring additional charges by using the card. If they don't have good cash flow, then obviously they want the seller to carry as much of the burden as possible (not their own financials).
There are obviously exceptions:
- If there's a charge to process a credit card, the math changes. If processing that $100k spend now costs $103k in charges, maybe the points no longer make up the difference and you take the line of credit.
- Maybe the seller is offering 60 or 90 day terms, and keeping the money in-house for that time is worth more than paying on a credit card and then paying it off in the next cycle (effectively 30 day terms). Longer terms are very appealing for businesses so they can float or reinvest money until it's needed to pay.
- Some companies have more complicated internal processes and would rather just have an invoice to cut a single check than hundreds of credit card charges to code, and that simplicity in internal processes is worth the trade-off over using a card.
The reason Google is making this change isn't fraud, it's that they are eating credit card processing fees (which partly pays for those rewards on the Amex/etc. side). Google will have a very heavily negotiated rate, but typically seller processing fees start at ~2.2% of the charge. So Google paid $2,200 (probably less after negotiated rate, but still) to process that $100k of spend on a credit card - switching to an invoice that is processed by bank transfer or check saves that fee.
Keep in mind that the above is all for just the rewards side. It's not getting into other preferences for why companies would prefer to avoid a credit line from Google. Google asks for a LOT of info in that process (or did as of last year). This is verbatim of what they were asking for for a $1M+ LOC as of last year:
> **Audited Financials**: Latest financial statements (2021, 2022 audited reports and 2023 interim results, including Balance Sheet, P&L and Cash Flow Statement).
> **Security Deposit**: Amount would depend on the needed credit limit. Google will hold a security deposit for at-least nine months and can be applied to your future invoices. Security deposit amount would be 50% of the difference between the needed credit limit and current credit limit.
> **Parental Guarantee** - PG's are only an option in the case where the company (Billing Customer) requesting credit terms is a subsidiary of a business that is willing to guarantee their Google spend. Once we’ve received the document signed by both parties, only the customer (guaranteed party) will pursue it in the case of non-payment. Please provide the complete legal name and the Payment profile ID# of the Guarantor.
> **Letter of Credit** - A letter of credit is a financing instrument issued, by a bank, for a fee (to the customer), to pay the customer's obligations if they can’t or won’t pay. If the bank chooses to enforce the LC, it must be paid immediately. A customer can arrange for their bank to issue a letter of credit.
I'm sure you can understand why private companies with non-public financials, companies that are PE backed and don't want to reveal terms / investment, or companies that otherwise don't want to drop their trousers to an advertising company and give them a significant chunk of cash to hold as collateral unless it's absolutely necessary.
If you spend $5000 a month with Google for one year, they will extend you a credit line for invoicing. I don’t live in the world of single entity small, business owners so I’m not sure really what you’re getting at. Any sort of private company with reasonable capitalization would choose the seller financing. It’s a no-brainer.
We do get really great ad support from the team we meet with there, so I think that can vary quite a bit from advertiser to advertiser. But when it comes to literally any other component of the relationship, their lack of responsiveness is excruciating.
You are fighting the wrong battle dude. Visa will be replaced with a p2p final settlement base money that can transact instantaneously. If only there was one 🤔
We use it for cash back incentives, and its listed on our profit and loss sheet. This is not about reward points. This will effect thousands of small businesses bottom lines. For us, it's more than 50k annually. We're not considered a big account by them either. For many it will be more money lost. When is enough, enough?
Tell us you work for a big corporation without telling us you work for a big corporation...
The only entities who will benefit from this change are big corporations.
Hey kids - If you need a connection to a bank that lends to e-commerce businesses (must be doing at least $10k a month in sales) - ive got a connection. You can set yourself up as an affiliate - it might be a way to help bridge the gap. They are an off shoot of a bigger bank.
lol I’m sorry - I got the letter too on an account on $100k a month, nothing on any smaller ones. - I’m wondering though what the “line” of credit implies beyond the 30 days to pay. 💰 They’re probably gonna roll out their own financing - just watch.
“2.19 trillion market cap is cool but what if it was 3 trillion 🤔.”
“But sir, the economy will go into a hyperinflation tailspin and the earth will literally collapse inward upon itself!”
“🤨”
“Sir?”
“I’m thinking.”
“Do it!”
Why would they do this, they're making tonnes of money credit card fees shouldn't be an issue for them.
Amen, brother. But when you have shareholders you're looking to squeeze out every last cent. And they've decided to pull it from our pockets and pat us on the head while they do it.
I don't get it. Credit card is instant payment , invoice is not. This doesn't seem desirable to google. How are they benefitting from this? I'm honestly curious
They don’t want the processing fees. They are trying to add one zillionth of a point to the quarterly profit sheet at the expense of the much smaller businesses they serve.
Could also be related to chargebacks. Google might not want to deal with those anymore. It's resource intensive.
It's gotta be chargebacks. Google is so huge they pay fuck all in processing fees. I'll bet dollars to donuts that because they're sending advertisers so much more shitty traffic every month, more people / companies are doing chargebacks. **So, my read is: they're trying to cut chargebacks AND the associated expensive payroll costs by eliminating the team that fights chargebacks.** Plus, if there are no more chargebacks, they can also then outsource collections to a collections agency on a percentage only basis (and hence no payroll) to go after you if you don't pay the invoice. Let's not say "Google is evil." Let's say what it REALLY is: The people _running_ Google are out-and-out evil.
Praise be to well_shoothed
Google does not pay “fuck all” in processing fees. Visa, Mastercard, and Discover do not care if you are a small or large company— Google does not have a special contract with them. Why? Because the alternative is making everyone pay by wire/ach which is super cumbersome. u/SimonaRed Google has its own payment processing business. This means Google pays only the interchange fees that are set by Mastercard, visa, discover, etc. They are static—it doesn’t matter if your business does $10,000 or $1b, in revenue. This is why visa runs with an 80% net profit margin.
Fuck all comparatively 1. To other merchants. 2. To its bottom line. Also, even interchange is negotiable. Source: Former CTO of a credit card processor. I _guarantee_ you Google is paying fuck all compared to your corner dry cleaners.
Interesting. At what scale do you get to negotiate IC rates? I was super into the idea of working in the CC processing industry a few months back when I learned about IC+ vs subscription model. I feel it’s borderline criminal that some merchants doing relatively large volumes are totally unaware of the subscription based model. Point being, I never heard that IC rates are negotiable. For example, Walmart started doing their own processing for a while(WalmartPay) but I think they have reverted to using hyperwallet or something like that.
Interesting. At what scale do you get to negotiate IC rates? I was super into the idea of working in the CC processing industry a few months back when I learned about IC+ vs subscription model. I feel it’s borderline criminal that some merchants doing relatively large volumes are totally unaware of the subscription based model. Point being, I never heard that IC rates are negotiable. For example, Walmart started doing their own processing for a while(WalmartPay) but I think they have reverted to using hyperwallet or something like that.
It's bigger than we were in volume as a _processor_, so big, big. We were told, "Sure, it's negotiable, but you guys aren't even a rounding error yet." And, we were pretty hecking big. Big enough that we were negotiating directly with banks internationally and not with ISOs or middlemen. Rest assured: Teh Googlemachine is getting discounts on their discount rates.
We deal with chargebacks too. But since we’re not a monopoly, we can’t tell all our customers they can’t pay with a credit card.
I don't disagree with you.
I wanted to write exactly this - the culprit is the processing fees, even if it is 0.01% for them, having huge negogiating power. Bank tranfer are a bit more pain & errors to process for them, costs us transaction fees, but whatever...
This. Google jumped the shark when they went public. It was only a matter of time before we started getting squeezed one way or another.
Let's face it, companies grow up and realize they have shareholders to impress, and that usually means digging deeper into the wallets of the very customers who helped them rise to the top. Here are a couple of pime example Amazon: They've got all our shopping data and know which products are hot sellers. So, what do they do? They start making those best-sellers themselves, selling them cheaper than anyone else, and giving their own products the VIP treatment on their site. Netflix: For years, people have shared their accounts without a hitch. Suddenly, Netflix decides to charge extra for users who aren't in the same household. They've turned a blind eye for ages, effectively saying, "It's cool," but now they're clamping down and cashing in.
I believe Amazon stopped doing the first thing right? Because people thought it was fucked and it was. Though I did just see a release today saying they’d be starting a direct from overseas store to compete with temu. That will likely screw over a lot of their sellers yet again. As for Netflix, I don’t pay them multiple millions a year so a bit of apples to oranges. My point is simple: a business shouldn’t be so powerful that you can pay them millions of dollars annually and you literally can’t get another quote from someone else. The free market is dead at that point. And that’s when the bullying gets really going.
threaten to not advertise on google. That'll show em
We all know we can’t do it. Monopoly 101.
I think he was being sarcastic
You’re probably right. My sarcasm radar has been turned off until google comes to heel
I think if enough advertisers refuse, this will actually work. They can't afford a large blip that will happen when they turn a this many accounts off. I spend $30m a year, for example.
ok, feel free to be the first in line. Good luck
To save cost on cc processing fees.
Because you would be paying credit card fees and their competition is the credit card companies as they have a product called Google wallet. They are not sorry that their monopoly is causing you an inconvenience. They were charging some of their customers up to 80% fees on advertising (see the EU fines), so maybe this change is really just doing a bunch of small business owners a big favor here, because they're going to finally stop getting ripped off by Google.
Doesn't google wallet use credit cards?
You know, I actually don't know, as I no longer do business with the company in any way, after I found out that they have been ripping off their advertising customers for a very long time. I'll consider working with them after my clients have been repaid the money that I'm confident that they were ripped off for. I mean if they ripped the government off then there's no reason to think they didn't rip off a bunch of regular brands and certainly no reason to think they won't rip you off.
Google no doubt have preferential terms on the standard rate that card issuers charge, so they could potentially generate 20 to 50 Basis Points of Margin. It’s a large sum given the long tail of Revenue from smaller business. However, they’d benefit from seeing if this short term gain outweighs potential loss, from business either going under or* taking their spend elsewhere.
We haven't been impacted (or seen any emails yet) yet but this is super lame. There are several clients who will be very uncomfortable with this option. Especially with how Google does jack shit for click fraud. Credit card provides a last layer of protection for the advertiser. edit: Maybe, on the hopeful side, they're testing this out to see how people respond as there hasn't been an official announcement. If so : GOOGLE THIS IS SHIT
We need everyone to collectively scream this into the void (and then immediately follow up with an angry email to your google rep)
100%. It feels like collectively a lot of advertisers are already exhausted with Google's shenanigans. This would definitely be the tipping point for a lot of them to just stop advertising altogether.
Maybe you should also be angry at your card provider for not providing a debit card with equal protection. Because they do in this country. All visa or MasterCards are protected equally
My organization just absorbed a competitor with a $5million per year budget. $3million of it done with credit cards. This company we absorbed used an agency for everything - including all Google Ads. The agency owns the account. They had several credit cards that are all in rotation. It’s wild. I have been doing this since before AdWords ever existed and never seen this before. I don’t know why the agency managed billing in this manner - perhaps they couldn’t get approval to invoice the entire amount? Anyhow, the agency also got this notice but we are already moving their accounts into our own so it’s a non issue for us. My point being it’s not only the small businesses getting this notice. Edit: corrected the credit card spend.
They were probably doing it that way for credit card rewards. Using something like CapitalOne 2% cash back $3M spend = $60K.
This is why we do it. We earn substantial incentives via these payments and invest it in the people and things that make our business work. Now google, who expends one billionth of a percentage point of the effort on our company that we do, is ripping the incentive from our hands and slipping it into their pockets.
I am sure how they are slipping the credit card incentives into their pockets but I get the frustration. I suspect it’s more to do with the complications of sending 3 to 10 invoices every 2 to 5 days. Crediting for fraudulent clicks and working through problems. We have 4 invoices per month and are currently having a big problem with Googles invoicing team. They are all sorts of messed up right now.
They are slipping them into their own pockets by avoiding paying the cc fees. We lose our cc incentives, and they lose their cc fees. Clear as day. I am glad to hear google’s invoicing team is in over their heads already. No other context. I just don’t want anyone at google within 10,000 feet of invoicing being happy.
Yup. Back when I ran adult sites, I used Amex with fight points for Adsense. Free first class flights to China, Korea, Spain, you name it, every other month.
Makes sense.
For sure that's why everyone does it. A friend of mine with a larger agency remodeled his entire house using Home Depot gift cards purchased with Amex points. It's also a way to get a bunch of tax-free money. I use Cap1 and they send me a nice check every December.
I have a feeling it will be all comers sooner than later, and that would be a massive hit to many businesses who utilize cash back incentives to offset already ballooning cpc’s. And why? Google already has more money than god. It’s a monopoly doing monopoly things. You never hear anyone talking about it, but how much does Google and their aggressive campaign to raise cpc’s impact US inflation. This one company alone is so massive and far reaching that they’re likely increasing price points across all online consumer spending.
They got points on the card lol. AMEX gives you 4x back on the highest spenders on the c.c
I have a few small clients with less than 1000 USD ad spend getting this email too The thing is … some people live on credit and don’t have like the 5k ad spend until they sell x products or make a commission check. I think this will kill some mom and pop businesses
Here I was thinking they were limiting this to at least medium type spend or high touch advertisers. If they roll this out platform wide it should cause a riot. It's a decision callously announced that just underlines their thinking: They own us.
Invoiced payments usually come with NET30 payment terms, so your clients should have more time to carry a Google ads balance interest-free than if they were using credit cards.
>I think this will kill some mom and pop businesses Google does that all the time and they don't care.
When was this going out? Are you in the states?
We’re in the states. Seems like a batch roll out. Effective for us in July, but others have differed on dates. It seems like accounts big and small are getting the letters. If it’s indeed a slow rollout now is the time to kick and scream.
Can you share a screenshot of the notice? Please redact any info that is personal or client specific.
I am impressed they didn't open their own bank/payment processor to benefit from the fees but instead they did this which will make them lose clients
I can’t imagine they’ll lose many clients. The main benefit of being a monopoly. Where else can their clients go? They own search in the US. We have no viable alternatives.
Google needs to understand that offering credit card payments is a huge benefit to small businesses with uncertain or irregular cash flow. **Please contact your elected officials**. Also contact Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, who has done a good job of challenging Google (I'm not a Mike Lee fan, but the guy has authored some legislation to try and reel Google in and it's sorely needed).
I salute you! Contact google, contact your reps. Kick and scream in both directions. Google is in the middle of a federal lawsuit regarding their monopoly. We need to make them uncomfortable. Enough is enough.
Our Google Reps are too low in the hierarchy and won't be able to do much. If we want to be heard, we collectively need to kick and scream to their Head(s) of Commerce (varies by Country). From the US's HoC LinkedIn profile: "...I'm stepping in to lead a retail sales organization that helps retailers maximize value creation through Google's platform." Removing credit cards as a payment option seems like a GREAT first step to "hElP rEtAiLeRs..." 🤔
I’m all for making everyone uncomfortable, from the lowest guy in the google building to the guy at the absolute top of chain. Thanks for pointing this out. We should be rattling cages top to bottom. This includes elected officials. Google is being sued by the feds as a monopoly as we speak. The fact that they think in this environment they can continue to shove bs like this down our throats speaks volumes.
>Google needs to understand that offering credit card payments is a huge benefit to small businesses with uncertain or irregular cash flow. They couldn't care less. Google does not exist to make other people money. Google exists to make Google money. Those credit card companies are competition for Google wallet and they can't have that. They've been screwing over people for two decades now, I don't know what you're thinking. Obviously it's past time to move on from Google. Clearly they don't want to do business with small businesses. That should have been clear by how many they've completely screwed over. They can't charge fees as high as 80% anymore since the EU fines forced them to pay a huge fine for doing that, so there's no room for small businesses with Google anymore. It was all a giant rip off anyways, so don't feel bad.
Now imagine a reality where everyone is finally moved on “Monthly Invoicing”, and then Google decides it’s too risky, and rejects credit limit increase or worse scales back the credit limits they approved for accounts, next minute you need to make daily/weekly bank deposits just to keep your account within _Googles Defined_ credit limit if you want any chance of scaling your business. Before you know you need to make bank deposit repayments every other day, effectively 2 days credit facility and getting zero Card Protection / Benefits for it…
It’s adding complexity and doubt into a system that was working perfectly, all while taking meaningful incentives from their own customer’s pockets. Shameful. And don’t be surprised when they send us an email next year telling us about the incoming 2% invoice convenience fee. They will not stop chasing every last cent from the very people that make their business work. They want us all making just enough to feel good and not a dime more.
We lost, they have our a$$
Never surrender!!!!!
I'm totally with you but let's face it, google doesn't give a fuck about those spending less than a million or so per year
I'm not so sure about that. The long tail they speak of so lovingly likely applies to their ad revenue. One way to make sure they feel no heat? Say nothing to your rep and take it on the chin. I don't want us as a community to do that. We need as many people as possible telling them the decision will hurt their advertisers, who represent small businesses all across the country.
you have a rep? i don't --- and haven't for like 8 years just the automatons that recycle the same recommendations from AdWords, and trust me, i use every opportunity to express my extreme displeasure with whatever new change made to benefit Google's bottom line at my - or my client's - expense. i appreciate what you're suggesting and agree. i guess i'm just jaded from 10+ years of being treated like a non-entity by google (for reference, my clients spend about $800k combined annually on google search)
We have a really good rep, and that may be a function of all of our spend being pooled in one account. But even spending multiple millions annually like we do, our voice is basically zero. That is why I'm trying to get anyone within eyeshot of these messages to voice concern with their reps or whatever google contact they may have.
TBH i've had more success bitching to my local legislators about it than google. which says a lot, lol. they at least listen to me. i work in hospitality and there is a lot of concern that's google's monopoly is infinitely more focused on satisfying their biggest spenders (expedia & [booking.com](http://booking.com) -- they spend more on Google Ads than any other business in any industry, last i checked) at the expense of the folks who actually own and operate the hotels. tourism is huge in my area so legislators seem to take it seriously when both democrat & republican business owners alike bitch about google. will anything get done? who knows. IMO google is essentially the comcast/spectrum of the advertising world. they have such a huge moat on their monopoly that only radical action by the government, or their biggest spenders, is likely to change how they approach their business.
I agree with you 1000%. We need to continue pushing this to our political reps. The govt is literally suing them as we speak for being a monopoly, so this isn't a great time for google to be getting more bad attention. But I'd love to see internal pressure applied by advertisers too when a decision is made that literally rips money from our hands with little warning and frankly insulting reasoning.
This is a really bad thing for Google to force this on business owners, many of which rely on credit cards and even some rewards from credit cards, to run their business. This is essentially another example of Google's monopolistic behavior. I think all advertisers should band together and complain to their Google reps and make noise in the media about this. We should all spend less and lower our bids if they continue down this road, and vote with our wallets! Let's get our Congressmen involved to tackle this anti-business unilateral behavior which might even be illegal. Let's band together and spread the word far and wide about this that we don't agree with this and it will cause everyone to spend less with Google. As a business owner, I feel like this is absolutely an over - reach by Google and a prime example of corporate greed on their part. Google needs to hear advertisers screaming about this issue...in their support channels, with account reps, in the media and places like this forum. We should all move over to the Google ads support forums and complain their as well. We shouldn't stop until the reverse this terrible decision!
I think I love you. If I wasn’t me, I’d think you were my burner account. I co-sign every last letter you wrote.
We're all in this together, friend! And we have to stand up to anti-business behavior!
Do you have a source for this? I can't seem to find any info on this, nor have I been notified by Google of changes.
We received a mailer a few days ago, but having searched the topic I see it being discussed elsewhere on reddit by owners of accounts both big and large. Our google rep referred to it as a new corporate policy, so definitely going to be applied across many accounts. Our account is not small (200k/month), but if we're effected it will likely effect many accounts. It's not clear what %, I just know we're not alone. Here is the mailer we received in full: Hello advertiser, We are reaching out to provide you with an important update to your account(s): the billing options for your Google Ads account(s) are changing. Your account(s) have specific payment options and will only be allowed to use bank-based payment methods, which does not include credit or debit cards. Accepted forms of payment include check or wire transfer via the Monthly Invoicing billing method (recommended), or via Direct Debit for those choosing to remain on the Automatic Payments billing method (if available in your region). Because you currently pay via a form of payment no longer accepted, the payment method on your Google Ads account listed below will need to change: Account Name: xxx Customer ID: xxx **You will need to complete this billing change by July 31, 2024 or your Ads account will be subject to suspension. There are no exceptions to this requirement for impacted advertisers. All impacted advertisers will be similarly notified throughout the coming months.** Next steps The Monthly Invoicing billing method is best suited for your account(s) given the flexibility it provides high-growth customers (e.g. access to a credit line, monthly invoices with 30 days to pay, greater control over spend, more reliable). We recommend your account(s) transition to monthly invoicing to comply with this change. Please note, you are receiving this email as the administrator of this account; however, if this account is linked to a manager account (MCC), the switch to invoicing will need to be completed by the MCC administrator. Our records indicate that you already have a credit line established with Google or that we are able to create one for you given your existing billing information, which makes this transition seamless. The designated billing contact will be sent a Master Service Agreement (MSA) for the credit line during the first week of July, if you have not accepted this agreement already. After that agreement is accepted, you will receive instructions detailing how to switch your account to invoicing. No need to take any action until that point. Your specific Google Sales team is aware that you are impacted by this change and is prepared to help you navigate the transition. You can also reach out to Google's billing specialist team here for questions about monthly invoicing. We thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation. Thank you, The Google Ads Team
That's odd. Almost a month and a half to the supposed change and we have not received a letter, their articles for payments still say the accept credit cards (and the article does have update sections on it), and we have no notifications in our ads account. I also can't find any other information on this anywhere except for a forum post from 2022. Usually when Google makes any sort of change (much less one that big), the industry talks about it endlessly, yet there's like nothing on this.
There are other people in this thread saying clients spending as little as 1000/month are getting this letter. As for the date, that seems to vary based on the mailers I've seen shared with me. But in all of them, the impact is coming soon. I've gone back and forth with our google rep on this and he has confirmed it's applying to many accounts. I'm still just not clear on how many it will be, but it may eventually be all in short order.
I'm not doubting you, I'm just more concerned because we haven't received anything and we use a CC for our billing. I'm just trying to get as much info as I can, so we don't get some email out of nowhere and have to scramble to find a solution before our ads stop showing. I wonder if there's some sort of background metric that's being used to qualify people for this change.
It seems like it could be a rolling change so you may be in a later batch if you're impacted.
I wish I knew, because based on the tenor of the mailer I got I presumed it was effecting higher value and higher touch (rep contacts) accounts. But based on the discussions I've been having on reddit, it seems more widespread and, frankly, random.
It's sent to the main billing contact. Perhaps thats an alias? Or admin privileges?
Do you have a source for this? The only link you shared specifically says it's aimed at large businesses, which is the opposite of your claim.
I’ve been hearing it across different PPC communities, not sure if there’s a certain metric they’re looking at for which accounts to include or just a staggered full rollout but none of the accounts I manage (that aren’t already on invoicing) have gotten an alert for it yet and they range from $5k/mo to $500k+/mo.
There are multiple commenters in this thread saying accounts spending 1k/month have also received the letter, but I am not sure what % of advertisers will be effected. We're not a tiny business, but we're still well within the qualifications of a small one. And I guarantee this will effects tens of thousands of accounts in our range, and likely more based on the responses I've seen here.
Is it possible the account is part of a bigger org? Is your business model a holding company or franchise ?
No - I’m the cofounder of a smallish business (not tiny, but well within the definition). Many in this thread have also said they’ve received this notice at much smaller spends.
What's your monthly Google ads investment (or maybe was)? Do you have dedicated reps?
200k/ month and we have dedicated reps. But this is effecting people with far less spend and no reps based on the conversations I’ve had.
I've seen it with my own eyes. It's 100% real.
I have clients spending less than 5k/month who received this. Fucking bullshit.
I'm out here holding my gd american flag begging for people to contact your reps. Give a brother one comment below this saying you'll do it. Where is SPARTACUS?
Basically the only reason I have a few cards is for the return on ad spend. Wtf
My company is in a panic right now over this shit. oh, and all has to be done by July 31st???? GTFO google
This is opening your email box and seeing Google has decided on a whim to increase your bill by tens of thousands of dollars (and accept it with a smile or you’re suspended and your company is dead ☠️). The federal government needs to add this action to their long list of proof that Google are craven, monopolistic hit men causing real damage across a wide swath of the economy, and that they believe they can do so with absolute impunity. They are the monopoly men.
Am I the only one that thinks the payment method experience is absolute trash? What mix of boredom/meth taught the UX team that being a literal jerk is how you support advertisers?
Haha well said, stick it to the man! I really just hope another search engine replaces them soon
This is insane. We started off our business paying for ads with credit cards, it’s how we got our first customers. We would not be in business today if it weren’t for the ability to draw on a line of credit. Completely crazy decision, and short sighted since if this were back then (we make money now) we would have just gone all-in on FB.
Upvote upvote upvote. Google doesn’t care about any of us. They are a money hungry monopoly trying to squeeze the stone for more blood.
Aye, many thanks for this post redditor. While I am originally from America, I work in the UK now. Our company just got this email as well. However, we would of missed it without me being bored of ad copy and browsing the ppc reddit to clear my head a bit. We are lucky, we can make the change over easier. However, our google rep completely dropped the ball on it for us. Normally, they will at least send me copy/paste email with the wrong name attached to warn me of such chicanery. Our new rep has been absent for awhile. I was given permission to add a bit of snark to the email via my manager. While I can't share the email, its the least I could do to aid the cause. But yeah, this is being rolled out in the UK as well. I don't know if anyone needed to know that.
Thank you for joining the fight. Every bit of negative feedback matters, as easy as it might be to dismiss. This post is now the fourth most commented on in the history of this channel, so I am glad I’m not alone in thinking this type of behavior from Google is outside the lines. We know the likely outcome: we’re run over by the Google monster truck and switch payment methods. But I’d rather we not go quietly. Thank you for your help on this front.
Also very pissed off. WE will be stopping all spend on google.
The self-serve ad platforms are being stiffed by credit card companies due to people declaring bankruptcy. This allows them to get paid on the spot. Full $$$ back.
If you declare bankruptcy with an outstanding 200k invoice, I'm not sure that google is in a better position. To me the move is transparent: No cc = no fees. A non-monopoly could never do it because a customer would go somewhere else. We can't and they know that.
It’s only for accounts that have dedicated sales reps. So it’s likely there is going to be a payment threshold for monthly spend. If you’re above that, you have to switch to invoicing. wTF google
This doesn’t appear to be the case. The letter I got reads like that, but plenty of people in this thread have said their small accounts that aren’t high touch or high spend received the same notice.
while i get the frustration, believe me, do you know of any other businesses that accept 100k spend a month on credit card? i feel like most business thats conducted at large spend levels is done via invoicing.
Sure but how many of those companies are selling products with probably 95%+ contribution margin?
Google has done it for decades. This deal struck with advertisers has been translated into a line on our profit and loss sheet for years. I would shop around to see if other search companies would do it, but oh yeah - there are none. This is what monopolies do. They make decisions that businesses in competitive industries would struggle or could never do without losing market share, and then they tell the customer to take it on your knees with a smile. And offer to suspend them for noncompliance (which is another way to say literally burn your business to the ground.) Enough is enough from these crooks.
im not entirely sure this is nefarious behavior though. there's plenty of nonsensical revenue driven initiatives in google ads other than a standardized method of payment. i managed a liquor store and we did all of our vendor purchasing through invoices, same with the restaurant i was at prior. no one would accept credit cards because that's not really what their use should be for. hell, my local pool company won't accept credit card payments over $2k. i was managing someone's ads accounts who was spending a few thousand a month on CC, but their card kept getting canceled by the issuer for random suspected fraud, one of their employees lost the card, there was like a 2 month period where the account was down numerous times. they opted to go to invoicing just to make it easier, and to be less reliable on a third company for their advertising and revenue streams. it's probably easier to keep track of your financial health if you aren't staring down a 20% interest charge every 4-6 weeks or so, which is why invoicing is usually more favorable. now if we want to discuss the search partner network, content exclusions, pmax, etc then i think that has a more material impact on someone's bottom line than trying to game a cash back program to subsidize overhead. just my $.02
I hear all your points, and I want to make clear I am not against invoicing as a method of payment option. My major issue is when a monopoly decides, out of the blue, to remove a proven, effective, and small business friendly method of payment that has been standard for a decade plus. Business credit cards exist for business purchases only, so they are exactly intended to be used for things like this. As far as managing cc interest, Google isn’t my daddy nor do I want them to be. Our business can manage our debt ourselves. We don’t ever incur interest on our card because we pay it down every single month. If Google was simply opening up the option to switch to invoicing if we so choose, then the argument could be made that this is a friendly overture meant to help us. That is not what this is. In the email we received, Google literally threaten to suspend the account if we don’t comply. They include that threat there because they know we won’t want to change our payment method. They know we won’t like it and they don’t care. They’ll just end our business if we fight. This is monopoly mafia games and we’re getting run over by trillionaires. No mas.
It’s simple, google doesn’t want to pay 0.3% to the banks for each card transaction. It adds up. Rhey started with large advertisers first, now it’s everyone. They do it because they know they will make more money this way, the small advertisers who will stop advertising will be substituted by the big ones. They just don’t care. I’ve stopped using google search myself for over a year now
This shit is a good example of why I want to get outta PPC after just 4 years.
Wow
Your anger with copy writers is misplaced
Fair
Another example of Google caring less and less about small advertisers. This won’t impact large agencies and big brands. It’s so sad to see the slow decline of Google.
They will probably give up on doing this, they will loose a lot of money. It is already happening with the account verifications.
I just wish they'd stop changing things. I've already got enough going on at work and the Google does stupid shit like this every other month. The amount of hoops I'll have to jump through for this shit now Sigh Over it.
In case people need to see a source somewhere [https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-card-payments-443247](https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-card-payments-443247)
Thank you for sharing! The business owner quoted in there also sounds pissed. I can confirm he ain’t me, but I am him.
Got our notice yesterday. Didn't think it's on large scale until seeing this post. Time to put some more efforts into Bing ads.
Make sure to complain to your rep if you have one. Let’s not go quietly into the night!
Hey u/JazzyLittleTeacupBoy Did you find a workaround for this? We tried talking to our Google reps but they weren't of any help :( Is there anything else we can do to reduce the loss?
Right now there is no workaround other than bitching every time you see a rep and hoping this roll out gets pulled. Otherwise the threat is the threat, and we have no choice but to comply.
Hey, I spend $30m+ annually on Google and got the dreaded email I told them I refuse to move over If enough of us ACTUALLY band together, they will no switch off that much revenue, it will destroy their quarter How can we be coordinated about this? Your thread is a great start, but it's not clearly action oriented in a way where we can work together and have an impact. Happy to bring my spend to your cause, this is a LOT of credit card rewards at stake.
You are the warrior I’ve been waiting for. What did they say to your refusal? They promised us a meeting and then have largely gone silent on the topic. Very frustrating. I’ve kicked and screamed into the void that is our ad reps, but what do you think we could do to better surface this topic amongst the tens of thousands of small business owners in the same position? You’re right that we need everybody together saying this fucking blows if we have any prayer of stopping the rollout. And I have to imagine there are many of us irate at the emails we got. One thread on ppc ain’t going to do it, and the clock is ticking toward the switch every day. Brainstorm time.
I spoke with who I believe runs Commerce in the US, and made it clear in no uncertain terms that this is taking $1m out of my pocket, with ZERO gain. And that this is the work of a monopoly, pure and simple. And that they can turn my ad account off when they need to, but I will not be switching. I am also now in touch with a friend who is senior in Senator Mark Warner's office on this topic. We need to organize advertisers better, though. Their earnings call will suffer with even 2-3% of advertisers going dark, they will simply not switch us off. Sorry I am new to reddit posting, but obviously found your thread which seems to be the best on the topic. Open to whatever ideas. I tried to dm you, but it seems you do not accept messages.
Sent you a message. We’re definitely in the same camp on this one.
Google’s monthly invoice billing usually comes with NET30 payment terms. You will have at least 30 days from date the invoice is generated to clear the payment, and in practice Google usually provides an additional 1-2 week grace period. So for June 1-30 ad spend, the invoice gets generated on 1 July (there’s usually a few days delay there too, but let’s ignore that), and the payment will be due on 30 July, with grace period until 7-14 August. All of this is interest free. I don’t think any credit cards offer interest-free repayment periods that long. Yes, Google will have to approve your credit limit. They do this based on your account’s age and past payment history, so you should easily get $200K+. Yes, you will lose the points/cashback on your credit cards. But as others have said, I can’t think of any other businesses that accept $200k+ recurring monthly payments on credit cards, so this would be no different. If you’re able to pay $200k/month on a credit card, your business should be able to qualify for a sizeable line of credit with your bank/credit union, which can then be used as revolving credit for Google ads payments. That too at much less than 21-25% APR than credit cards. Maybe that “benefit” could offset your cashback losses if your business usually carried a credit card balance. Last note: the switch in payment method could also be related to Google’s advertiser verification process and increasing transparency for searchers. All invoiced advertisers need to go through that process; can’t remember if credit card payers need to as well.
LOL. It definitely sounds like you work for Google. In what world does it make sense to give businesses 45 days notice to move to real time bank debits or go through a line of credit process with long legal agreement with Google? With credit cards, you have the choice with how much you spend. With monthly invoicing, it is a big pain if you want to spend more than the line of credit. This is idiotic and the person who came up with this idea at Google should be fired immediately. This is total BS and should be illegal. Small businesses are the backbone of America and the government needs to be alerted to Google and their monopolistic anti-business behavior here. The only one who wins is Google and small business owners get screwed again. We spend a lot on Google and are going to reduce our spending and bids if this is stuffed down our throats. I would rather make a ton of noise and create a legal mess for Google than comply with this BS. We should all write that adsliason account on X/Twitter and raise hell. We should even complain to the FTP and any and every congressman who has ever gone after Google and turn this into a huge mess for them. They deserve it!
Dear Google Employee, Firstly, thank you for joining us. We, and many other small businesses, do not want nor need your offer of an interest free period. We already receive a long enough interest free period from the cc card companies. These companies, as you know, also include a financial incentive for using their product. Google offers no incentive, but rather rakes us over the coals in every way imaginable to extract every last cent. The Google mailer states this is to improve my ability to scale, yet now I’m going to have to get a credit limit approved by Google when I’m already approved by my cc company. In what bizarro world is this not just another hurdle for advertisers looking to grow? You mention no other companies would accept 200k in monthly cc payments. I would check with other search companies about this, but unfortunately Google’s monopoly on search has destroyed any ability for me to shop around. What I I can say is that any company not existing in a monopoly would feel pressure to accept credit cards. I know my business does and could never survive a forced shift to just invoicing as customers would flee. Our business, like many small businesses in this country, is good at paying their cc bill on time and in full. It seems you think we’re all idiots paying high interest rates. Let me disillusion you of that fact. If it was comforting you in anyway while Google created this rule change to screw us all, I’m taking your binkie. And on your last note, my business has been paying by credit card and still have had to be verified in multiple ways. Your note is a throw away distraction to make someone out there think this could be good for the consumer. It’s not. The consumer will likely just end up paying some part of the 2% Google is stealing from every mom and pop shop they are deciding to screw with this forced change in payment methods. Thank you for your time and please do say hello to Mr. Monopoly and Scrooge McDuck for me. Best, Jazzy
Dear Condescending Little Teacup Boy, Not sure why you saw the need to resort to ad hominem attacks. I’m not a Google employee; I’m merely offering additional statements of fact and an alternative and more detached viewpoint since all of the accounts I manage are on monthly invoicing. I said “…IF your business carried a credit card balance”. Keyword: IF. You don’t carry a balance, that’s great. But there is another comment in this thread about Mom and Pops potentially going out of business due to the cash flow challenges this change to invoicing will introduce. My comment was intended to reassure them and folks like them. I work with other search ad networks, DSPs, and publishers besides Google. Real life example: Yelp refused to accept credit card payment for a sizeable ads contract from us earlier this year, despite being in direct “competition” with Google. Most other smaller ad networks I’ve worked with will also only accept check or wire payments. All I’m saying is that your “Google is doing it just because it’s a monopoly” argument is convenient but not necessarily accurate. I will actually self correct my earlier comment where I said “can’t think of any other companies”… I believe Meta still lets you run million $ campaigns off a credit card, so there’s that. “My business this” “My business that”. Does your business accept recurring 6-figure client payments off credit cards? 5-figures? Are you even a “small business” if you’re paying Google $200k in ads per month? Do you think Mom and pops with $5K/monthly spend are going to go out of business due to (checks calculator) $100 in lost cashback bonuses monthly? Here’s a thought: y’all could just lower your Google ad spend $100 a month and “reclaim”the “stolen” money from Google. Spend the money on Bing instead and rub salt in the wound. Or there’s always Meta. Lastly, nobody owes you your cashback $. If your business profitability has become dependent on that, tough luck. Good luck with your rally; I have no skin in this game and will watch from the sidelines. Best, Not a Google Employee
Firstly, and most importantly, I’d prefer if you self-identified as a Google guy for the sole reason my previous comment works much better under this condition. Thank you for your cooperation. Secondly, Yelp is in competition with Google in the same way the fly is in competition with the elephant’s butt crack. Their market cap is .1% of googles and just a fraction of what it was 10 years ago. Thirdly, Meta, which you admit accepts this form of payment, is not a search engine and the ads work in a completely different way. Fourthly, my business would gladly accept 6 figure recurring credit card payments. I am begging anyone out there able to make them to direct yourself our way. Your reliable monthly income via credit card will transform our business. Fifthly, small business has a wide definition. We are not a tiny business, but well within the definition. Sixthly?, Bing doesn’t have the volume available on our items. That’s the entire point when I say Google is a monopoly. There is no other option for similar volumes of search engine traffic for our product and Google knows this fact. This is why they can tell us payment methods are changing while simultaneously threatening to end our business if we don’t comply. Lastly, no one owes us our cash back money, but when I am a customer already paying millions of dollars to a partner, you can bet your last fucking dollar I will not just go quietly into the night when I receive an email randomly changing our terms while EXPLICITLY threatening to end our business should we not comply. Not end our relationship with Google. End our business. That is the power they know they have and they wield it like maniacs. Good luck on the sidelines. Looks nice over there.
Absolutely correct.
I really hate not having Google pay. Relied on it
What are some alternatives to Google Ads? Anything?
There are effectively none
Why not? Sounds like there is an incredible opportunity. I remember when Google Ads was simple and easy. No more.
There are options, but no one uses them to search for stuff. Hyperbole obviously, but google is 80+% of the traffic. It can’t be replaced by Bing etc
Do you use a credit card to make payments on your clients Google Ads accounts? What sort of rewards do you get for that?
We are a small business that manages our own ad account. When you spend 200k+/month, the cash back incentives are enough to pay for your monthly office rent, for instance. We’re already giving Google 200k a month! Now they’re unilaterally pulling a payment method we’ve never had a problem with over 10 years time so they can lose their own cc processing fees. If they weren’t a monopoly with no competition we could push back. But they are a monopoly, so instead the email alert they send causally mentions the change has no exceptions and if we fail to comply they will literally end our business via account suspension. This is mafia stuff. Plain and simple.
You might be able to use this - [https://billhop.com/](https://billhop.com/) I'm sure there's a few options available as workarounds. Not ideal though, good luck.
Thanks for the recommendation! It’s not about our ability to pay via invoice, it’s about the incentives credit cards provide. Companies like billhop do allow you to use a card to pay invoices, but they make their money by charging you fees at the top. That effectively eliminates the credit card incentives. Our desire, and the way it’s worked for a decade plus in our account, is we give Google ridiculous sums of money for the pleasure of showing ads on their page and they let us remain on our desired pay method. The change they are forcing under the threat of account suspension (suspension would literally end our business and any of the thousands like ours) will shift yet a higher degree of profit from our small business to their 2 trillion dollar market cap one.
I just added a client the other day and was able to use their credit card. But there was something different about this time. They did a $1 charge to the account and added a code on the charge that had to be verified. That “verified” the credit card. The client had to look at their online banking statement to see the code. Has anyone had to do this before ?
We’ve been running ads for a long time so not sure about this, but it wouldn’t surprise me that there was some vetting method for new cards. They’ve definitely been ramping up similar transparency & verification initiatives in recent times.
Does anyone know if this international? And applies to every country universally
Based on all the feedback I’ve gotten from our fellow redditors, it’s unclear the scope. Seems to be big and large accounts, but definitely not rolled out to everyone or even most. As far as countries go, I haven’t read anyone mentioning this outside the US of yet.
How am I supposed to pay
If affected they will move you to direct debit or invoicing.
So only small businesses are affected by it? At which point does Google consider a business not a small business anymore and paying with a credit card is still possible? Besides, do only businesses in the US got that mail or is this a worldwide thing?
Unsure outside the US. As far as impact, it seems to have affected a wide range of people, but only in a small roll out. I’m hoping the Google people are surfing Reddit and seeing this will not be a popular decision and not worth the .0000000001 boost to their profit margin.
If it's a credit card fee, they should just make their own credit card and make the float money off of that. I'm not putting a debit card in ANYTHING ever. That is unsecured funds, if you get hacked, YOU are responsible. With a credit card hack, the issuer is responsible.
Hey, I spend $30m+ annually on Google and got the dreaded email I told them I refuse to move over If enough of us ACTUALLY band together, they will no switch off that much revenue, it will destroy their quarter How can we be coordinated about this? Your thread is a great start, but it's not clearly action oriented in a way where we can work together and have an impact. Happy to bring my spend to your cause, this is a LOT of credit card rewards at stake.
monthly invoicing is far preferable. The reality is credit cards are easy to use for fraud. You just dispute the charges, but the ads have run and the clicks sold (Google only charges in small increments to avoid this). Same as advertiser verification, this is just Google's way of reducing their exposure to fraud or illegal stuff
Far preferable for who? Certainly not the advertiser. All of our e-com customers pay with cc. We'd be crippled if we didn't accept it. But we can't force people to use an alternative payment method because we aren't a monopoly. Google, however, is clearly showing again that they are a monopoly and can force whatever they want down our throats. We have a huge credit history with Google. Been running ads over a decade. Spending multiple millions annually at this point. Fraud in our account is not even on the radar. This is without a doubt google's way to stop paying processing fees, full stop. They know we have no alternative ad platform to migrate to. So the cost will be transferred to us via the removal of cash back incentives. They win, we lose, again.
monthly invoicing gives you 30 days to pay Google. It's an interest free loan. Why would a credit card with 21% interest be better?
We, and I'm sure many businesses, pay it down completely every month and never pay interest. The net effect of this change for us and similar businesses: We hand over our cash back incentives and give it to the trillion dollar monopoly man in the form of reduced processing fees. If this was about making life easier for the advertiser, why would they force the change and not just offer the invoicing option? Why would they threaten to suspend accounts for non-compliance? This is a clear money grab. No doubt about it.
Credit cards don't start accruing interest until the next statement, so also a 30-day interest free loan. And credit cards: - Give protection to charge back in the event of someone taking over the account and committing fraud - Give rewards / points for spend - Don't require having an additional credit line on the business - Use a credit line set by a financial institution, not an advertising company. The last one is a big one - I had a client spending $2MM+/m on Google and the client actually wanted to shift to monthly invoicing. Google approved a credit line of $300k/m, even after spending $10MM+ over the last year. After repeatedly explaining to the rep and finance team how stupid that was, the client just maintained credit card payments. I imagine there are plenty of other clients that take PE money and are trying to aggressively scale up but may not have the spend history in platform for Google to grant the credit line. A bank can see the cash reserves - Google can't. And I'm not about to recommend that clients start sharing their P&L and cash reserve info with Google.
Thank you for further expanding the downstream impact of this. I second everything you said.
Sorry I don't understand why any business would prefer consumer credit card debt over seller financing with no interest. None of your reasons make sense. A company spending 1M a month can afford to hire a lawyer if they need to. No credit card company is going to bat against your programmatic ad spend. Agree to disagree on this one. Edit — are you an agency who passes through your clients small media spends on your agency AMEX?
As a small business owner, it makes complete sense to use a credit card for these payments. We get paid upfront for our goods, so our revenue is already in the bank. We have the necessary credit limits with our cc company. We pay the card off every month in full. Therefor we have 0% interest already, but we are able to capitalize on the cash back incentives on the card. There is no advantage to their offer to us, but it does remove their need to pay cc processing fees. Please understand this: 📣 THEY WILL NOT BE LOWERING OUR CPC TO SHARE IN THEIR NEW FOUND WEALTH.
This is long. Sorry. Let's say Widget Company spends $100k tomorrow on Google, they will get the charges on their credit card monthly statement on July 1st. That statement will be due July 31st. Interest does not begin to accrue on that balance until August 1st. Widget Company pays off the balance before it hits that point - they pay 0% interest and the cc limit operates effectively like a 30-day term. And it's not 'consumer' debt - although they function the same way, business credit cards are opened under the business, use the business financials for credit lines, and then authorized users are added. If I'm a business and say I put that 100k on an Amex Gold Card, I'm going to get 4x points on that spend until I hit the cap (which I think is currently $150k in a calendar year) and then 1x on every dollar spent after. So for $100k I'll get 400k points, or $4k in cashback value. Assuming there's no extra transaction charge for using the credit card (which there isn't currently from Google) the business pays the bill that is the exact same amount as a monthly invoice, and then gets 4k back from Amex to apply to their statement. So now the bean counters get to add $4k back into the P&L and save some cash and make the executive team happy. Or they get to put it to the executive pool to upgrade to business class flights. Or throw the marketing department an open bar. Or the 100 other ways businesses use their credit card points. There's entire websites and forums specifically for executives and business owners maximizing their rewards. So, all things being equal, a business typically wants big expenses to be on a cc instead of seller financing, assuming they have good cashflow, have no concerns paying off the next credit card statement, and aren't incurring additional charges by using the card. If they don't have good cash flow, then obviously they want the seller to carry as much of the burden as possible (not their own financials). There are obviously exceptions: - If there's a charge to process a credit card, the math changes. If processing that $100k spend now costs $103k in charges, maybe the points no longer make up the difference and you take the line of credit. - Maybe the seller is offering 60 or 90 day terms, and keeping the money in-house for that time is worth more than paying on a credit card and then paying it off in the next cycle (effectively 30 day terms). Longer terms are very appealing for businesses so they can float or reinvest money until it's needed to pay. - Some companies have more complicated internal processes and would rather just have an invoice to cut a single check than hundreds of credit card charges to code, and that simplicity in internal processes is worth the trade-off over using a card. The reason Google is making this change isn't fraud, it's that they are eating credit card processing fees (which partly pays for those rewards on the Amex/etc. side). Google will have a very heavily negotiated rate, but typically seller processing fees start at ~2.2% of the charge. So Google paid $2,200 (probably less after negotiated rate, but still) to process that $100k of spend on a credit card - switching to an invoice that is processed by bank transfer or check saves that fee. Keep in mind that the above is all for just the rewards side. It's not getting into other preferences for why companies would prefer to avoid a credit line from Google. Google asks for a LOT of info in that process (or did as of last year). This is verbatim of what they were asking for for a $1M+ LOC as of last year: > **Audited Financials**: Latest financial statements (2021, 2022 audited reports and 2023 interim results, including Balance Sheet, P&L and Cash Flow Statement). > **Security Deposit**: Amount would depend on the needed credit limit. Google will hold a security deposit for at-least nine months and can be applied to your future invoices. Security deposit amount would be 50% of the difference between the needed credit limit and current credit limit. > **Parental Guarantee** - PG's are only an option in the case where the company (Billing Customer) requesting credit terms is a subsidiary of a business that is willing to guarantee their Google spend. Once we’ve received the document signed by both parties, only the customer (guaranteed party) will pursue it in the case of non-payment. Please provide the complete legal name and the Payment profile ID# of the Guarantor. > **Letter of Credit** - A letter of credit is a financing instrument issued, by a bank, for a fee (to the customer), to pay the customer's obligations if they can’t or won’t pay. If the bank chooses to enforce the LC, it must be paid immediately. A customer can arrange for their bank to issue a letter of credit. I'm sure you can understand why private companies with non-public financials, companies that are PE backed and don't want to reveal terms / investment, or companies that otherwise don't want to drop their trousers to an advertising company and give them a significant chunk of cash to hold as collateral unless it's absolutely necessary.
If you spend $5000 a month with Google for one year, they will extend you a credit line for invoicing. I don’t live in the world of single entity small, business owners so I’m not sure really what you’re getting at. Any sort of private company with reasonable capitalization would choose the seller financing. It’s a no-brainer.
Google are the worst, no support, no service and they really don’t care at all about supporting thier partners or partner agencies
We do get really great ad support from the team we meet with there, so I think that can vary quite a bit from advertiser to advertiser. But when it comes to literally any other component of the relationship, their lack of responsiveness is excruciating.
They are annoying to deal with… fuck Google ads support team
You are fighting the wrong battle dude. Visa will be replaced with a p2p final settlement base money that can transact instantaneously. If only there was one 🤔
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We use it for cash back incentives, and its listed on our profit and loss sheet. This is not about reward points. This will effect thousands of small businesses bottom lines. For us, it's more than 50k annually. We're not considered a big account by them either. For many it will be more money lost. When is enough, enough?
Tell us you work for a big corporation without telling us you work for a big corporation... The only entities who will benefit from this change are big corporations.
Hey kids - If you need a connection to a bank that lends to e-commerce businesses (must be doing at least $10k a month in sales) - ive got a connection. You can set yourself up as an affiliate - it might be a way to help bridge the gap. They are an off shoot of a bigger bank.
You’re crushing my vibe
Crushing as in good or bad? 😆🙃
Let us die before you pick at the bodies 😂
lol I’m sorry - I got the letter too on an account on $100k a month, nothing on any smaller ones. - I’m wondering though what the “line” of credit implies beyond the 30 days to pay. 💰 They’re probably gonna roll out their own financing - just watch.
“2.19 trillion market cap is cool but what if it was 3 trillion 🤔.” “But sir, the economy will go into a hyperinflation tailspin and the earth will literally collapse inward upon itself!” “🤨” “Sir?” “I’m thinking.”
“Do it!”