Tag: PayPal

Posted on

PayPal Changes Fees for Recurring Billing Use

PayPal cannot seem to figure out what to do with their new recurring billing service. At first they said it was like setting up a subscription but with a separate control panel and greater payment control you and the client shared and that in January 2011 you would only pay $19.99 a month to have the service.

However, clearly this has changed as just this last month they decided that to get recurring billing you had to have web payment pro or virtual terminal set up in your account which is a $30 per month fee plus then the $19.99 billing on top of that monthly starting 1/1/11 for the recurring billing option. That’s a whooping $49.99 a month to use recurring billing. Talk about a changeroo! I had to phone PayPal to get the $30 removed from my account and am now no longer offering recurring billing as an option to customers.

Additionally, when they set up the recurring billing in my account they moved all my subscription customers who pay a set fee monthly into the recurring billing control panel. When I asked for the $30 credit they deleted all my subscriptions!

Hey, I thought subscriptions were different from recurring billing and recurring billing was only $19.99 a month. So what gives PayPal? As for me this is just way too expensive of a monthly fee for me to use the service for just a few customers so I am going back to the free subscription set up. Too bad as I did think recurring billing from PayPal was a really good idea.

Posted on

PayPal Versus Google AdWords

I wanted to bring to your attention some issues in using PayPal and tracking conversions on sales on Google AdWords in this issue.

Right now with PayPal, if the user selects to purchase with their PayPal account they will be automatically be redirected back to your selected landing page in which you have embedded your Google AdWords conversion tracking code. However, if the customer selects to pay by credit card (not the one tied to their PayPal account), they will no longer be automatically redirected to your landing page accruing a conversion. For this type of user, your buyer must now click an orange button to return to your website on their order confirmation page.

If they perform this action, they will go to your landing page and a Google AdWords conversion will be recorded. If they choose not to click the orange button to return to your site, the sale is recorded, but a conversion for Google AdWords is not recorded. This is a very big problem for any client who is using PayPal and then marketing these services on Google AdWords and really needs to know conversion statistics.

As a Professional Google AdWords Account Manager I will not be recommending that clients use PayPal if they are promoting their items on AdWords unless they are using a third party PayPal Web Pro integrated shopping cart. As an account manager, the recording of conversions is one of our biggest tools to understanding if the advertising spend on AdWords is an investment or an expense.

So what can you do if this is a problem for you?

1. In your PayPal settings you can force all users to use either their PayPal account or set one up. This means they will be redirected at the completion of the order to your conversion tracking landing page.

2. You can move to a different credit card processing program – I use Sage Payment for my online credit card transactions. Although PayPal makes it very easy to do online transactions, the issues in regards to accurate conversion tracking may force you to use an alternative service. 

3. You may even want to test, for two weeks or so, forcing customers to use their PayPal account for transactions online and see if you receive complaints. The reality is that most people who do buy online at some point have set up a PayPal account, but for some reason may not want to use it. If tracking a conversion is crucial to your business, you may need to force them to use their PayPal account to shop on your site.

It is easy to change this one setting (forced use of the buyers PayPal account) in your PayPal account settings and easy to undo as well. If you choose not to do this, you and your AdWords account manager simply need to be aware that some sales simply will not be recorded as AdWords conversions. If that is the case, AdWords conversions and overall sales should be evaluated together when reviewing the success of an AdWords program. The big draw back to all of this is that your statistical data on which keywords convert for you and which do not will not be accurate.

I wish these work arounds were not needed, as the redirect issue has not been an issue before, but for some reason PayPal has decided to make these important changes in the order confirmation page that impact conversion tracking forcing us to look for alternatives to their service.

Posted on

PayPal Seriously Screws With AdWords Conversions

If you use PayPal to process credit card transactions and you are using Google AdWords to push sales on these products, a recent change PayPal has made will be seriously screwing with your ability to record conversions in Google AdWords.

I’ve just spent over one hour on this and was very discouraged about the change. Here is my letter to PayPal that I am posting on my blog as well detailing the problem.

*****

Sent to PayPal using their online Feedback interface

PayPal has recently made a change in the order confirmation page. It used to be at the end of the transaction the buyer (if the PayPal account owner had set this up) was automatically sent to the desired thank you page on the selling website.

Now PayPal has globally, for all customers, defeated this. Instead of being automatically returned to the selling site, a new screen is shown within PayPal with an order confirmation number and an orange button that says return to merchant name’s site.

In my case (I manage many AdWords clients) this means that if and only if the client clicks the orange return to website button will a Google AdWords conversion will be recorded.

If the buyer chooses to just close that tab and surf elsewhere, no Google AdWords conversion is recorded.  This is a very big problem for any client who is using PayPal and then marketing these services on Google AdWords.

As a Professional Account Google AdWords Account Manager I will not be recommending that clients use PayPal if they are promoting their items on AdWords. The recording of conversions is one of our biggest tools to understand if spending on AdWords is an investment or an expense.

I will hope that PayPal will reverse this action. You can contact me, Nancy McCord at 301-705-7303 or nancy@mccordweb.com

Please pass my comments up the chain as PayPal may not have considered this when they have made this very important change.

Posted on

Are You Taking Credit Cards Online? Why Not?

Just about every website owner should be allowing online payments especially when PayPal makes it so terribly easy to help your customers pay you on time.

Some websites need a mini store, and some just need a user-selected amount payment option, but nearly every business should have a PayPal option.

When I started to do auto-billing for repeat business clients using their credit card on file with us, I cut the time that I had to track down late payments out of my work schedule. By making it easier to pay for my services not only did I get paid on time within my terms, but those who had been late payers before were able to become prompt payers with my new policies. This has allowed me to focus on selling and take less time and lower my frustration level with slow paying clients.

In fact as taking credit cards online has been so successful for my own business I now have a virtual terminal allowing me to take phone orders, repeat billing requests, and to process a client’s credit card without their intervention.

If you have a website you should really consider why you aren’t taking credit cards online. it’s easy just get your feet wet with PayPal and then if you need to look for other options after you have some success you can springboard from there.