How a Crowd-Based Ad Creative Optimization Platform Streamlined Global Payments

HQ San Francisco, CA

Digital Advertising

• 5 to 10 hours recovered each week by avoiding PayPal’s manual payment execution
• Increased penetration into 30 regional markets served
• Reduced OFAC compliance risk by validating payees during the registration process
• Expanded payment method options to creative network from two to seven
• Paid partners in their local currency and reduced transaction fees
• Added 3,000 members to the worldwide creative network to expand services

Boost Media engages with marketers from leading global brands like Orbitz, Zynga, and CafePress to source, test and optimize creative ad copy. With the Boost platform, companies optimize their creative messaging and increase relevancy with their targeted audience.

To create and optimize messaging, Boost Media has recruited the services of thousands of independent writers and graphic designers from around the world. On a country-by-country basis, the contractors develop text and image creative for online ads. For this work, they are paid an average of $75 per contribution. This works out to a couple hundred dollars here and there, and twenty bucks now and then. The various payments add up to a tidy sum of income over the course of a year.

The Challenge

Paying the contributors was no problem when Boost Media was a startup with a small creative network of US contractors. “We used PayPal for the micro payments, and for larger amounts since all the writers were in the U.S., we simply paid them in dollars, with me signing the paper checks,” explained Rob Lenderman, Boost Media co-founder and Chief Operating Officer.

As Boost Media extended its global reach and grew in size, this process soon became a nagging problem stealing focus from more important business aims. For example, to write ad copy in French for a brand running ads in France, the company often needed to find a writer in the local market. This created currency conversion problems. “The fees were pretty high with PayPal and the process was time-consuming,” Lenderman said.

The Solution

To handle its mass payments, Boost Media replaced PayPal with a global payment automation solution provided by Tipalti. No longer is the company bootstrapped by toilsome, time-consuming and risky manual mass payments. Today, it has firm control over the accurate processing of payments to its fast-growing list of global contributors—each paid the way they want to, in their preferred currency.

Perhaps best of all, Boost Media’s staff has been liberated to provide value-added strategic services like payment data analysis and reporting to Lenderman and other senior leaders. The transparency of the Tipalti platform assists easy searching and tracking of all payments, discerning exceptions, reducing fraud and ensuring full compliance with all local and national laws and regulations.

Tipalti just works, Lenderman asserted. Global payments to our network are no longer an issue. Tipalti handles it. By relieving issues around currency, tax and payments, they were strategic to our growth and our ability to expand into new markets. Thanks to them, we’re in control now, positioned to lead the market for what we do. 

Let’s get more productive

Book a demo today and learn how you can take control of your payables.