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Pay4Media: Clearing technological hurdles for payment processing

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The migration of news media to digital spaces has opened up creative, growing revenue streams like digital subscriptions and publisher agencies, but much of the industry still dominantly relies on advertiser relationships to power quality journalism. However, the Pew Research Center still reported last year that newspapers saw a 62% revenue decline in the decade between 2008 and 2018, and that only accelerated during the last year with the coronavirus pandemic. Digital news advertising was not exempt from those dramatic declines, making it even more important for publishers to protect those advertiser relationships.

These challenges facing news organizations demonstrate why it is important for publishers to utilize a robust combined revenue strategy that harmonizes subscription and advertising data collection and profit conversions. Beyond the strategy, however, publishers must also ensure they have updated systems and tactical processes to streamline their relationships with advertisers.

Eliminating technological barriers to the relationship can help both parties focus more on collaborations that effectively reach readers and consumers. In an era where the publisher-advertiser relationship is crucially co-dependent for financial success, Lineup’s Pay4Media offers one tech tool that can contribute to a frictionless experience that strengthens that relationship and its profit outcomes.


What is Pay4Media?

Pay4Media has been launched by Lineup Systems as a tech tool to support publishers and advertisers through a multifunctional online portal that streamlines payment scheduling. The Pay4Media setup and functions overcome hurdles to make the financial relationship easier to navigate digitally.

Invoicing and payments are smoother on both sides of the publisher-advertiser dynamic through Pay4Media, ending reliance on checks or disorganized tech stacks. Launch can be integrated as quickly as one week for publishers and requires zero configuration for advertisers. The system is also congruent with Adpoint functionalities and major order management and finance systems for state-of-the-art payment collection automation. The clean structure makes the experience seem like a single system, even if layered into other aspects of a tech stack.

Over 40% of companies did not run data security assessments last year when some types of digital breach threats tripled, so Pay4 Media prioritizes Payment Card Industry compliance standards to protect all parties involved. When used with Adpoint, Pay4Media eliminates the need to input data at multiple points in the order-invoice-payment process, further reducing data breach potential.

3 ways Pay4Media can serve your business

Pay4Media serves publishers and advertisers in different ways. Here are three of them:

Eliminates administrative time sucks

For publishers and advertisers alike, the administrative aspects of clunky financial processes or the wrong tech tools can create significant time and personnel costs. Both parties need an effective system in place. Pay4Media eliminates these pain points by automating payment collection for publishers and creating access to immediate payment and payment scheduling options for advertisers. These functions allow personnel to spend time on resolving difficult accounts or correcting disputed transactions instead of chasing payments or facing issues making payments.

Centralizes financial data history

Pay4Media provides a singular digital context for publishers to view and monitor all invoices, scheduled payments and customer questions. On the advertising side, the portal offers advertisers the capacity to pay multiple publishers from a singular platform where they can also track all invoices from one place. The portal can be searched by either party for past payments and other financial history in a singular online location.

Personalized for both publishers and advertisers

Not only is data history centralized for publishers and advertisers through Pay4Media, but it’s also personalized. Publishers can access a custom dashboard to view each advertiser’s payment information and key data insights, and the tool also allows publishers to customize which customers they choose to invite. Publishers only pay for customers who are actually using the portal, so if needed, publishers have full control of communicating directly with a customer instead of through the tool.

Using the portal, advertisers can also receive custom and immediately updated notifications about various phases of their payment process: available invoices, pre-payment requests, payment confirmations and dispute statuses. Updates are emailed instantly so advertising teams can stay on top of financial deadlines or resolve any payment concerns quickly. They can also directly contact individual publishers through the portal.

Pay4Media offers a unique setup and tech function that serves safer, more seamless and time-saving financial exchanges between advertisers and publishers. The portal removes challenges facing advertisers and publishers in the digital journalism ecosystem and frees them up to focus more on their connections with consumers and readers. To learn more about this payment automation product and the ways it can be integrated into your business, schedule a demo today.