Ghost Cards: Why are they used in Marketing Campaigns?

A ghost card is a type of virtual card (non-physical credit card) that is highly secure where you can assign specific users for multiple recurring transactions made to your suppliers. You can set limits so that there is no over spending or unauthorized use. These are great for marketing campaigns (see case study below)

Ghost cards can also allow your company to improve its expense management and tracking. The enhanced expense controls can allow you to limit when and where the numbers can be used and how much can be spent.

The ability to see the expenditures as they happen makes it easier for businesses to understand their employee expenses so that they can make adjustments to their budgets. It can also help to identify spending trends and spending issues that might be occurring within the companies.

In addition, AP departments create new revenue streams from rebates where revenue is direct deposited into your account every month.

How it Works

1) Set Limits - Set the maximum transaction amount. Control how many payments can be made within a given time period. With ghost cards, you can establish spend and time limits by day, week, or month.

2) Assign users - Assign multiple employees to the same ghost card. They can all make approved purchases, and those expenses will all tie back to the department that issued the card.

3) Reconcile - Ghost cards simplify expensing and reporting. One card number assigned to a given client or campaign keeps expenses organized.

Real Life Example

The Problem:

When it came to client billing for Google and Facebook ad campaigns, a media company was playing a costly waiting game. It took months to get invoices and they never seemed to accurately match up to client campaign spend. In many cases, they reported seeing credits applied to accounts for things that didn’t run correctly months after the original invoice had already been paid.

“The process of going through invoicing and reconciling errors went on for months,” said Margaret VP of Finance. “We may have thought an invoice had been reconciled only to receive a notice three months later that a credit had been applied.

Then we had to go back to the client and say ‘Sorry, that wasn’t the actual cost’.” They attempted to switch to a traditional credit card billing system but found that every client along with each of their campaigns appeared on one bill. This meant they had to go through each line item manually to identify clients and campaigns. “This reconciliation process was still very difficult and it took us hours upon hours each month to go through just one credit card bill.”

The Solution:

With ghost cards, they were able to transfer their Google and Facebook client accounts to a ghost card system. “Once we switched to ghost cards we were able to set up separate cards for every client. "At the end of the month, reports were provided with totals broken down by client, making it much more organized and easier to reconcile.” Transferring accounts from invoicing to card was simple and required only the submission of a request to the Google and Facebook representative. The rep then coordinated the transition on the back end and set up a new ad account with a different card attached to each client.

The Result:

Where it used to take a few months for the teams to get the invoices, review them, organize charges by client and campaign, and finalize reconciliations, they are now able to quickly download reports, review, and pay. “It literally takes about an hour from start to finish. And that was from day one of implementation.” The time saved on the reconciliation process gave us additional time needed to concentrate their efforts on higher-level tasks thus creating what has been comparable to having an extra part time staff member.

Ernst Consulting Group is designed to educate and consult B2B companies on new and innovative Fintech initiatives. We provide Best-in Class customer experiences and partnerships allowing companies to minimize effort and maximize revenue and efficiencies.

Contact Information:

Jeffrey A Ernst - 815.354.6105 / [email protected] / www.ernstcg.com