Payment Method Authorization

What is Payment Method Authorization?

Each time you launch a campaign or increase the budget for an existing one, AdRoll initiates a payment method authorization. This authorization is an essential step to ensure that your payment method is valid and has sufficient funds to support the weekly budget across all active and paused campaigns within your billing account. 

Note: The payment method authorization amount is voided immediately and it is not a charge. That is why you will not be able to find an invoice for this amount in your billing history.

How Does Payment Method Authorization Work?

When you launch or modify a campaign budget, AdRoll processes an authorization equal to the weekly budget of all active campaigns, plus any campaigns paused within the last 90 days. This ensures the payment method can cover the maximum amount that might be invoiced for during that week.

After a successful authorization, the system immediately releases the funds, but depending on your financial institution, those funds may be held for a few days. Some banks may show authorizations as pending transactions, while others display them similarly to actual charges. In some cases, you may not see the authorization at all.

Contact your financial provider: If you are seeing an unexpected AdRoll transaction on your bank or credit card statement, please contact your bank or credit card provider to confirm if it is a real charge and not just your financial provider's way of displaying a payment method authorization amount.

What Happens if the Payment Method Authorization Fails?

If the authorization fails, it is similar to a credit card decline. The system will attempt the authorization once a day for five consecutive days, during which you'll receive email notifications. If the authorization continues to fail, the campaign status will change to Not Running, and the system will no longer retry the authorization.

To resolve this, you can:

  • Verify your payment information: Check the Billing Information page in AdRoll and update your payment method.
  • Contact your financial provider: Reach out to your bank or credit card provider to address any issues.
  • Lower your weekly budget: Reducing the budget may result in a lower authorization amount, helping prevent future failures.

Reducing the Payment Method Authorization Amount

The payment authorization amount is calculated based on the weekly budget for your running and paused campaigns. If the payment method authorization fails due to being too high you can try reducing the amount your payment method is authorized for.

Set an end date for any campaigns you no longer want:

  • You will reduce the amount your payment method is being authorized for by setting any campaigns you no longer want to run as Ended Status (so they no longer have a paused status). Any campaigns that reach the Ended Status will no longer be included in the authorization amount.
  • Pausing or switching off a campaign won’t exclude it from your payment authorization amount, you must move them to Ended Status.
  • For a campaign to effectively reach the Ended Status it must be set up with an end date and it must reach that end date.

To set an end date:

1. Log in to AdRoll and navigate to Ads > Ad Campaigns.

2. Filter for campaigns with an Off or Not Running status.

3. Click the three dots icon next to the campaign name and select Edit.

4. Under Campaign Settings > Start and End Date, update the end date.

5. You can either select the end of day or choose a specific hour. It allows you to select minimum 1 hour ahead. It will not be immediate. Times are based on UTC.

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6. Save the changes.

Repeat the process for any campaigns you no longer wish to run, ensuring they reach Ended status to reduce future authorization amounts.

How to Restart the Payment Authorization Process

If you've resolved any issues with your payment method and wish to reattempt launching a campaign or increasing a budget, contact AdRoll's Customer Support team here to restart the authorization process. They can help reauthorize your payment method and get your campaigns back on track.

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