Liability When spending customer $$$ marketing

Why don't you want the customer to set up their own account and give you access to it.

Al

I can't imagine why a company would give a marketer money (or a CC) to spend from an account that the company didn't control. That would be foolhardy on their part. Who's to say you wouldn't take the money and run or spend down on a CC and show no results for their money?

Steve

Any Facebook marketing I do is charged in advance - while most budgets are around $500 or so, this works and allows me to not be out of pocket.

I would suggest charging them in advance and ensuring it clears before you start - it is very unlikely they will be able to set up their own ads properly and I doubt they will provide a credit card to you.

If your client is wanting to spend this amount of money, I would want to make sure they have it before I even considered starting to ensure you're not wasting your time.

In big agencies this sort of spend would be charged at the end of the period/month however you do run the risk of being ripped off if you don't get it in advance. Have some agreements and contracts in place if you are going to go ahead.

I would say that in general it's a pretty bad idea to be out of pocket for that much money. You'll have to get them to provide a certified check or direct transfer of funds and actually document everything because you can't get in a situation with them where they can do a charge-back and really stick it to you.

One idea would be to make sure that you outline in the scope of work itself what the actual expectations are going to be as far as a return for that $5000, like what is the end result that would make the project a success. That way, you won't have to manage expectations later on if things aren't going to plan and the client is maybe thinking that their budgeting on the project wasn't as judicious as they had originally thought.

Also do accounting, like make sure you're keeping track of where the money is going and you're able to justify how it was spent. Do follow-up on an ongoing basis with the client to let them know how things are going and make sure they're comfortable with how that budget is being used and what end result you're getting as you spend it.

If the client is kept up to date and understands what things are happening with their money, there's no way that they'll do a refund. When a client is liable to do a charge back is when they feel like you wasted their money or they didn't get any value for it, but that won't happen if you're doing your job, getting acceptable results and keeping them in the loop.