Case Study: ImpulsePay

Mobile-based online payments are the future for mobile marketing company Interlinked, says the managing director Chris Newell.

According to Newell, the company is in the process of setting other mobile marketing ventures aside and focusing on the new service, ImpulsePay, with full force.

How does it work?

Based on the industry-wide payment system, Payforit 2.0, ImpulsePay allows customers to make purchases using their mobile phone with a maximum limit of £10 to be added straight to their phone bill.

ImpulsePay prides itself on its simplicity. The process sidesteps the time-consuming entering of bank details or personal data. After clicking “Buy now”, users enter their phone number and receive a text message with a secure PIN number. The PIN is then typed onto the purchase page and voilà – the transaction is completed.

ImpulsePay has recently added a possibility to use the service to sell adult content. After the users have entered the secure PIN online, the operator checks that the user is registered as over 18 years. If not, the transaction will not go through.

The background

ImpulsePay was launched in September last year and has been growing solidly since the start. Newell says the growth was almost too rapid at times, allowing the company to hold back on marketing the service.

At the moment, ImpulsePay has 581 profiles created and the company is making revenues of about £50,000 a month. Targets have changed as the service has taken off. Newell said the first step in September was to simply get the first client. Then the tenth, twentieth, and so on. The current target for monthly revenue is £100,000.

What’s new about it?

The underlying idea behind the service is that if you want to charge online, it has to be simple. ImpulsePay is all about optimising the check out procedure. Newell points out that making an online payment with your credit card can require as many as 120 keystrokes to complete – ImpulsePay requires only one click.

As a payment method, ImpulsePay also compares well with premium rate texts. The shift from people sending text messages to something much more seamless is a huge improvement in terms of user flow, Newell explains. Text messages don’t really lend themselves to making purchases when you go online with your handset, he says.

Newell also points out that as opposed to other similar services, ImpulsePay is extremely easy to use for the content owners. The technical side of it consists only of a simple line of code to be added to the website. This, along with the possibility of tailoring the monthly service fees according to the needs, makes mobile payments accessible to small businesses, bloggers, musicians,and so on.

Find out more about Impulse Pay on their website: http://www.impulsepay.com/

Feature article

It has been talked about for a good part of the last decade but now it looks as if the mobile has finally become an important force for media and advertising.

Read our feature article: Year of the mobile finally here?