Failed payments are inevitable when running a membership site based around recurring subscriptions. In this guide, I’ll show you step-by-step how to automate the entire collections process. Here are some of the things we’ll automate:
- Sending emails after a failed payment
- Pausing access to the content
- Providing a way for members to update their credit card right on your site
- Automatically re-charge for failed invoices
- Restore access when payment has been made
If you’re doing any of those things above manually, keep reading and follow the instructions to save time and increase revenue by automating these tasks.
Step by Step Instructions
Step 1: Setup PAYF Homepage and Update Creditcard Page
Before we actually set up these pages, you’ll want to go to Memberium>Memberships and edit one of your memberships you’re wanting to work on. Just make sure that the membership has a “Payment Failure” tag setup. If you don’t have a PAYF tag, use the tag builder pro to create a tag called “[membership name]PAYF” and then select that tag in the dropdown here.
For details on how the PAYF tag works, read this guide. In short, when a member has the access tag and the PAYF tag, Memberium won’t allow that member to access the content until the PAYF tag is removed.
The next thing to understand is how homepages work. Near the bottom, under the ‘Special Pages’ section, you’ll see the Membership Home Page and a PAYF Home Page.
When the member doesn’t have the PAYF tag, they’ll be taken to the homepage you’ve set up under ‘Membership Home Page’. This is normally a course page or site dashboard page.
The PAYF Home Page, on the other hand, will be a special page like the one I’ve attached below. It’s designed to get members to update their payment method so their membership access can be restored.
If you’re using Memberium’s Page Templates, we’ve included the exact page above for your use. Just publish the page and set it as the PAYF homepage in the dropdown above.
The red button on that page will take members to a page that has the [memb_add_creditcard] shortcode on it. This shortcode lets members update their card in Infusionsoft from your site. The details entered on the form get sent securely to Infusionsoft so they can charge the failed invoices.
Again, this page is included for free in our prebuilt page templates. Reach out to our support team if you’d like them installed on your site.
Step 2: Setup Billing Automations in Infusionsoft
Now that we have the required pages setup, it’s time to set up the automation side of things in Infusionsoft.
As we covered earlier, when a member gets a PAYF tag, Memberium will stop their access to the content and then send them to the pages we just created when they log in. This means the key to making this work is to apply the PAYF tag whenever a payment fails. We can do this using Infusionsoft Billing Automation.
In Infusionsoft > E-Commerce > Settings, you’ll see the Billing Automation tab (bottom left).
From there, click in the dropdown and select ‘When a credit card autocharge attempt is made’
Set up your billing trigger as I’ve shown above. When the auto-charge fails and it contains [your membership subscriptions] then Apply your membership’s PAYF tag.
Note: if you have a monthly and annual subscription option, you can include both in the same automation. However, you can’t set up different membership levels in the same automation as the PAYF tag being applied is specific to each membership. In other words, setup a new billing automation for each individual product/membership but you can include the different pricing for that same product/membership in the same automation.
Next, we’ll setup an email to be sent.
In this example, I’m opting to send the email right through the billing automation. You could opt to trigger a campaign when the PAYF tag is applied and handle the emails from there.
Regardless of how you set up the email, make sure to include a Memberium Autologin Link in the email. This way, members can click the link and get taken immediately to the page to update their card. They won’t need to enter any login details.
You can get the autologin link by going into Memberium Settings > HTTP POST/Links > and then copy the “Email Autologin Example”
Copy that link and then add that in the email. Make sure to change the end where it says /your-page/ to the link of the page where the add credit card shortcode is. If you’re using our page templates, that link will be /add-a-new-card/
Once you save that, that’s all there is to automation. Of course, if you choose to handle the emails through a campaign, you can add additional emails, voice broadcasts, text messages (using PlusThis or FixYourFunnel), and more.
For now, we’ll move on to the last step.
Step 3: Setup an Automation that Will Grant Access after Payment has been made
The last piece to this is to make sure members get access after paying or updating their payment method. Once again, set up a billing trigger just like you did earlier, but this time it will be when an auto charge is successful and it contains your membership products you’ll remove the PAYF tag and apply the access tag.
The only reason you’re applying the access tag is just to ensure they have access no matter what. Ideally, the access tag should have never been removed.
That’s all! Now Test the work you’ve done…
Now that you’ve got everything set up – create a test user and add a new subscription with a dummy card (4111111111111111) which should let you get a failed payment attempt on the invoice. This should set off the entire automation.
From there, log in to the site, add a real card (note that you will be charged), and then verify your access is restored after the billing automation has run.
If you have any questions or run into issues, reach out to the support team. You can also join Office Hours to discuss strategy and other things you can implement on your membership site.
