SUCCESS STORY
NitroPay
Ad Tech Innovator NitroPay Raises the Payouts Bar by Integrating Trolley
3.4 billion
ad impressions served on publisher sites per month
2x
total capacity of publishing partners managed
20 min
publisher payout onboarding process
NitroPay
Company Info
Website
Industry
Ad Tech
HQ Location
Washington, USA
Customer Since
2020
Recipients
Content publishers, bloggers
Payout Countries
Global
NitroPay is an ad tech company that helps website publishers monetize visits to their sites and maximize ad revenue. The Washington state-based company needed a nimble payments solution to help scale their total number of publisher partnerships without causing onboarding delays or derailing team productivity. Since implementing Trolley, NitroPay has doubled its partner base and continues to add more at a lightning pace.
Building sites at the start of the internet content boom of the mid-2000s, Cody Bye and Kyle Spraggs felt the ad networks they were working with lacked the performance and transparency they deserved.
After testing a few options, Bye and Spraggs said enough was enough and decided to become the monetization partner they’d always wanted. In 2017, they launched NitroPay to help website publishers earn with ads that, in Bye’s words, “don’t suck.”
Initially, NitroPay targeted video game publishers, but they have since expanded to a wide range of publishers, including nutrition and parenting sites.
After testing a few options, Bye and Spraggs said enough was enough and decided to become the monetization partner they’d always wanted. In 2017, they launched NitroPay to help website publishers earn with ads that, in Bye’s words, “don’t suck.”
Initially, NitroPay targeted video game publishers, but they have since expanded to a wide range of publishers, including nutrition and parenting sites.
Quick payments are critical to maintaining positive relationships with our partners.
Since we integrated Trolley into our system, our recipient onboarding and payouts have become much simpler and easier.
Cody Bye, Co-Founder & Chief Growth + Sales Officer at NitroPay
“Our goal at NitroPay is to increase revenue for our partners all over the world,” Bye shares.
And it works—NitroPay customers receive a significantly higher yield than they would through traditional ad tech partners. By partnering with each of the top ad exchanges NitroPay is able to organize near-instant auctions for every publisher’s excess banner and video ad inventory. In milliseconds, they select the highest paying ads and display them to site visitors. This on-demand auction gives their publisher partners access to more campaigns and ad spend than they would with a single network.
In five short years, NitroPay has grown from three customers to more than 300, serving 3.4 billion ad impressions every month. NitroPay’s robust growth was cause for celebration, but as they worked with more publishers across different international sites, the NitroPay team realized they just couldn’t keep up.
And it works—NitroPay customers receive a significantly higher yield than they would through traditional ad tech partners. By partnering with each of the top ad exchanges NitroPay is able to organize near-instant auctions for every publisher’s excess banner and video ad inventory. In milliseconds, they select the highest paying ads and display them to site visitors. This on-demand auction gives their publisher partners access to more campaigns and ad spend than they would with a single network.
In five short years, NitroPay has grown from three customers to more than 300, serving 3.4 billion ad impressions every month. NitroPay’s robust growth was cause for celebration, but as they worked with more publishers across different international sites, the NitroPay team realized they just couldn’t keep up.
The challenge
“When we had 150 clients, we were so bottlenecked that we considered hiring more people to handle the workload. The onboarding and payment process was pretty onerous,” Bye recalls.
First, NitroPay had to get a signed agreement with the publisher. Then the publisher had to deliver their payment and tax information separately for NitroPay to store. Next, the NitroPay team had to manually ensure they were compliant with any payment regulations.
Finally, they would deliver the publishers’ payments through an older, legacy payment processor that had been used by others in the ad tech industry. “We knew that if we wanted to continue growing, we needed a new, modern system to manage and automate our payments, one that could scale with us and wasn’t holding us back,” Bye recounts.
First, NitroPay had to get a signed agreement with the publisher. Then the publisher had to deliver their payment and tax information separately for NitroPay to store. Next, the NitroPay team had to manually ensure they were compliant with any payment regulations.
Finally, they would deliver the publishers’ payments through an older, legacy payment processor that had been used by others in the ad tech industry. “We knew that if we wanted to continue growing, we needed a new, modern system to manage and automate our payments, one that could scale with us and wasn’t holding us back,” Bye recounts.
The solution
NitroPay discovered Trolley through a web search, and the team was especially drawn to Trolley’s simplicity. It could easily handle global mass payouts for online marketplaces, shared-economy platforms, ad networks, and affiliate platforms.
“We knew we could have our publishers onboard within the payment portal and immediately be set up within our system. No hassle or compliance checking on our end,” says Bye, who adds that Trolley saves them hours of work for each new publisher. “Plus, Trolley allows us to automate almost every point in our payment process.”
Before Trolley, NitroPay’s end-of-year tax preparation was a long manual process.
“The automated tax document generation in Trolley saves us a ton of time and makes sure we don’t miss anyone when filing,” Bye shares. “Trolley collects all publisher payment information and we don’t have to save or store that documentation on our end. Now, the only manual work we do is uploading forms to the IRS. It’s dozens of hours saved.”
“We knew we could have our publishers onboard within the payment portal and immediately be set up within our system. No hassle or compliance checking on our end,” says Bye, who adds that Trolley saves them hours of work for each new publisher. “Plus, Trolley allows us to automate almost every point in our payment process.”
Before Trolley, NitroPay’s end-of-year tax preparation was a long manual process.
“The automated tax document generation in Trolley saves us a ton of time and makes sure we don’t miss anyone when filing,” Bye shares. “Trolley collects all publisher payment information and we don’t have to save or store that documentation on our end. Now, the only manual work we do is uploading forms to the IRS. It’s dozens of hours saved.”
“I looked at Trolley’s API docs for 15 minutes and knew we should work with them.” — Kyle Spraggs, Co-Founder at NitroPay
The integration
Now that NitroPay uses Trolley, a publisher just signs up for NitroPay, plugs in their information, and is ready to go. “We put the power in control of the publisher,” Bye explained.
Transitioning to a digital ACH platform eliminated hours of repetitive work for the NitroPay team. Embedding the Trolley widget into the NitroPay portal allows clients to service their own accounts and operate freely. It’s also a more secure way for clients to submit sensitive bank and tax information.
Transitioning to a digital ACH platform eliminated hours of repetitive work for the NitroPay team. Embedding the Trolley widget into the NitroPay portal allows clients to service their own accounts and operate freely. It’s also a more secure way for clients to submit sensitive bank and tax information.
“Trolley has powerful tools like the brandable recipient widget, live payment tracking, setting payment dates, bank account validation, and tax form collection.” — Cody Bye, Co-Founder at NitroPay
“When we don’t get questions around the widget and the information that needs to be plugged in, it tells me Trolley works,” says Bye.
The results
Since teaming with Trolley, NitroPay has built a better publisher payout experience and doubled the number of sites it works with, from 150 to 300, and continues to add new publishers.
Internal teams have also experienced benefits. “We made huge gains using Trolley’s tax features,” Bye reveals. “Now we don’t have to concern ourselves with how, where, or when a publisher will be paid. Trolley has allowed us to onboard and automate more of our internal workings, which lets us scale better and focus on our tech, our publishers, and our growth.”
“Trolley solves international payouts,” says Spraggs. “It empowers us to send cheaper, faster mass payouts to over 200 countries in over 130 currencies.”
Trolley also helps NitroPay navigate changing world events, by publishing a comprehensive list of countries and assigning a risk assessment score to each of them.
“We don’t have any questions about who we can work with because we’ll look up the country in your provided list. If Trolley says it’s questionable, we use that information to make a wise assessment,” Bye says.
Internal teams have also experienced benefits. “We made huge gains using Trolley’s tax features,” Bye reveals. “Now we don’t have to concern ourselves with how, where, or when a publisher will be paid. Trolley has allowed us to onboard and automate more of our internal workings, which lets us scale better and focus on our tech, our publishers, and our growth.”
“Trolley solves international payouts,” says Spraggs. “It empowers us to send cheaper, faster mass payouts to over 200 countries in over 130 currencies.”
Trolley also helps NitroPay navigate changing world events, by publishing a comprehensive list of countries and assigning a risk assessment score to each of them.
“We don’t have any questions about who we can work with because we’ll look up the country in your provided list. If Trolley says it’s questionable, we use that information to make a wise assessment,” Bye says.
“Trolley has significantly helped us add publishers in a scalable way. Our competitors take weeks or months of build-up time for a new publisher. At NitroPay, it takes us 20 minutes after the networks get back to us. Because of Trolley, scaling is not a concern.” — Kyle Spraggs, Co-Founder at NitroPay
The future
Partnering with Trolley, NitroPay can onboard new publishers in as little as 20 minutes. They attribute this to Trolley’s seamless automation, which keeps NitroPay’s onboarding process simple for everyone.
NitroPay plans to continue its aggressive growth and expand its ad tech footprint by 30-50% year over year into the foreseeable future. “Trolley is a critical piece in our growth plan,” Bye says. “They provide the safety net and efficiency to onboard new publishers quickly without the worry of compliance issues.”
Asked for his advice for others seeking a payouts partner, Spraggs offered his endorsement, “Give Trolley a good look. For us, it has been a significant resource. It is quick and speedy, which is very important for firms with small teams. We’ve had zero problems integrating Trolley into our system.”
NitroPay plans to continue its aggressive growth and expand its ad tech footprint by 30-50% year over year into the foreseeable future. “Trolley is a critical piece in our growth plan,” Bye says. “They provide the safety net and efficiency to onboard new publishers quickly without the worry of compliance issues.”
Asked for his advice for others seeking a payouts partner, Spraggs offered his endorsement, “Give Trolley a good look. For us, it has been a significant resource. It is quick and speedy, which is very important for firms with small teams. We’ve had zero problems integrating Trolley into our system.”
