Return Home

We've compiled a list of frequently asked questions to better help with your decisions. Feel free to email or call us if any of your concerns or questions are not addressed below...

1. Is this advertising program right for my site?
If you are looking for a way to reach a broad range of African American shoppers then YES. Our small business program gives you a large amount of exposure on a large network of websites that have a high composition of African American visitors. The most notable of the sites in the program (UrbanMecca.com and EURWeb.com) are amongst the most visited African American/Urban themed websites in the entire world.

2. Where will my ads appear?
This depends on which option that you choose. Our first two pricing plans involve a text based listing in the UrbanMecca.com database, one of the first and still privately managed search engines for African American in the world. Thousands of netizens use our ethnically aligned search engine to quickly find links of interests across hundreds of topics. Our top tier option includes a listing in the search engine plus visual advertising on literally thousands of pages across some of the most visible African American websites on the entire internet.

3. Is this program better than a keyword campaign or search engine?
Our program has many advantages over a standard keyword campaign....
- Keyword campaigns on major search engines are not ethnically skewed: Our program is unmatched for small business merchants that need to put their products in the faces of African American web surfers. Every site that your ad appears on has a very high African American composition.
- Keyword campaigns can be very costly with little return: Keyword campaigns can get extremely competitive depending on the search terms that you are bidding on. Furthermore, many clicks that you receive through keyword campaigns may mean visits but not qualified visits. Clicks could come from competitors monitoring the competition or even from just people surfing around with no intent to buy or interact with your products (commonly called junk users). With our program you don't have to worry about money wasted with click programs. We don't place any per click pricing through this program.
- Pay Per Click Fraud can be rampant: PPC fraud essentially breaks down into two primary areas....Competitor fraud, in which competitors run programs that repeatedly click on competing advertisers' sponsored links in order to deplete their daily ad budget, or affiliate fraud, in which affiliates utilize similar programs that repeatedly click on a link in order to increase their compensation. Either way, this phenomenom does not help the small business advertiser. It can substantially waste your marketing investment. Please note that we aren't saying don't participate in PPC campaigns. We just want to make you smarter about your marketing decisions.

Click Here To Read A Recent Article On The Subject and understand how your dollars are being possibly wasted

4. How many visits will I receive through your program? Will this increase my sales?
Our click through rates have been very high for all of our customers through this program. Most customers receive an average of 600-700 visits per month through our program with our more popular customers receiving well over 3,000 visitors per month through this program. This means that you are only paying pennies on the dollar for each visit. We are also optimizing every individual campaign to make sure that your ads are visible, compelling, which will increase your visitation rate.

In terms of sales expectations, think about your product and the nature of your store. Everyone that visits our site may not be in the mode to purchase your product offering and some sales cycles may be longer on more expensive products, specialized items, or products that sometimes require a second opinion (such as art, furniture, and accents). The most important thing to remember is that you are building a brand through this program. When people see your visual ad - they remember it...they come back to it...they are exposed to it again and again on subsequent visits. It's called "top of mind" awareness and can help tremendously when they do fall in the mode of wanting to purchase and item like yours or if they need to refer someone to your website.

5. Could you explain to me how exactly does this program work in detail?
Most media outlets such as radio, television, and websites are usually never in a sell-out situation when it comes to their ad inventory and have openings in which they have unsold (or remnant) inventory. This is especially prevalent on internet sites but can also be seen in tv and radio on the weekends and at night or with more unpopular shows and especially with last minute cancellations. When an opportunity to show an ad arises and there is no paid advertiser...these outlets will run what's called a 'house ad'. These 'house ads' will either be a self promotional spot for that outlet (with tv it may be a show promo, with radio it may be a spot describing that they play the least commercials, with internet you may see a banner prompting a member to visit a section within that same site). An outlet may also run whats called a PSA (Public Service Ad). Most of the time when you hear or see commercials from charitable organizations (like the Ad Council) - it's very likely that the spot was unsold and that outlet has reserved those opportunities to dedicate to these types of advertisements.

This is where our program kicks in: Instead of running a self promotional ad or a PSA....we've chosen to help small business owners out for a nominal monthly fee to have big budget style ad campaigns for an extremely low rate by programming your ads as our 'house
account' (no other major website that targets african americans would give you this type of coverage at that price - give them a call and ask if you can get a major ad unit on the front page site for 39 dollars). The ad units are paced evenly with every other small business customer run thousands of times per week.

On top of that, you get exposure on a constantly growing list of over 100 other black websites which participate in our banner exchange program from adgroups.com (you could participate in the free program - but this will require that you run ads on your website as well - this isn't the best option for everyone and is usually done by larger content sites and not individual merchants).

With this understanding, now you can see that what we've done is very special. We care about the small business owner. Despite our tremendous growth, we still consider ourselves a small business.

6. What If I don't have a banner?
Don't worry. When you sign up for our premium program we design all of the ad creative for you if you don't already have banners for your site. Our creative team looks at your site and creates a great representation that matches the look and feel of your site and the creative messaging. You have up to 3 times to modify our work without incurring an extra cost.

7. Can I design my own banners?
Absolutely, you can submit one banner across each of these sizes...
728x90
468x60
468x60
125x125
120x90
120x60

Please note that we may not accept your banner design. We have high standards when it comes to banner designs and will design your banner at no charge to run within this program.

8. Are there any contracts?
No, you can opt out at anytime. You won't be billed anymore once you cancel your advertising subscription. There are no refunds after your account cycles.

9. I don't see my ad as much as some other ads on UrbanMecca.com..why?
There are some occassions where a very large advertiser will appear on our property directly within some of our larger ad units. These advertisers are paying a higher premium (usually thousands of dollars) to secure a certain amount of exposure across a very tight period of time. When this happens, your larger ad units may receive less exposure during that period within those individual places on UrbanMecca.com. Keep in mind that you also have a back-up unit that is running within our network AND in various areas on UrbanMecca.com. Also, your unit is still in rotation within those larger areas and is still being seen by thousands of people everyday (as described in question 5 - your units are placeholders that run on within this program everyday and you are getting the same big budget style advertising exposure as the big boys).

10. How will I know how much traffic that I'm getting?
We deliver snapshot reports to you via email periodically (monthly) and upon request. You'll absolutely know if the program is paying off because of the increased orders or inquiries that you'll start receiving. You could also check your referral traffic report for traffic coming from our ad server.

Feel free to contact us if any of your questions were not addressed in the FAQ's above.