Frequently Asked Questions

Overall, how does the CityAd Program work?

It all starts with your daily budget. You decide what your budget will be, let’s say $5/day. Throughout any given day, people will interact with your ads by viewing or clicking on them, and for each interaction a small amount of funds will be deducted from your budget until either your budget for that day has been all used up, or the day has finished and still have funds remaining. For specific pricing information, refer to our ad rate card.

If you have set a high enough daily budget and/or your ads did not receive enough interaction to spend your entire daily budget, then you will have unused funds remaining from your budget at the end of the day. Some of those leftover funds will be used to purchase banner ads based on your Marketing Mix which will promote the elements of your company that did not receive as much exposure as you wanted.

If your budget expires before the end of the day, your campaign will be inactive until the next day begins. When the next day begins your campaign will restart with a full daily budget. Your advertising will still be shown on the site when your campaign is inactive, however it will be shifted down into much less prominent positions where it will receive less interaction from visitors. CityAd Campaigns that are inactive still much more exposure than our Free members, and are not charged for any clicks or impressions received while the campaign is inactive.

DAILY BUDGET

How will my budget be spent?

Funds are spent first on the natural clicks and impressions that your listings receive by visitors browsing ThisCity for information. These kinds of clicks and impressions are also known as organic traffic and are the most effective form of advertising you can receive on the internet.

If there are any funds remaining at the end of the day, 80% of the remaining funds will be used to add banner ads to your banner ad inventory to be shown as soon as space becomes available. The remaining 20% is not spent, and is instead added to the opening budget for the next day, giving you more potential to receive organic traffic in lieu of inorganic banner ads.

What happens if my budget is spent before the end of the day?

If your budget gets used up before the end of the day, your campaign will become inactive until the next day begins. When the next day begins your campaign will become active again with the full daily budget that you have set. Your advertising will still be shown on the site when your campaign is inactive, however it will be shifted down into much less prominent positions where it will receive less interaction from visitors. CityAd Campaigns that are inactive still much more exposure than our Free members, and are not charged for any clicks or impressions that may be received while the campaign is inactive.

Will having a higher daily budget improve my rankings on the site?

Yes. The primary factor that determines the priority and volume of advertising you receive on the website is the size of your daily budget. Companies that have a higher daily budget appear in the #1 position (and other top positions) more often than those who have lower daily budgets.

The beauty of this form of priority placement is that you will not actually pay more per unit of advertising by raising your budget; CityAd prices are the same for everyone whether you are spending $1/day or $20/day. The CityAd program simply rewards companies that are doing a higher volume of advertising (more spending) by granting them top rankings for their listings.

TARGET MARKETS (Coming Soon)

How are ads targeted?

When somebody creates an account at ThisCity they have the option to create a personal profile. When creating their personal profile, the individual voluntarily provides their birthdates, sex, and postal code. Anytime that user is logged in to ThisCity, we know who they are and can then give preference to advertisers who are promoting products and services that match that person’s demographic.

If the user is not registered or has not logged in to their account, we have no guarantee of their demographic information and as a result do not consider any ads shown to them to be ‘targeted’

What demographic information can I set as my target market?

You may choose the age, sex, and proximity (KM’s from your business) of the consumers that best match y our ideal customer profile.

Where can I set/change my target market?

You can set your target market by logging into your account, accessing your business profile, and clicking on the ‘CityAd Campaign’ tab. Once you have clicked on that tab, click on ‘Campaign Settings’ to access the Target Market section of your campaign settings.

THE MARKETING MIX

What is the Marketing Mix?

The Marketing Mix allows you to control what areas of your business you would like to promote the most, the least, or not at all. Anytime that a banner from your banner ad inventory is displayed on the website, the type of ad (event, job, coupon ,custom, etc.) that is displayed it will be selected based on the percentages you have set in your Marketing Mix.

For example, let’s say that you have decided to set your Marketing Mix to be as follows.
Coupons – 20% , Jobs – 10%, and Events – 70%. If the CityAd program later takes 200 banners from your banner ad inventory to display on the website, 40 of those banners will be Coupons, 20 will be Jobs, and 140 will be for Events.

The system will only display banners for postings that actually exist in your account. If your Marketing Mix includes an ad type for which you currently have no listings, the system will reallocate the percentage across the other content types.

Where can I set/change my Marketing Mix?

You can set your Marketing Mix by logging into your account, accessing your business profile, and clicking on the ‘CityAd Campaign’ tab. Once you have clicked on that tab, click on ‘Campaign Settings’ to access the Marketing Mix section of your campaign settings.

BANNER AD INVENTORY

What is the Banner Ad Inventory?

The banner ad inventory is a holding account that contains banner ads that have been purchased using leftover funds from your daily budget that were remaining at the end of any given day. These banners have been set aside in this holding account so that they can be displayed on ThisCity as soon as space becomes available, thereby helping to fulfill your campaign goals that could not be filled from organic clicks and impressions alone.

When are banners added to the inventory?

Banners are added to the inventory only when there are unused funds remaining from your daily budget at the end of any given day. When this occurs, 80% of the remaining funds are used to add banners to your inventory, and the remaining 20% of funds are simply transferred to the next day to increase your maximum daily budget for that day.

If at the end of the day there was $5.00 of your daily budget remaining, then $4.00 (80%) would be used to acquire banners. The cost for 1000 banners is $2.75, and so $4.00 would add 1455 banners to your inventory.

Note: As a special case, banners are may also be added to the banner ad inventory if you delete a Custom banner that has pre-paid funds remaining. Any funds remaining for that banner when it is deleted are converted into banners and added to the inventory.

When are banners removed from the inventory?

When a user on ThisCity loads a page, there may be open advertising space where a banner ad could be displayed. If you have banners in your inventory, your company is eligible to be displayed in that open space. When your banner is displayed, one banner will be removed from your inventory.

Where can I see the amount of banners that are in my inventory?

You can view your Banner Ad Inventory by logging into your account, accessing your business profile, and clicking on the ‘CityAd Campaign’ tab. Once you have clicked on that tab, click on the ‘Statistics’ link to view your current Banner Ad Inventory.

Is there a limit to the amount of banners that can be held in inventory?

Yes. Your banner ad inventory is limited to 100,000 banners. If your banner ad inventory is full, no additional banners will be added even if there are funds remaining from your daily budgets at the end of the day.

If I cancel my campaign, can I make a request to have the value of the banner ad inventory returned to me?

Yes. Contact our office to make arrangements to have a cheque sent out.

CLICKS

How are clicks counted?

Each click from a visitor on your listings is counted. The cost for the click is then subtracted from your daily budget, and also counted as a click on your statistics page. Refer to our CityAd Rate Card for specific click pricing information.

What is a website visit?

A website visit is a click on one of your listings that has gone out to an external webpage of your choosing, most likely your own company website. There are two ways that a website visit can be generated. The first is a click on a link that you have provided as being your Official Company Website. The second is a click on a link that you have provided through the Ad Link Control feature.

Max clicks.

We have limited the maximum number of clicks per user session to five. This means that once a user has clicked five times on your listings, any additional clicks will not be counted. This safeguard has been set to protect against any possible click fraud that could occur if there were no limits.

IMPRESSIONS

What is a search impression?

A search result impression is counted when one of your listings are displayed on a page where the information being displayed has specific rankings that are evident (#1 position, #2 position, etc.). The cost per search result impression depends on the position in which it is placed. Refer to our CityAd Rate Cardfor specific search result impression pricing information.

What is a banner impression?

A banner impression is counted when one of your listings are displayed on a page where specific rankings are not evident or non-existing. Refer to our CityAd Rate Card for specific banner impression pricing information.

What is a targeted banner impression? (Coming Soon)

A targeted banner impression is counted when one of your listings are displayed to a registered user that is a 100% match of the Target Market that you have set. Refer to our CityAd Rate Card for specific targeted banner impression pricing information.

What is a featured impression?

A featured impression is counted when you receive a listing in one of our highly prominent Featured locations. These ads are generally much larger than the other listings on the page, and are positioned to the user as the ‘recommended’ company to check out.

BILLING

How does the billing process work?

All charges are recorded throughout the month, and an invoice is generated at the end of the last day of the month. Payments are processed on the first day of the following month using the payment information you have provided.

Do I have to provide my credit card information?

In order to have payments processed automatically each month, you must provide information for a credit card to which the payment can be processed. For maximum security, we do not accept credit card information directly though the website. Instead, we ask that you submit the information by printing our Payment Information form and faxing it to our office. If you do not have a fax machine, you may email it to us.

Can I pay in advance by cash or cheque instead?

You may pre-pay for your advertising campaign if you wish. Please contact our office directly to have that setup.

Managed Accounts

What is a managed account?

If your organization does not have the HR capacity to manage your campaign and keep your listings up to date, we can do it for you on your behalf.

Not only will this save you time and allow you to focus your attention on the core elements of your business, but it will also put your campaign in the hands of our staff at ThisCity who are experts at optimizing your campaign for the best results possible.

What does a managed account include?

We will check your website regularly based on your own organization’s needs, and if there are any changes we will for update your listings for you. If you do not have a company website or have something that is not listed on your website that you would like to promote, simply send us the information via phone/fax/email.

What is the cost of a managed account?

Managed accounts are free for any business with a daily budget of $5 or more. If your budget is lower and would like a managed account, contact our office so that we may assess how often you would like your account updated so that we may determine a fee structure that works best for you.

Ad Rate Card