Early Adopter Program
You've been invited to participate in the eBicycles Early Adopter Program, a pilot program for our new directory and advertising service that will soon be offered to bike shops in your metropolitan area. This program gives you a chance to try our service for free, for a year, and it only requires few minutes of your time to get your business setup. This page explains what the program is, how it works and how to get started. You can navigate using the links below:
Overview
eBicycles.com was launched in June 2009 to provide bicycle guides and online tools that educate consumers and promote bicycling. We don't sell any physical products on the site and we encourage people to visit their local bike shop when making purchases. We provide a national directory of bike shops and targeted local bike shop ads that display on our most visited pages - particularly our bike size calculator and bike-related guides.
Program Purpose
The purpose of this program is to measure the effectiveness of locally targeted bike shop ads when displayed alongside relevant bicycle-related content. With the feedback and data metrics from our early adopters we may change our bike shop listings, content and ad locations as we figure out what produces the best results for local shops.
What's Included
This invitation-only program is being offered to a handful of bike shops in select metropolitan areas. The program entitles you to receive a free Showcase listing and targeted advertising on the eBicycles.com website, as described below:
Showcase Listing
- Your bike shop name, logo and address
- Full business contact information, including website and e-mail addresses
- Summary and detailed descriptions of your shop (your story, brands & styles of bikes you carry, services offered, why folks should buy from you)
- Fields to describe your store hours, policies, test riding area and fitting facilities
- Photo gallery of your shop (the more photos, the better)
- Video of your shop, employees or whatever you want (video must be uploaded to YouTube.com)
- Online promotion/coupon that customers can print and bring to the store (which you can change at any time)
- Customer reviews with the ability to respond to reviews
Below is a sample showcase listing:
Geo-Targeted Advertising
- Custom ads will be displayed for your bike shop
- Ads will be targeted to site visitors in your local metropolitan area
- Ads will display on high-traffic pages of our site
Below is an example of the targeted advertising local bike shops receive on our site:
Reports
- Activity report for your showcase listing (showing views/clicks)
- Advertising report for your bike shop's ads that have displayed on our site (views/clicks)
Timeframe
- Showcase Listing and advertising will be provided for one (1) year from the date your listing is activated
Cost
- Free - there is no cost for the listing or advertising during the term of this program
Ad Setup
Within three (3) business days of setting up your showcase listing, you will receive an e-mail from us with two ads for your shop that will run on our content pages. You'll need to review the information in the ads and provide a small amount of text for each one. Here are a couple examples:
| 300x250 - Medium Rectangle | 300x100 - Small Rectangle |
|---|---|
| | |
 |  |
 |  |
If you already have ads made up in these sizes, or would like to provide your own, just e-mail them to us after setting up your listing. Once your ads are finalized, they will begin displaying on our site to locally targeted visitors within 24 hours.
Program Completion
Upon completion of this program you'll have the option to continue your listing and advertising by paying an affordable monthly fee for the service. Pricing is tentatively set at $9.99/month (per store), but that may change based on what we learn from our early adopters. Within a couple months of your expiration date, we'll inform you of the final monthly pricing and we'll likely have a special deal for early adopters - considering the commitment you're making by participating in this pilot program.
Getting Started
It's easy to get started - you just have to setup your business listing on our site. The more information you put in the listing, the more effective it will be - both for search engines and for site visitors. Follow the instructions below:
Setup Your Listing
- Visit our website: www.ebicycles.com
- Find your bike shop listing on our site by searching for your zip code (on the right side of the home page).
- Claim your listing by clicking the link that says "Is this your business?".
- Fill in your account and contact information (which may be different than your bike shop details).
- Click "Claim this Listing".
- Choose the "Bike Shop" template from the drop-down list.
- Choose Showcase listing and click Next.
- Update any incorrect or incomplete information on your listing.
- Fill in any other relevant fields to describe your business (you can always come back to these later too).
- At the bottom, enter your unique Promotional Code that was in your invitation e-mail.
- Click "Next".
- Your listing has been saved. The Pending status means we need to approve it before it becomes active, at which time it will show up on our site.
Improve Your Listing
After you've setup your listing, you should add a photo gallery and promotion/coupon. Both of these could give a someone a reason to visit your shop.
Photo Gallery
You can have a photo gallery linked to your listing that shows your bike shop, storefront, staff or anything else you'd like to share with potential customers.
Create a Photo Gallery:
- Make sure you're logged into your eBicycles account.
- Click "Manage Listings" under Listings - if you're not already there.
- Click "Galleries" under Member Options.
- Click "Add Gallery" under Member Options to create a new gallery.
- Enter a name for this gallery, for example "Bike Shop Photos", and click "Next".
- Now, you have to add images to the gallery by clicking "Add Image" under "Manage Gallery Images" in the center portion of the screen.
- Choose your image, enter captions for the image and click "Submit" to upload.
- Repeat steps 4 and 5 for each image you'd like to include in the gallery. The more images you include, the better.
- Now you need to link this new image gallery to your listing - click "Listings" under Member Options.
- Click the title of your listing to bring up the Manage Listing options.
- Click "Photo Gallery" and put a check mark next to the photo gallery you just created and click "Submit".
- That's it. You've now linked a photo gallery to your listing.
Coupon / Promotion
Each showcase listing can have one coupon at a time. These can help you determine if a customer in your store came from the eBicycles.com website. Make the coupon unique for your eBicycles listing so you don't confuse it with other coupons or promotions you are running. You can change the coupon as often as you'd like.
Create a Coupon/Promotion:
- Make sure you're logged into your eBicycles account.
- Click "Manage Listings" under Listings - if you're not already there.
- Click "Promotions" under Member Options.
- Click "Add Promotion" under Member Options.
- Fill out the form and upload a promotion logo or image, if you have one.
- Click "Submit" to create the promotion.
- Now you need to link this promotion to your listing - click "Listings" under Member Options.
- Click your listing to bring up the "Manage Listing" options.
- Click "Add Promotion".
- Choose your promotion from the drop-down list and click "Submit". You can only have one promotion active at a time.
Map Tuning
Finally, you may want to review the map location for your store. Sometimes Google maps shows you store's location incorrectly. You can fix it by turning the map.
Fine Tune the Map
- Make sure you're logged into your eBicycles account.
- Click "Manage Listings" under Listings - if you're not already there.
- Click your listing title to see the Manage Listing page.
- Click "Map Tuning".
- Adjust your store location as needed by following the instructions on the screen.
- Click "Save Map Tuning" when you're done.
This finishes the process of setting up your listing. We will quickly review and approve it and send you an e-mail letting you know your listing is live on our site.
Reports
There are two types of reports you can view - the first shows the activity on your showcase listing and the second shows how many times your bike shop ad has displayed on our site and how many people have clicked on it. This information should give you an idea of how much online exposure your bike shop is getting from our site.
Listing Activity report:
- Login to your eBicycles account.
- Click "Manage Listings" under Listings.
- Notice all the icons on the right side of your listing.
- Click the Traffic Reports icon (it looks like a bar chart).
- The report will display with data by the month.
Advertising report:
- We will send you an invitation to Google AdManager via e-mail.
- Visit the link in the e-mail.
- Create a Google AdManager account.
- View your bike shop advertising report.
Cancellation
You aren't obligated to stay in the early adopter program. You can cancel your service at anytime by suspending your listing.
Suspend Your Listing:
- Login to your eBicycles account.
- Click "Manage Listings" under Listings.
- Find the Status column for your listing - it should read "Active".
- Click "Active" and it will change to "Suspended".
Your listing will stop showing in our directory and ads for your bike shop will stop running within 24 hours after suspending your listing.
In Closing
Thank you for taking part in our program. Your participation will help ensure that we are providing a valuable and affordable online advertising channel for bike shops around the country.
If you have any questions, please contact Brandon Kelly using our contact form.
Program Highlights
- Available by invite only
- Full bike shop listing
- Geo-targeted advertising on our site
- Ads displayed on most visited pages
- Free for one (1) year
Setup is Simple
- Claim or create your listing
- Describe your business
- Upload photos and/or video
- Provide some ad copy (we'll create the ads)
- Monitor activity from listing and ads