Low CTR With Chitika- Suggestions?

Chitika CTR under 2%

[oceankane]

We have implemented Chitika minimalls on some of our pages and have been impressed with the per click revenue, but discouraged with the dismal CTR. Anybody having similar issues? Any ideas on increasing CTR with Chitika?

[newguy1]

Wait to Chitika increases the clickable area again. I had CTR up in the double digits but that has since fallen drastically after the ad changes.

Read some of the other Chitika posts, I referenced how I got my CTR so high in a few of them.

[foxtunes]

Try and specify the best deals tab, or deals tab on smaller units. This makes more of the eminimall clickable.

ch_default_tab = "Best Deals";

Also try and remove the search box from the units:

ch_nosearch = 1;

Make the link text of the eminimalls the same as the link colour of your site.

Try and get the eminimalls in the center of the page, above the fold. Not right at the top, but about a quarter to a third of the way down the page.

Also found 728 by 90 leaderboards work great embedded within articles, but not at the top of a page in banner like fashion above the article. Blog banners didn't work for us, but found success with the 300 by 250 eminimalls. Also the 180 by 150 size. But this will vary on a site by site basis.

If you can't do that, position eminimalls somewhere on the left, in the menu bar or nav. This is what works for us, but unfortunately there's no generic sweetspot, you have to find what works best for your site(s).

[turbo996]

Even with the new ad layout I'm as still getting double digit CTR with Chitika. In fact my Adsense ads on the same page are still performing with double digit CTR.

My Secrets:
1. My Chitika eMiniMalls ad is placed on the left side of the page just below my brief site navigation, but still above the fold.
2. I have "Search" turned off.
3. I have "Best Deals" as the default active tab
4. I'm using a single 180x250 ad
5. I turned off "contextual" and use my own targetted query. Note: My site content is geared directly towards the products displayed in the Chitika ads, so my users are more likely to click on a Chitika ad.
6. I add a blurb just above the Chitika ad that is a hint to my visitors that the product(s) displayed below are special, "Featured" in my case.

The hints above are what worked for me. I've done a great deal of tweaking to figure out what would work well based upon my unique site layout.

I'd suggest that you use Chitika's channels to track performance of any changes that you make. You should look for trends over a period of at least a week and ignore day-to-day fluctuations.

[photo200]

thanks guys.

Seems reasonable about default tab.
Everythg else I've tried already.

[newguy1]

6. I add a blurb just above the Chitika ad that is a hint to my visitors that the product(s) displayed below are special, "Featured" in my case.

The hints above are what worked for me. I've done a great deal of tweaking to figure out what would work well based upon my unique site layout.

Sounds good, I'll will add that after running it by Chitika tech support. I'd love to get my CTR up high again, I'll test out the removal of search and a few other things too.

Just FYI, on a product review page one blog sized block of the product centered after the review and one 160x600 in place of the left nav that rotates the accessories had my CTR up very high.