Forum Moderators: skibum
Chitika just announced that they are eliminating "curiosity clicks" from our revenues. Great. Who gets to decide what differentiates a "curiosity click" from an advertiser whose site just sucks and can't convert? Not us, that's for sure.
I spent probably a hundred hours putting up highly targeted ads on most of my pages. CTR and revenues were building nicely, then this. Whack! CTR cut in half, revenues by more than that. And just a casual blog post from them to announce it. Ho hum. Just another scam. Back to YPN!
Are they no longer getting revenue from the advertisers for "curiosity" clicks? Or are they just not paying publishers for them?
That's the part I misread when I began this thread. It's not that Chitika is not counting certain clicks, it's that they've taken actions to try to reduce the number of what they call curiosity clicks. But, any way you slice it, the result is the same: fewer clicks and less revenue for us as publishers.
Ya it was, but no doubt certain preferred cronies in certain "good ole boys" networking circles had plenty of advance notice on the quiet that there would be a referral deal, and got themselves moving on it to get a headstart in the Chitika buzz factory.
Hmmm, I think I can guess who you're referring to. You know, that never occured to me! Maybe I haven't been in this business long enough but what you say is entirely possible. I got into the game late but I'll go and do some backtracking and see who was banging the drum before the announcement. Just out of curiousity.
Are they no longer getting revenue from the advertisers for "curiosity" clicks?
I hope I see the cash I earned since early October but I imagine Chitika is in a serious cash crunch right now, with disgruntled advertisers balking at huge bills/low conversion rates on one side, and a vanishing publisher base and significantly lower CPCs on the other. A double whammy. Unpaid publishers, gird for aggressive 'auditing'.
I hope I see the cash I earned since early October but I imagine Chitika is in a serious cash crunch right now, with disgruntled advertisers balking at huge bills/low conversion rates
Have you not been paid yet for October? Why not?
I know there are disgruntled publishers but are you certain there are disgruntled advertisers?
I'm not trying to be "cute" with my questions.I'm really trying to get a handle on the situation. My Chitika numbers are down too for yesterday but it's typical for me on weekends, particularly Saturdays.
Some folks here are staying with them; others are not. I'm new to this so I'm beginning to feel a bit schizophrenic reading such posts.
I am planning to keep Chitika up but if there is information based on facts that we may not get paid I'd like to know. Then I will remove the ads.
Anything else would probably be classified as click fraud & that's probably going to be the next thing coming down the line - dumping publishers and not paying because of alleged click fraud. They could take Google's lead and figure they won't have to give us a reason either.
No, not yet. With Chit's net-30 terms, I assume they will audit and pay October clicks on Nov-30.
Of course, I can't be certain, but I saw 20-30 cent CPC advertisers pull out at around the time Chit's Curiosity Click mod was announced. I imagine said advertisers bought in heavily on the eMiniMalls promise, and when it delivered high bills and low conversions, they bailed.
There seems to be a major CPC model correction afoot.
I used to have a page with chitika ads that generates revenue of about $20 a day. Now, after the great change, it only earns about $1-$2 a day. That really hurts!
"Average all the way,"
HUH?!
[i.pbase.com...]
Also remember that Chitika is months old and still neccessarily trying to find the balance on meeting publishers and advertisers needs.
Yep - changes like this suck - but without them we end up with a program with a great deal for publishers but no advertisers willing to come to the party.
I noticed a significant decrease in CTR on my eMiniMalls stats after their announcement - but since that one day of lower earnings mine have improved as they've made further changes and now my CTR is only slightly lower than it was before the changes.
Chitika earns me more than any other program that I've ever used - so while the decrease in earnings suck a bit I'm trying to keep things in perspective and am taking a long term view with them. They're building a system that will be sustainable over time and maybe instead of extreme reactions we need to actually roll with the punches a bit. Yep lets talk about what we don't like - but maybe if we did it in constructive ways and give them some suggestions about how they could change the system we might help them build a better system that we all benefit from.
just my two cents worth
Sometimes it says firmX is the best deal but when you look at the prices firmX is sometimes much more expensive than firmY or firmZ. This doesn't make sense.
I agree, it seems misleading. Why remove clickable product titles and replace them with Best deals by - - -?
If you're trying to reduce so called "curiosity clicks" it seems the honest strategy would be to offer the product name and the cheapest price.
Now I've had four days with 0 clicks. None at all. Looks like I'll have to replace those wonderfully targetted Chitika product Ads with AdSense, purely because no-one actually KNOWS what to do with them now. The Click area is so vanishingly small that most people don't even realise it's there.
I put them back, in a nicer implimentation than before hoping to win some of that money back... no change in sight.
The clickable area is so small that there isn't a chance in hell of most of my visitors taking the time to figure it out.
They shouldn't have to click on the store name when the ad is about a specific product.
Google manages to allow their ENTIRE AD AREA to be clickable and their bid system allows advertisers to decide if its worth it to them or not to go higher with their bid. Chitika needs to impliment something similar or they won't be around long.
To those at Chitika who may be reading: Your advertisers need to be able to decide how much they are willing to pay for a referral, based on the conversion rate you give them.
The EPC needs to be the scalable item in my opinion - not the CTR.
We have figured almost all by ourselves.
I pulled out completely. I'm getting a lower CTR with Chitika now than I did with Yahoo on my first day of implimentation.
I can't work with a .0x% CTR no matter how much the EPC is.
If Chitika's plan is to have the highest conversion rate of any network - they had better have a far and away higher publisher earning per click, because at such a low CTR, I can't see many people making it work if their CTR's are anywhere near as low as mine is.
No one will give it a 2nd thought if clicking the title brings nothing. Most of the internet surfers are not as internet savvy as us, and you can't just have a small area and expect them to know where to click.
Internet savvy people will know that these are outright ads right away and will avoid them. So no one clicks!
Such a small clickable area is not how I would design my webpages anyway.
I surely wouldn't be dragging my feet if I were them in the position they are currently in.
Besides, shopping.com is not their only advertiser.
y'know what's really starting to get to me? The delay in posting stats... here it is, afternoon Pacific Time and I see nothing for yesterday yet.
Count yourself lucky you're not an overture partner. Sometimes there's over 2 days wait for stats. :)
They said after 20th...
