Forum Moderators: martinibuster
It's definitely good news and, considering the Chit's search is within products, certainly makes sense.
By the way, it's very early, but the few clicks I've gotten to the Chitika ads are paying pretty well (compared to AS or YPN clicks on my sites). Might well be worth trying if you aren't already.
Correct. BUT, you may use Chitika's non-contextual option, which is what I specifically asked AS support, and which they gave me the ok to do. Here's the code to use:
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
ch_client = "YOUR ID";
ch_width = 160;
ch_height = 600;
ch_color_border = "#FFFFFF";
ch_color_title = "#0033FF";
ch_color_text = "#000000";
ch_non_contextual = 1;
var ch_queries = new Array('keyword 1', 'keyword 2');
var ch_selected=Math.floor((Math.random()*ch_queries.length));
ch_query = ch_queries[ch_selected];
//--></script>
<script src="http://scripts.chitika.net/eminimalls/mm.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>
Of course, you can change the colors and width and height, etc. But keep the ch_non_contextual = 1; in place and change out the keywords in the example. Don't mess with any of the code punctuation or it won't work. If you have any doubts, ask AS support, but I have a copy of the email they sent me and it's unambiguous. As long as you set the Chitika code to be non-contextual, you're ok.
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
ch_client = "YOUR ID";
ch_width = 160;
ch_height = 600;
ch_color_border = "#FFFFFF";
ch_color_title = "#0033FF";
ch_color_text = "#000000";
ch_non_contextual = 1;
var ch_queries = new Array('keyword 1', 'keyword 2');
var ch_selected=Math.floor((Math.random()*ch_queries.length));
ch_query = ch_queries[ch_selected];
//--></script>
<script src="http://scripts.chitika.net/eminimalls/mm.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>
How and what would I change to targer say err "widgets, blue widgets, squashed widgets"?
Im confused by the words floor, random etc...
Thanks!
Thats what you want to change..
Like this..
'money', 'cash'
Didnt see that! Thought he was using maths as a keyword!
Thanks...
Right, now to add to 100 pages manually!
That's correct what Noel posted. I've been playing with it a bit, and I recommend finding specific categories by targeting keywords that are not general. For example, I have a truck accessories site that I am seeing some success with by using brand names. I'll use 'Lund bug shield' instead of just 'bug shield' for example. Lund is a famous maker of those shields. Works pretty well.
I will say that Chitika ads tend to pay better per click, but I'm not getting many clicks (1% or so vs. 9% with AdSense on that site). I'm going to track it and I'll post on the forum my results. I've only had Chitika up for a few days. Maybe when they've been there for a month I'll have some usable stats.
Not getting many clicks though!
Oh well, it all helps!
I will test it just for few days. Until today I used Chitika only on few pages, and results were very promising.
With new placings I expect much bigger CTR, so we'll see in one-two days. If results are bad I am going back to AdSense.
On best places I used AdSense ads, and Chitika eMiniMalls on just little places.
I see Chitika has potential, thats why I want to try them on my WHOLE site... Just for one-two days.
>My main concern about putting them on a page where there is already AS is whether they would divert visitors' attention from AS ads,
Elfred, thats my main reason for using them :)
In less than a week, and going only by yesterday's unaudited revenue, I made more from Chitika than I made from Adsense by a good 30%. Some pages have only Adsense, a few only Chitika, quite a lot have both. Looking at incoming clicks, I'd say there was an equal amount of traffic aimed at both systems and Chitika won hands down.
Because they are cute, tiny little product pics - the ads have to be used in a different way. You can't stick them on the top or the top left or the footer and hope for the best. If you do that with Adsense, the ads will often be clicked on because the visitor can't come up with anything better to do.
I think for Chitika to work, the product in the ad has to be the whole focus of the page. It has to be what they went there to get, or get information on, and you have to put the ad or ads right slap bang in the middle of a page talking about products just like those. They are more like affiliate links than banner ads.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah..
I got a contrary response from Adsense when I asked them about Chitika. I never used the code that turns off contextual, (because the code works fine as it is and I don't want to mess with it) but I do summon up just one very specific product. I asked Adsense if that was fine to run on a page alongside Adsense and showed them the page. 'Geoffrey' said it was fine like that. Then he added, not that I asked him (I don't use Asense for search because it sucks) paraphrasing..
"For webmasters using AdSense for search, you can't use 'other search services' and you can't use 'query-targeted ads' at the same time as us or we'll take all our toys away."
I'm not entirely sure what a 'query taregeted ad' might be, but it might mean Chitika I suppose and I would have thought that search box was a search.
But if I had to choose between Chitika and Adsense - it would be 'bye bye Adsense'.
Total site revenue is aprox 4 times better. But this is just one day. But I supose future numbers will not be much different. I use booth AdSense and Chitika, and it seems this combination will be just fine! Better than only AdSense definatly.
It seems they talk out of both sides of their mouth on the revenue issue.
.........Revenue Share Payments. Chitika will make monthly revenue share payments ("Revenue Share Payments") to Client based on a percentage of the "Click Through Revenue" collected by Chitika. The "Click Through Revenue" shall be determined solely by Chitika or its ad distribution partners based on the average number of daily Valid clickthroughs resulting from the queries originating from the Client, for the applicable calendar month and shall be comprised of revenue received less all applicable commissions (payable by Chitika or its Partners) or Costs associated thereto..........
Revenue Share Payment to Client = 60 % of Click Through Revenue collected by Chitika .......
So, which is it?
Thought I may have missed something there. :)
I am thinking about them but see no way their type of sales could be relevant to my two best sites. The new one is just that, new, little to no hits yet.
Oh well.....sigh....
That may be so, but I think as professional webmasters we forget that products are not always unwelcome. The visitor might have turned up specifically hoping to find the product :)
And, from a product-seekers point of view, I don't think the Chitika code looks like an ad if its in the middle of the page, it looks like a product pic.
From what I can tell, the CTR of the Adsense on a Chitika page is 50% of what it should be, but people *do* click on it as well as on the Chitika ads.
Swebbie,
did you get an OK to put eMiniMalls on page where there is AdSense. Did you get an OK to put them on pages where there is GOOGLE SEARCH too?
I got express permission from AS support to put NON-CONTEXTUAL Chitika ads on pages that also have AS link units or ad units on them. I did not ask about GOOGLE SEARCH + Chitika, so I don't know if that's allowed.
I think as professional webmasters we forget that products are not always unwelcome. The visitor might have turned up specifically hoping to find the product
This is true and one of the strong points of Chitika's ad format. You can use exact product names in your code. The only time I don't use the product name is when it's either not offered by a Chitika advertiser, or when I offer it myself and would rather make the affiliate commission vs. the paid click on the Chitika ad.
from a product-seekers point of view, I don't think the Chitika code looks like an ad if its in the middle of the page, it looks like a product pic.
Again, I agree. I think the real beauty of Chitika is the integrated search box tab. Lots of visitors probably hit our pages looking for Product A and we offer Product B. With AdSense, they MIGHT see an ad that mentions Product A and click it, but they might not and we probably lose them to a closed window or the back button. With Chitika, we can now present them with another option that looks much more professional and eye-catching than the blah Google Search box.
By the way, I've had Chitika running on about 100 pages for 4 days or so now. CTR is low, but it's paying a decent EPC (slightly higher than Google). While that's important to me, of course, I just really like the look of Chitika ads. I think it really does add a nice, professional look to my pages. Bonus!
I tried it for 4 days on one site and epc was higher than adsense and click through was 5x plus lower.
Net result in this case was less income.
Seems that its VERY site dependent - not least because of a lack of niche advertisers that give good targeted click through.
All the ads were very US based with US phone numbers, dollars, states etc displayed. Ads were all VERY similar, or repeated on every other page. All contributing to low click through on this particular site. The clicks I did get were 1 and 2 dollars.
But I suspect that on a forum with large numbers of non too well targeted visitors with more general interests they would be better than adsense.
But I cannot believe that on one day with 500 uniques there were no clicks! Maybe it would be different with a bigger sample size and average out but I will not try this over all my sites until there is at least some sign of improvement.
This was non contextual, with one adsense and one Chitika ad per page. Subjects chosen very carefully for each page! Ad positions rotated with google ads.
So I have removed them for now on THAT site, but will try another soon with a lower click through rate and a more generic subject.
Seems that I can get a 9 to 13% plus click through with adsense, but only 1.5 to 2 with these ads. At least on this extremely niche site with masses of real reviews and information.
Maybe I have not understood them well yet. But it seems to me that small niche stuff is at the moment out of their reach due to a lack of advertiser base.
Still intersesting for some though! And later on as they develop a bigger ad base and have customers for obscure niches then it may be better than adsense?
