NEW: Chitika | LAX – Local Ad Exchange

Local advertising is definitely a sector we are extremely excited to be getting into. We have partnered with some guru’s in the local ad industry, like YellowBook and CityGrid Media. The potential benefits of
Chitika | LAX are going to be plentiful for Chitika publishers as this will bring a great new way to monetize local traffic that was, until now, ignored.

LAX will work in two different ways, there will be a Chitika | LAX for Desktop & Chitika | LAX for Mobile. Your local search traffic on a standard home computer will see an ad featuring a map of local businesses matching what they’re looking (searching) for near them, as well as local listings- it will look something like this:

For your mobile search traffic, LAX is the first solution that will automatically detect the mobile users and adjust their experience accordingly. One touch (touch to call) will allow potential customers to call local advertisers from the mobile ad. This ad will look something like this:

(click to enlarge)

Chitika | LAX will be available soon!!

Click here to learn more about Chitika | LAX
Click here to read our LAX Press Release

New Changes in Your Chitika Reports

In addition to the current upgrades in the Chitika ad service, we have begun incorporating ads which pay per impression (CPM/CPI) along with pay per click (CPC) for your websites.

What is changing in my reports?

With the addition of these CPM ads, we will no longer be reporting on clicks. Because of this, the CPC and CTR values in your reports now become quite irrelevant and alter your focus from your actual revenue earnings. We feel that removing the CPC and CTR fields, will help you see the most important aspect of your earnings: your revenue.

How should I read my reports?

Focusing on your impressions and the revenue earnings for those impressions will show you the CPM rate you are getting. Previously, your CPC and CTR stats did not include stats from CPM ads on your site. So as of today, your reports will now give you a breakdown of Impressions, CPM and Revenue.

Welcoming Mega Unit Jr. to the ad Family

The Chitika Mega Unit, launched exactly one year ago, due to a custom request from a publisher, and went on to do very well for other publishers.

The Mega unit is a non-conventional ad size, and Chitika is the only company that offers it. Because the ad unit did so well for a test group of publishers, we made it available for all. The Mega Unit comes in sizes: 550×250, 500×250.

We realize that some sites do not have the space to place such a wide ad unit, but you still would like to receive the benefits from it. So, now available is the Mega Unit Jr., size: 468×250:

This will give you the large, successful size of the Mega Unit for those who do not have a 550 or 500 pixel space.

To try this size out, simply edit the ad code on your page, or generate a new ad in your code panel:

This all began with feedback from you, please let us know what you’d like to see!

Chitika begins testing ads in Europe

Great news for publishers with traffic in Europe! We will be slowly expanding your ad display to your traffic in the following countries: UK, GB, DE, IT, ES NL, DK, NO, SE

Your Earnings Quick Report table that’s available right in your dashboard after you login, will show you a 7-day rundown:

Additional custom reporting will be available in your advanced settings:

Click to Enlarge

Please note: We will be displaying ads to only a portion of this traffic to start, and you may see some abnormalities in your impressions counts for international stats. These will be ironed-out soon.

Chitika @ GeoDomain Expo & AppNexus Summit 2010

GeoDomain Expo is the sharing of information and best practices among the Associated Cities member/operators and is the reason why Associated Cities has become one of the most important coalitions of independent media owners on the Internet.

Vik Chhabra, Director of Business Development at Chitika, was asked to present on the: Developing Any City panel.

Not all cities are created equally. What core strategies can be used to monetize any city’s potential, regardless of size or tourism numbers (or lack thereof).

Vik Chhabra speaking at GeoDomain Expo 2010

Alden DoRosario, Co-Founder & CTO, Chitika spoke on a panel about “What Works for Ad Networks: Technology Challenges” at AppNexus Summit 2010.

Alden was joined on a Technology Panel with others who represent the richness of innovation happening in the ecosystem of technology. Click the video below or click here to watch.

New UI Optimizer to Kick CTR Up A Notch

Introducing the UI Optimizer – the power of Chitika’s research increasing your site’s revenue!  

For the past month, we at Chitika have been experimenting with a UI optimizer for some of our highest-performing sites, and our beta partner sites have seen as much as a 30% lift in their clickthrough rate.  Now, we’re excited to announce our entire network is getting the opportunity to see our research at work, making your site’s ad performance jump from a Porsche to a Lamborghini!

The UI optimizer works by testing a large number of ad designs in the same spot on your page.  For example, we may have fifteen ad styles designed for a single 300 x 250 spot.  With our optimizer, we’ll test all fifteen styles over a period of time – that way we’ve got numbers to show you which look-and-feel variant works the best for your traffic.  Once the testing period ends, you’ll see the highest-performing design in that spot, and it’ll bring its specially-targeted clickthrough rate with it!

Now, the 30% increase in CTR is the best result so far and your mileage may vary, but we are 100% confident that you’ll love the results of working with Chitika’s UI optimizer.  By the end, you’ll know absolutely that the ad units on your site are the very best, most effective, and most appealing units for your users.  Your users will be happy, you’ll be happy, and your wallet will be very happy.

Optimizing today will help you see the clicks and money roll in tomorrow!

97% revenue increase with Chitika | Select ads for AllForGirls.net

A Chitika | Select Success Story

Gao, being a long-time fan of online games, one day decided to start his own online game site. “I noticed girl names were incredibly popular, so I registered domain: AllForGirls.net November 6, 2007”. The website features free online games for girls in which he is able to include his own created games. With the help of his great production team, they often include new games to keep the site fresh and fun.

One year later, Gao started using Chitika ads on the site. He always customized his Chitika ads very nicely to match the color scheme of his very colorful website, and has had a steady income stream from Chitika for 2 years.

Before Chitika launched Select ads at the beginning of last month, Gao along with the remaining Chitika publisher network relied on Chitika Premium (search-targeted ads) for revenue. However, many including Gao were missing out on potential revenue from their non-search traffic.

With the addition of Chitika | Select ads, which display to some non-search traffic (see below for more), AllForGirls.net experienced a 97% increase in revenue. Gao did not have to make any updates to his existing Chitika ad units; if you are using Premium on your site, Select ads will automatically start to display.

So why don’t we display ads 100% of the time for maximum revenue?

User experience plays a major role in the way Chitika chooses to show ads. Striking the right balance between both user experience and revenue, is what we believe to be very important to publishers. While displaying ads 100% of the time can give a publisher a higher revenue, it can have a negative impact on your visitors. This is why Chitika Select ads, will display to your search traffic as well as a “select” portion of your non-search.

The “select” portion of your non-search is the key. How we determine this portion is how we were able to take it a step further using our click-prediction technology. Explaining to a publisher that we don’t just focus on the revenue earning aspect of the spectrum is what makes Chitika different; we are the only advertising network to provide this technology. You can read more on this here.

Are Chitika Select ads on my site(s)?

We have been rolling out Select ads slowly across the Chitika Network. Once Select ads start to appear on your site, you will see an increase in impressions as well as a new Select/Premium comparison stats graph when you login.

Submit your testimonial or story to be featured here.

The man behind the “number of iPads sold”

The man behind our newly famous “estimated number of iPads sold” is actually one of the youngest “men” here at the Chitika office; Gui Pinto just celebrated his 20th birthday.

In the picture above, Gui is holding his brand new iPad he received as a gift from Chitika CEO, Venkat Kolluri for putting together the data so quickly.

“I am super thankful and very excited to own my very own iPad. I also can’t wait to get into developing new apps for this thing.”

What is this iPad estimator and how was it born?
Gui Pinto was the recipient of a very early phone call from Chitika’s CTO, Alden DoRosario last Saturday morning in which he told him, “I have an idea…”.

Gui spent the next 12 hours putting together the data & the page featuring real time stats! During the duration of writing this post, there were 768,480 iPads sold, but if you click here now, it will be more than that.

The estimator gives you a breakdown of adoption by hour and by state. How did we do it? You can read more into the technical stuff here.

I know I am looking forward to more of Alden’s ideas =)

Chitika Welcomes Yahoo! YPNO Publishers

We at Chitika are honored that Yahoo! recommended YPNO publishers run our ads after their service ends next month. Please join us in welcoming the new publishers from Yahoo! Publisher Network Online!
Read the full story at Tech Crunch »

Chitika One Of Safest Ad Networks

I came across an interesting report on TechCrunch today on ad networks with malware-infected advertisements.  The report referenced some statistics put out last month by the Avast! anti-virus team, warning people about a new bug making its way through the internet through advertisements.

The study posted the ad networks that spread the malware at the highest rate, and lo and behold, Chitika was nowhere to be seen.  The Chitika ad network appears to be safe.

I asked our CTO, Alden DoRosario, about what we can take away from this, and here’s what he said:

“The Chitika text ad units are currently one of the safest forms of ad revenue for publishers.  The text-based advertisers and the code that runs in each ad unit is written and controlled by Chitika — ensuring that no third-party code runs on your site.

“Historically, ad networks get into trouble when they take un-verified third-party code from advertisers and deploy it on their publishers’ sites.  This is very common in ad networks that run graphical ad units which need access to Flash and other scripting technologies.”

So there you have it, Chitika publishers.  Straight from the boss’s mouth – the Chitika ad network is one of the safest on the Internet.