Chitika|Premium Success Story - Bankaholic.com

June 26th, 2008

75 comments

Posted in: Front Page News, Publisher Success Stories

Johns Wu had problems with money while in college (just like most of us). He started Bankaholic.com so that broke students (like himself) could discuss financial issues like college loans, budgeting tips, and debt.

“My site was a huge success that quickly grew to become one of the top 25 most highly trafficked personal finance websites on the web.

“Over the years, monetizing my traffic has always been one of my biggest hurdles. When I was a small website with low traffic, potential advertisers didn’t bother dealing with me. In addition, I did not have the resources to hire salespeople to help sell ads on my site. This was a problem. How was I supposed to expand my website to become a big-time player without funding to fuel my growth?

“I’ve found that advertising brokers like Chitika & Adsense that match advertisers to publishers to be invaluable in monetizing my traffic. I get highly targeted ads with high eCPMs, and I don’t have to spend my time or money selling off my ad inventory myself.

“I have been using Chitika|Premium on Bankaholic.com for about a week now. The CPCs are very fair and have experienced a leap in eCPM from Premium over others. Because most of my traffic is from search, I have no problems getting Chitika ads to display relevant ads. And I really think the small icons ext to the ads do well for CTR, and I am curious why other networks have not followed suit.

“Chitika is one of my higher revenue ad networks especially my eCPM from Chitika|Premium ad units. Overall, I’ve noticed a 300% increase in revenue over what I was using before.”

Want to share your story with the world? Submit your Chitika Success Story or Testimonial here.

Not using Chitika ads yet? Sign up for an account here!

About the Author: Karla Escolas is part of the CRM/Marketing team here at Chitika Inc. She also specializes in working one-on-one with publishers using simple optimization techniques to increase their revenue. Follow her on Twitter @KarlaChitika to find out more.

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75 Responses to “ Chitika|Premium Success Story - Bankaholic.com ”

lilia Says:
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:19 am
My site was a huge success that quickly grew to become one of the top 25 most highly trafficked personal finance websites on the web.

www our-mortgage blogspot com
Jennifer V. Says:
July 12th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
I am curious why other networks have not followed suit….
Get Up To $100 as a BONUS from Chitika Says:
July 15th, 2008 at 12:15 am
[...] Since adding their new ‘premium ad unit’ to their range Chitka’s ads now not only do well on ‘gadget’ or ‘product related’ sites - but are converting well on sites of all kinds of topics. At b5media we’ve added them successfully to hundreds of our sites on all kinds of topics (most of them not product related at all). For example - check out this mini case study from a finance related website - Bankaholic. [...]
Keron Calame Says:
July 16th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
This is where i am tryng to reach with my blog, i signed up for a chitika account for sometime now but wasn’t displaying any ads, now i am if i reach my goals i will let you know.

http://www.loopygadgets.com
Yajra Says:
July 17th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I applied again to chitika.
I hope they will now accep me this time.

http://www.earningdepot.com
Meethere Says:
July 17th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Thats a good news bankaholic..

I will be trying it on my blog, though i am not receiving lot of traffic.
Sudipta Says:
July 17th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Did not find any Chitika Ads on Bankaholic.com
Ryan Travis Says:
July 17th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
@Sudipta -

He uses our Chitika|Premium ads - which only display to US visitors coming from search engines. (You can verify this by looking at his source code).

You can read more about Chitika|Premium here: http://chitika.com/premiumads.php
john Says:
July 17th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I wonder why holiday rental booking websites dont use chitika !
Its a great revenue ad
Ravi Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 12:46 am
I don’t know much about eCPM of Chitika because their ads are only shown to US visitors and I have some less traffic from US.
Is there any other way to earn thru Chitika.
Jon Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 12:50 am
Earning can be happen only if you have lot of visitors. Which is the only big problem.
fas Says:
July 20th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Well i have been using Chitka for some time now, not premium though.

Cheers

http://www.motorbeam.com
Ray The Money Man Says:
July 21st, 2008 at 9:41 am
I am just getting started with Chitka. Looking forward to great things!
vertito Says:
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:51 am
Have just started embedding Chitika codes to my site. The largest visitors that I have comes from US due to search engines, I am looking forward for a nice results. Cheers
Larry Wright Says:
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I navigated to your site via Google search but didn’t see any Chitika Premium ads. Where are you positioning them?
Patrick Says:
July 24th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
I’m earning some bucks for using Chitika. But haven’t reached even close to 300% in revenue. Check out my blog. wikigiz.com
Peter Says:
July 25th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Considering that search engine traffic from USA is the best traffic, I think chitika is paying garbage low rates. I served up 31,000 ads for them yesterday and made $1.57. Thats less than $0.06 CPM–HORRIBLE!

My website does over 20k uniques a day, so rates like this make me laugh.
Ryan Travis Says:
July 25th, 2008 at 11:28 am
@ Peter -

$0.06 eCPM is FAR lower than our average on Chitika|Premium ads. I’d be happy to take a look at your implementation - something tells me you are not implementing Chitika|Premium ads correctly.

Feel free to shoot me an email at ryan [at] chitika [dot] com.
JulzRyu Says:
July 27th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Can you give me suggestions then so that I can increase traffic for my blog? Please check http://julzryu.blogspot.com and comment and suggest om how to make it better. Thanks very much.
Scriptster Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
I would be curious about what 300% increase in Chitika revenue did to his AdSense revenue. I don’t know about what you guys have on average but my Chitika eCPM is on average 4 times LOWER than that of AdSense and so you would think that increasing CTR on Chitika ads would actually hurt one’s bottom line given the lower efficiency of Chitika’s ads.

That said, I’m not at all against using Chitika (in moderation) alongside AdSense. I actually do like the different look of the ads and to my knowledge only a small percentage of AdSense clicks have been detracted to lower CPM Chitika ads. I would however caution against dramatically skewing your traffic towards Chitika in the way Bankaholic did. Just crunch the numbers first.

I can’t wait until Chitika gathers enough high profile advertisers to start playing in Google’s eCPM range. I am tired of being so dependent on a single vendor and would be more than wiling to give Chitika more prominent position as they develop their network.

Keep up good job, Chitika!
alexxxx Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:47 am
I applied again to chitika.
I hope they will now accep me this time.
rajeswary Says:
August 6th, 2008 at 10:52 am
rajes68.wordpress.com is my personal weblog. can i have a weblog with chitika. can someone suggest and help me to make more money thru blogging. i have a google adsense account. need more traffic to my sites and blogs.
EarnMoneyOnline Says:
August 10th, 2008 at 3:42 am
I just added Chitika and I find it a great compliment to Adsense! Good Job!
Larry Wright Says:
August 12th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Chitika CPC payout is pathetically low compared to Adsense … So Bankaholic’s priority positioning of Chitika ads just doesn’t add up because they’re loosing a ton of revenue. To offset this loss I suspect Chitika is probably paying them outside of the standard agreement that all other publishers sign.

It is no surprise that Chitika’s payout is sooo pitifull. Look at the ad URL’s and it seems rather obvious that they’ve simply integrated their programming with Yahoo/Overture’s advertising API. I’m OK with just getting a cut of their commission from Yahoo … but I’d trust Chitika a lot more if they simply disclosed this relationship rather than failing to mention it anywhere.
Irshad - Coolgadgets.in Says:
August 17th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Can anyone please review my site and tell me weather i have placed the ads on right place and
format
http://coolgadgets.in
Alden DoRosario Says:
August 18th, 2008 at 10:02 am
@Larry, you got it completely wrong dude.

While our CPCs are a little lower than Adsense (Note: I mention “little lower” — not “pathetically lower” as you mention), the effective CPM is on par or higher in most cases (and since you are a publisher — you know that effective CPM is what matters). As our ecosystem develops, the CPCs will rise (as they have over the last few months since we started Chitika | Premium).

> Bankaholic’s priority positioning of Chitika ads just doesn’t add up because they’re loosing a ton of revenue.
Huh ? Why would a publisher loose revenue and still run Chitika ads? In fact, bankaholic has expanded Chitika | Premium on to his other sites. Why ? Cause he was making X with Google and now he is making X + Y with Google and Chitika. Note that the revenue is additive — which means he ends up making MORE MONEY. At the end of the month, what matters is the checks you are getting (not irrelevant metrics like CPC)

> but I’d trust Chitika a lot more if they simply disclosed this relationship …
Larry, which company in the world puts up a list of all the partnerships it has ? Do you see ebay or google or yahoo post a huge list of all its partnerships ? Our advertiser pool comes from multiple partnerships and direct advertisers that we have in our system. In fact, our fastest growing base of advertisers is direct advertisers coming to chitika.com. All those advertisers pooled together constitutes the Chitika advertising inventory.
Alden DoRosario Says:
August 18th, 2008 at 10:03 am
@Larry, you got it completely wrong dude.

While our CPCs are a little lower than Adsense (Note: I mention “little lower” — not “pathetically lower” as you mention), the effective CPM is on par or higher in most cases (and since you are a publisher — you know that effective CPM is what matters). As our ecosystem develops, the CPCs will rise (as they have over the last few months since we started Chitika Premium).

> Bankaholic’s priority positioning of Chitika ads just doesn’t add up because they’re loosing a ton of revenue.
Huh ? Why would a publisher loose revenue and still run Chitika ads? In fact, bankaholic has expanded Chitika | Premium on to his other sites. Why ? Cause he was making X with Google and now he is making X + Y with Google and Chitika. Note that the revenue is additive — which means he ends up making MORE MONEY. At the end of the month, what matters is the checks you are getting (not irrelevant metrics like CPC)

> but I’d trust Chitika a lot more if they simply disclosed this relationship …
Larry, which company in the world puts up a list of all the partnerships it has ? Do you see ebay or google or yahoo post a huge list of all its partnerships ? Our advertiser pool comes from multiple partnerships and direct advertisers that we have in our system. In fact, our fastest growing base of advertisers is direct advertisers coming to chitika.com. All those advertisers pooled together constitutes the Chitika advertising inventory.
Larry Wright Says:
August 18th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Alden,

Month-to-data Chitika eCPM is only $1.19 which is less than 10% of our month-to-date Adsense eCPM (PATHETIC). I don’t mind making you guys money, but I don’t appreciate the excessive raking when I know advertisers are paying premium prices for the click thrus we deliver.
Larry Wright Says:
August 18th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
BTW …

Quoting your Director of Client Services, Ryan Travis’ response (dated 7/9/08) to my previous inquiry about low CPC rates: “I completely agree - these should be higher”.

Higher CPC yeilds higher eCPM’s. Payout a market rate CPC and Chitika will support a satisfactory eCPM.
Ted Szukalski Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
I am testing Chitika at the moment. My traffic is about 80% from USA and in that 70% is search engine referrals. Although my site is not in top 25 of anything it certainly gets lots of traffic in the “right” for Chitika category. Yet, when I look at the report the traffic they count as valid represents only 5% of what I would expect.
Alden DoRosario Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
@Ted Szukalski> My traffic is about 80% from USA
Ted, Where are you getting this data from ? I looked at every single impression that came from your account and my data is a lot different than the 80% you mention. I have sent you a breakdown of the distribution by country to your email (For privacy reasons, I cannot disclose the numbers on this blog)
"www.ShawnDrewry.com Says:
September 25th, 2008 at 10:28 am
I be that guy is a millionaire by now..:-)
ElectroGeek Says:
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:24 am
I too am a fan of Chitika ads. Just check my blog it’s evident where the ads are placed. As for bankaholic.com I am unable to see any Chitika ads anywhere on their website. Where are they hiding?
ericn Says:
October 6th, 2008 at 4:33 am
You’ve done a good job….
Ankan Basu Says:
October 7th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Here is my stoty:
http://calcuttaseo.com/chitika-beats-adsense/
I am using chitika for about 2 months. I must say, my income is 3 time better than Google.

And I am happy to say that the “Audited” and “Unaudited” revenue was exactly the same for the month of August for my sites.

Long live Chitika@!
Heartlander Says:
October 8th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
A very innovative viral marketing ploy by BankRate.

They are counting on all of us to write about it, thus promoting those keywords and their corporate identity even further.

A little more ingenuity:

http://bankaholic.blogspot.com
Daniel Says:
October 13th, 2008 at 3:20 am
Larry Wright seems like a complete douche! Who cares if you rant and rave, some people (Maybe because they have premium content, place ads well and depending on seo) earn more with chitika and some less. Are you really accusing Bankaholic (that sold for $15 million a week ago) of lying about their revenue?

Stupid and obnoxious, solid way to earn money?
ElectroGeek Says:
October 13th, 2008 at 7:54 am
I still can’t find a single Chitika ad on Bankaholic.com. They must be those invisible self clicking ads I’ve heard about.
naruto Says:
October 22nd, 2008 at 6:52 pm
to earn high revenue from chitika, I must get biggess traffic. How to get biggess traffic??
Deb-Miracle II Soap Gal Says:
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:55 am
Looking forward to applying to my sites and comparing to other advertisors. The ads look good and should do better than amazon.

Deb
Liverpoolian Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
I am thinking of coming back to chitika. i didnt know that adsense and chitika can be used together.
HakoPSP Says:
November 7th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Adsense is much better than chitika. Everyday my adsense earning is more than twice of chitika earning.
Liverpoolian Says:
November 8th, 2008 at 4:16 am
Plus chitika never responds to yor questions.
Eka Riyadi Says:
November 24th, 2008 at 5:06 am
Congratulation… bankAholic is the best… how to generate mass traffics??
Rudy H Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 4:27 am
Many PPC give me earning better than Chitika, earning per click only $0.01, why?
Alden DoRosario Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 11:34 am
@Rudy — that is not possible. Can you drop a email to support so that we can look into your account ? Thanks.
Rudy H Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Hello there,

I’m sorry… i was wrong complete calculation my earning.

The true…
Average = Total earnings : total click
= $4.49 : 143 click
= $ 0.03 per click

My screen shot sent to Karla (Chitika Blog).

OK, so… i’m sorry again.

Hopeful,
Rudy H
Bob Says:
December 20th, 2008 at 2:15 am
Please visit this great metasearch engine which is able to search on Google,Yahoo,Live,Ask at the same time and rank all results !!
http://www.glseek.com
And if you have a website you can insert one of it’s nice search boxes on your website. You can see them here :
http://www.glseek.com/box.html
Biffster Says:
January 19th, 2009 at 12:11 am
I just started with Chitika. Looking forward to great results!

Biffster
Bihar Says:
January 19th, 2009 at 5:05 am
I have heard of good things about chitika, the ads are pretty attractive as well. How long will it take to get approved once an application is made.
Chitika Says:
January 20th, 2009 at 11:54 am
@Bihar,

Thanks for your kind words, your application will be reviewed by a member of our team within 24 hours.

If you have any concerns about your application please contact support here: https://chitika.com/support/
In Depth Info Says:
January 24th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
I placed Chitika on my informational website about six months ago. I found the revenue to be accretive. I kept two spots for google and gave one spot (in the column) over to Chitika. I did not see any appreciable drop in Google Adsense revenue, and got a nice boost from chitika.

My technique for chitika is to use the premium ad as primary and one of their eMinimall ads as backup.
Ultimate Luxury Watch Guide Says:
February 14th, 2009 at 1:49 am
Hi all I am new to chitika . My weblog is an informative journal about luxury watches and other horological creations.Even though it comes with rich content,the site is far behind google search results.How can I Improve my Google page ranking.
interlina Says:
February 25th, 2009 at 3:39 am
it is interesting get revenue from chitika. we new in Chitika, but we will show, we can make a leap to make revenue revolutionaire.

visit our website.
interlina.com
The4Idiots Says:
March 16th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
We have recently started to use Chitika ads, we are excited about the possibilities. We will let you know soon, about how well they do.
Come and visit us at:
The 4 Idiots
Let us know what we can do to improve our ads!
Rahmi Says:
March 17th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I finally put Chitika on my site, since Adsense has been performing poorly. I still don’t know how to do AB testing for both Adsense and Chitika though. I usually do AB testing for Adsense A and Adsense B, but been struggling with figuring out the script code for Adsense vs. Chitika. If anyone has knowledge of this, please let me know. Thanks!

My site: Holiday In
Angkor Wat
Doroby Says:
March 30th, 2009 at 6:49 am
Great…! i have blog but still low visiting.. :-( maybe some one can help me..
Afiliasi indonesia Says:
March 31st, 2009 at 8:44 pm
I have blog with Indonesian language, is that any merchant who support My blog?
Karla Says:
April 1st, 2009 at 11:09 am
@Afiliasi indonesia,

Chitika is currently only accepting websites predominately in English. We do plan on expanding our language support-base in the future.

-Karla
Tracey Says:
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:01 am
Hi, since implementing chitika, I am very happy. I see other people have mixed reactions. Currently I am making more on chitka than I am on adsense.

I have a new site, so it doesn’t get a lot of traffic but already I am making .20 a day, whereas with google adsense I made $0 a day.

Thanks guys! Keep up the great work!
Best Vitamin Supplements Says:
April 15th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Yesterday my application was accepted. I’ll combine chitika with others ads.Hopes it can help me earning more money :D
Clarkson Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
What am I missing here?

= $4.49 : 143 click

143 clicks earned him under $5 ? OMG that is horrible, Adsense outperforms this by miles. As a recent signup to Chitika, I’m seeing the same things - the one adsense spot on my page I changed to Chitika is making way less $$. Dunno what people are raving about, what am I missing?
Chitika Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Hi Clarkson,

You might be able to benefit from some simple optimization tips- sometimes the smallest changes make a big difference.

You can shoot me over an email to karla at chitika .com

Also, if your site does not receive a good amount of US/Canadian search traffic, you may not do well with Premium ads, because this is what Premium displays to.

Karla
Clarkson Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
The site is almost all Canadian/US traffic, since that is who the site serves. Site is also top of the rankings for it’s subject area, and has been for 5 years - this is not a new site, and receives over 40,000 page views a month. Regardless, 143 clicks doesn’t even make $5… ouch. Don’t care how ‘optimized’ my site is, those are truly horrible numbers.
Chitika Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Clarkson,

Optimization can absolutely make a difference. I was recently working with a publisher who receives over a million visits a month (can’t disclose who for privacy reasons of course) and she tripled what she was making just by using a difference size ad unit!

Sometimes just putting up an ad unit without taking into consideration, placement, size & colors, may not give you the maximum payout. And sometimes, you can, but most times optimization is needed.

Here is a great article by Chitika pub Dave Taylor talking about his recent optimization experience: http://www.askdavetaylor.com/are_ad_placement_and_size_a_factor_in_ppc_revenue.html

We were able to help him increase his revenue from $85.00 a month to $2,000.

Now I am not saying this will happen for everyone, or you, but I’d be happy to take a look, if you’d like.

Karla
Chitika Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Also, you should know that our CPC’s vary from niches. We have certain publishers earning $1 per click so they do vary.
Clarkson Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
ah OK, my niche sucks, got it. Hit & miss I guess, and not for me. Thanks anyways, I’m pulling out - my Adsense account has taken enough of a hit this month.
Clarkson Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
In response to the optimization post you left for me…. I couldn’t agree more. Just so you know, I make over $400/month on this site in question, and have used AdSense for years, almost as long as it’s been around. I know about ad optimization, positioning, and all of that - that’s how I got to $400/month. After switching ONE of my adspots to Chikita, that particular spot has lost $$ - almost $100/month. Pretty sure that’s all I need to know. Thanks for your help, you are very sweet.
Chitika Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
@everyone, Clarkson,

Chitika has never intended to be an alternative for Adsense.. but rather a complement: http://chitika.com/adsense-alternative.php

1. Chitika ad units are NOT contextual
2. Chitika ad units do NOT look like AdSense units

Karla!
Clarkson Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Okeydokey, complimentary, got it. A negative $100 compliment, in my case :) No worries, I’m sure this works for alot of people. Thanks pumpkin.
Hemanth Says:
May 15th, 2009 at 12:56 am
Hi guys,

I tried Chitika soon after you guys started it. Compared to Adsense the earnings were far less because of very low CPC. So soon after I found out that the lowcpc chtika clicks actually hurts my adsense revenue, I’ve removed it.

Now I’ve just added that new Mega premium block now. Let’s see how it’s going.

One problem I noticed is that it shows the adblock not only on the page from a US/Canada search but in other pages of the website also.
Arbi Says:
May 30th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Hello karla,I didnt see my advertising in my web site but I saw that when I put it on the URL.But I cant understand who can see that advertising on my web page because nobody dont see that advertising in USA and ASIA.PLEASE EXPLAIN ME ABOUT THIS PROBLEM AND SAY WHO CAN SEE MY ADVERTISING.
Chitika Says:
June 1st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Hi Arbi,

The only visitors to your website that will see a Chitika Premium ad are your search engine traffic (people entering your site via search engine) from the US and Canada.

If your visitors from the US are not seeing your Chitika ads, then they are not from search.

Hope this helps!

-Karla
tech Says:
June 4th, 2009 at 2:10 am
Why the only visitors from the US and Canada will see ads Chitika Premium?

How about other country ?

I am newbie for chitika..

help me..

thanks
Chitika Says:
June 4th, 2009 at 11:34 am
@tech

The reason for this is simply because we do not yet have ad inventory outside the US and Canada. However, we are always working very hard on expanding to other countries to be able to cater to all our user needs.

-Karla