Chitika publisher Jean Harris of PopularWealth.com has been a computer fanatic since 1982 when he wrote his first program on his first machine, the Vic-20. He’s been an owner/webmaster & a designer of content-based websites since launching his first business in 1997. Starting to blog in 2007, he found it to be a challenge because he was used to digging into code & sharing statistics, not sharing his personal view on things, but found it to be a lot of fun.
Jean soon decided to take the “next step” and start using affiliate programs like Chitika to monetize the traffic to his site and earn revenue.
TESTING “I’ve tried every major affiliate ad network and service as well as most of the second tier or smaller services. I’ve been disappointed a few times and pleasantly surprised a few others. Chitika Premium has been a most welcome surprise,” says Jean.
Jean, being the “techie” that he is, likes to test and re-test every line of code on his sites for maximum results. So when he started using Chitika Premium one month ago he found it to be easier than he thought. He notes, “using the Premium code has been the best no-brainer move I’ve ever made online.”
RESULTS “My CTR reached 4.60% and eCPM peaked at 7x average AdSense levels. Which is why I feel that Chitika is in a group all it’s own, it can’t be compared to other services because of its unique delivery approach,” says Jean
The ‘unique delivery approach’ Jean is referring to is how Chitika Premium ads are ONLY displayed to his search engine traffic; which means his regular readers are not bothered by any additional ads. He notes “it doesn’t scare off the regulars while at the same time it helps search visitors a great deal. It’s a win-win-win situation.”
He believes that Premium gives the freedom to help visitors find what they want instead of forcing them to see what he wants, “this is key moving forward and Chitika Premium fits that mold perfectly”, he adds.
You can read more about Jean’s success using Chitika | Premium on his PopularWealth blog here.
One of my favorite TV shows is The Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters - for those of you unfamiliar, the concept of the show is that the hosts and a team of sidekicks confront popular myths (”The moon landing was faked!“) and test them out to see if they’re true, possibly true, or untrue (”busted”).
I love this idea, especially for a company like us here at Chitika; now, we’re not going to blow something up with a ton of dynamite like the Mythbusters crew, but I wanted to confront a few myths about Chitika in something I like to call:
Let’s get started!
“Chitika & AdSense can’t run on the same page”
Absolutely, completely, 100% not true. All of our ad units, including our Chitika | Premium ads, are designed so they can run on the same page as AdSense without violating their Terms of Service. You don’t have to alter the Chitika code at all to make it AdSense-compatible - every piece of ad code you generate from your Chitika code panel is already AdSense-compatible. You can read more about this question in a previous blog post, or you can check out the article in our knowledgebase with links to articles from specific publishers.
“Chitika is a ‘replacement’ for AdSense”
Again, this is not true. Chitika’s ads are not a replacement for your AdSense ads, and any ad network telling you to replace your AdSense with their product will probably cost you revenue. Our ads are meant to be a complement to your AdSense revenue, for a number of reasons:
The look-and-feel of the ads are different, so any readers that have developed an “ad-blindness” to AdSense will be more receptive to the Chitika ads and more likely to earn you more revenue than AdSense alone.
Ad targeting is handled differently, so different content will be shown. Chitika’s ads are all keyword-based including our Premium ads, which use a reader’s search term (the search term they entered to get to your page) as the keyword.
Our Premium ads will only display when relevant, so it opens up a world of new placement options. When a user is not coming to your page from a search (like users that have your site bookmarked), we will not serve an ad and the ad does not appear, so you can place the ad unit within your content and your “regular” readers will not even know it’s there. Here’s a very informative graph on this very issue.
I think we can call that…
“Chitika only does product ads!”
I will quickly call this one not true, as well. Since it’s release back in May, our Chitika Premium ads have helped us go way, way beyond product sites by serving ads for anything you can imagine.
These ads help sites of all types make money, from the b5media network of over 300 sites, to sites such as bankaholic.com.
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.”
NEW! Now when you login to your Chitika account and click on your Reports, we are now providing a breakdown of how your Chitika ads are doing in different parts of the world. You will be able to see how well your ad units did for your US Traffic, All Supported Countries, and Non-US Supported Countries so YOU will know where to focus your efforts to increase your revenue:
Just a reminder, here is a list of our supported countries: (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, UK, US).
ConsumerSearch.com, one of our favorite publisher clients, was sold to About for $33m in cash, according to this post on ComparisonEngines.com (via NYTimes) announcing this deal.
Hats off to Derek, Max, and the team! It is always great to hear and share a success story.
We have invited the best of the blogosphere in house to take over the Chitika Blog for the month of April! A new post every day from 30 different guest blogging gurus!
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You will not see any boring “blogging 101″ posts! Enjoy tips and explore insights about a variety of unique and interesting topics like, “Dare to be Odd” and “Shopping and Blogging: How to make the marriage work.”
Chitika Creative Creations is a new contest we started in February, 2007 to reward all of you who have some pretty cool Chitika ad integrations! We have been shuffling through our 12,000+ publisher network on the lookout for the best integrations and in the meantime we invited everyone to submit theirs if they thought they had what it takes to be a winner. Turns out, you did!
The second winner of Chitika Creative Creations is: www.froomb.com!
Froomb.com is, “Saving the world. One deal at a time” by offering a really cool “deal of the day” directory for all of you shopping lovers!
“I have integrated a number of Chitika eMiniMalls in such a way that they appear to be part of the content rather than ads. The approach has done very well for me.”
WHAT HE DID FOR YOU ON CHITIKA SPHERE
Ryan has made it possible for any Chitika member to receive expert advice on their Chitika ad implementation for their blog/websites. “It’s simple, post your URL’s and I’ll help you make the most from eMiniMalls, RPU, ShopLinc & ShopCloud$ on your pages.” -Ryan
I then found the Chitika forum and got great site optimisation from some people on it, namely Ryan, who has been a great ambassador and extremely friendly, helpful and really knows his stuff. Hats off to him. At this stage I had optimised my eMiniMalls to earn me about 50% more. -adscorp
Starting this month, we are on the lookout for you! Continuously shuffling through our 12,000+ network looking for your excellent Chitika product integrations to be featured as our next winner!
Do your ads stand out on your page? Have you integrated your ShopLinc fantastically into your website that it screams “I WIN”?
Then we just may have a prize for you!
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