After the release of our new MEGA-Unit: 4x More Clicks/Revenue, thousands of Chitika users got access to a great new revenue increase. This never-before offered size ad unit is ONLY offered by Chitika, and has opened up a new door to revenue solutions for our users. So now if you will, please join me in welcoming the next size ad unit in the MEGA-unit family: the 500×250:
This new ad unit was made for those users who would like to benefit from the untapped revenue of the new MEGA-Unit but their website is limited to a small pixel ad space. Originally the MEGA-unit a: 550×250 was a bit too large for a small number of users. However, we feel it is important to be able to cater to all of our user needs.
We are very interested in how the new MEGA-Unit is working out for you, so please share your experiences by leaving a comment below. And as always, you can request your site needs and new ideas in our forum here.
LOGIN HERE To get your MEGA-Unit size: 550×250 or 500×250
Rule 1 - Only show ads WHEN the user really wants it
Or: Thou shalt never annoy thy visitors
As you know, the Chitika | Premium units only show up when Chitika is sure about user intent (because we know what search term the user used to find you). For all of your regular users who are simply browsing your site, the intent is much lower. In these cases, the Chitika ad does not show, and you are not blasting another ad into their face. Due to this, you are not annoying your users with yet another ad unit.
Rule 2 - Tell your user WHY they’re seeing this ad
Or: Thou shalt respect thy visitors’ experience
As you can see from the example below, the user keywords are highlighted in gold yellow. This is to explain to the user that the ad is about what he is looking for (Psychobabble Joe says: Since the age of 2, the human brain has been taught to pay attention to that specific color of yellow). When you respect your visitors’ feelings and intent like that, they are more likely to look at the ad and read its contents (and, of course, click on it).
Rule 3 - Only show users WHAT they want to see
Or: Thou shalt give thy visitors what they want — in a way they want it
Chitika | Premium ad units have been designed to be hyper targeted, as the ads are almost always completely targeted to the exact keyword the user typed in the search engine. And in the new Mega Unit, ads flow naturally from top to bottom, rather than left to right. “Why is that,” you ask? Its because for the last 10 years, the Internet has worked very hard to train people to read its pages from top to bottom, not left to right. With the Mega-Unit, people’s tendency to read in that fashion helps your second and third ads get almost as much attention as the first.
Put all these three reasons together and you as a publisher/website owner will get from your visitors what you really want — i.e. clicks. More clicks equal more revenue and everybody is happy. By giving your visitors what they want in an ad unit, they’ll give you what you want in return! Isn’t sharing nice?
You can get the code for the mega unit here or signup if you are not already a Chitika publisher.
Hey everyone - I want to introduce the newest addition to the Chitika | Premium lineup - the 550×250 MEGA-Unit. Across our network right now, the MEGA-Unit’s CTR is 4 times higher than our other Premium units - so you can see why we are excited about it! I want to answer some important questions about it here on the blog:
What is the MEGA-Unit?
It’s our newest Chitika | Premium unit, and it’s really BIG! Take a look:
Why should you use this?
Across the board, our new MEGA-Unit is adding a massive increase in clicks and revenue:
AskDaveTaylor.com increased his Chitika earnings from $85/month to $2000/month by adding the new MEGA-Unit to his site (Dave talks about this in greater detail on his site).
ArticleAlley.com added the new MEGA-Unit and reports that “The result was a massive 721% increase in income - without any noticeable knock on effect to our other income providers.” - Adrian from ArticleAlley.com
Couponmom.com added the MEGA-Unit to just 1 of her pages, and immediately doubled her eCPM and revenue.
How do I get it?
If you have a Chitika account, you can get the unit by clicking here, then choosing the 550×250 “MEGA-Unit” from the drop-down.
If you don’t have a Chitika account, click here to sign up.
Where should I place the MEGA-Unit on my site?
We are seeing it work best placed directly above or below the main content. For example, you can see where ArticleAlley.com put it on this page (scroll to bottom of article).
Are you using Google AdSense as an alternate ad to display when a Chitika ad cannot display (for example - in non-supported countries, or for non-search traffic, etc.)? If not, then you do not need to even bother reading this.
However, if you are using AdSense as an alternate ad in a Chitika ad, then you will need to make a quick change to your alternate ad setup.
Google changed the way AdSense is served and it now MUST be on a page with proper HTML coding.
HERE IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO MAKE SURE YOUR ADSENSE ALTERNATE AD SERVES CORRECTLY:
Open the .HTML file that contains your AdSense code with Notepad or any other text editor.
Place <html><head></head><body> before your AdSense code and </body></html> after the code - for example:
<html><head></head><body>
<!--ADSENSE CODE GOES HERE -->
</body></html>
This will ensure that your AdSense alternate URL will display properly. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us directly, leave a comment below, or post in our forums.
Just like anything, Twitter is hated among some people purely for the reason that so many others love it. The human psychology of Twitter is that it’s easier to love something someone hates and vice versa. But Twitter actually plays on the human nature of people in many interesting ways, and this is what makes it hard to avoid.
I was once a Twitter “non-believer”, SHOCKED? I know - but it’s true, you can blame the month of dead silence coming from the Official Chitika Twitter account on boring ol’ me before I was shown the Twit-light - not to be confused with the teen-girl phenomenon Twilight, of course.
Simply put, how else could you directly listen, in real time to, or connect, with someone you may have otherwise never seen or heard a word from ever in your lifetime? Twitter. It’s almost as if you took a super-telescope and pointed it around the world, into your customers, users, publishers, heroes and even idols computer screens where they are typing their very thoughts, options and actions. Simply put again, Twitter directly connects you to a world ultimately unreachable & unseen.
Let Twitter play to your EGO
Don’t stand behind the super-telescope forever. Get out there and talk. Meet people, talk to people.. because they want to talk to you. Once you start getting followers, RT’s, @’s and direct messages- you will feel very relevant in the Tworld. And unlike Facebook, MySpace, etc., this never gets boring. Why? There is always a larger audience, access to more people and their lives, stories, opinions, friends & followers without trying or having to friend request them. It’s more reachable than other social networks, so it will be less likely to lose your interest. And because Twitter cleverly plays into personal ego, it would be hard for someone to leave. This emotional connection will keep it afloat for a very long time, and this is why advertising will not kill Twitter…
Twitter and advertising
What gives Twitter an edge over Facebook and Myspace is right now, it’s the only of its kind. Twitter also has a dominant number of people who use Twitter for business reasons because it brings great value. So the question is not whether advertising will kill Twitter (because thats impossible) but how much it will be affected. I do not see a domino-effect of dropped users just because of ads, but I do see many being annoyed about it.
But even then, will users really be able to give up the on-going benefits? We already know that Twitter captures an emotional involvement to people, and right now, the only content on someone’s Twitter page is info all about them. So advertising could either cause a personal invasion to users, which could alter the way people feel about Twitter or use it, or they could value the benefits of the system and move on. Nothing in life is free. Who could really blame Twitter for falling into the human nature of survival? How can someone criticize something they use for free for wanting due-financial credit? So my answer is, no. But that’s just me…
What are your thoughts about advertising on Twitter?
Jennifer Slegg of JenSense.com was one of four star panelists who judged a search application contest sponsored by Chitika at SES NY, Chitika|SearchAppalooza.
The video below captures her contribution as a contextual advertising expert, critiquing the app developers on how well they were able to create search app’s that have what it takes to stand out in today’s competitive market for creative tools.
If you find yourself silently thinking or very loudly shouting the above statement then we’re here to help. The good news is, your ads are probably working perfectly on your site - you just can’t see them; this is actually normal, and I’ll tell you why.
Chitika Premium ads work differently from traditional advertisements on your website. It will not just camp out on your site displaying an ad all the time (which can be annoying to your visitors), because the wise people here at Chitika decided that approach to displaying ads was actually not all that smart. So we decided to do it differently.
The Premium Approach
Premium ads will only appear on your site to a visitor that clicks through to your website from a search engine. Why? Because we believe that targeting their search query and showing an ad related to that will result in a higher CTR and we don’t want you to feel like you are annoying your regular visitors with ads (this is especially important for forum owners).
How to test your ads
It’s very easy to check out how the ad actually displays on your site by adding #chitikatest=keyword to the end of your URL in your browser’s address bar (for example - www.yourdomain.com#chitikatest=doctor)
Hit
Refresh the page by pressing +
You will now see how the Chitika | Premium ad looks on your site for whatever keyword you used in the test (in the example, we used “doctor”).
You won’t see exactly what your visitors will see in the ad unit because for them it’s targeted to their search query, remember? :)
Still have questions? No problem, comment below so I can help.
If, after using the test tool to view the Premium ad on your site, you still cannot see it or are experiencing issues, you can receive assistance from our experts in support. To submit a ticket to support, click here.
Once again, Chitika managed to uphold their reputation for thinking outside-the-box by putting one of our Chitika-ites in an owl costume at SES NY 09. He was featured in video interviews filmed by me, @KarlaChitika during the conference (which will be featured on the blog very soon), as well as put a smile on everyone’s face who came to the Chitika booth.
SearchAppalooza Mania!
Tuesday afternoon many gathered in the Grand Ballroom for our much anticipated SearchAppalooza ‘Search Apps Contest’ where 5 finalists presented their apps to Jennifer Slegg (CEO Jensense.com), Larry Cornett (VP Search Yahoo!), Rob Griffin (SVP Search Marketing MediaContacts), and Don Dodge (Business Development Emerging Business Team Microsoft Corporation).
All of the apps were really great. If I were judging it would have been a very difficult decision, but the judges (who are clearly more thourough than I am) found some flaws and a winner was closen rather fast. The winner of the “Kick-ass Search App Contest” was:
The coolest thing about Tom’s app was how it created a way to take, otherwise unsearchable, video content and convert it into searchable text. This could ultimately make way for a whole new outlook and marketing perspective centered around search content in video. Amazing!
**The SearchAppalooza video will also be featured on the blog early next week- so be on the lookout for that, which features all the presentations from the app finalists.
Twitterers also had the chance to participate by Tweeting their favorite app finalist to be in the running for a Kindle2 sponsored by Chitika. That winner was:
And lastly, Chitika hosted their near-legendary, 3rd-Annual “Cookie Eating Contest” at the end of SearchAppalooza to win an HP 1000 Netbook. Eleven contestants gathered to eat as many Oreo (double-stuffed) cookies as they could in 2 minutes. There was a tie! 12 cookies ate by two people (who would of thought)- so they then challenged eachother to a Oreo face-off. In the end, 18 Oreos was consumed by our winner! You can watch it all go down in our video here:
Send us a note if you are coming–we are offering all Chitika friends 20% off SES full conf passes, and free exhibit passes.
What’s in store?
Our SES “SearchAppalooza” workshop will feature Chitika’s “Kick-Ass Search App” contest…“Think American Idol for developers, with Yahoo! and Microsoft as the judges.” Read more…
Stop-by our SES booth (#230) and meet “Hooty the Search Owl” –a 6′4″, fluffy owl who loves to play frisbee.
Can’t attend?
You can win cool stuff & watch SearchAppalooza from your couch.
SearchAppalooza Twitter Contest for an Amazon Kindle2!
To enter, click here to post a SearchAppalooza tweet.
My neighbor has the greenest grass in our neighborhood. He purchases the most advanced lawn treatment available and cares for it like a child. Last summer he decided to plant some flowers and start a garden because, according to him, “you know, the soil underneath the grass bed is richer and healthier than ever”. He planted vegetable seeds and the prettiest flowers but, a couple of weeks after he noticed the flowers were not thriving and the garden wasn’t growing like he had hoped. He spent all his time on the lawn’s upkeep that he neglected the flowers, expecting them to thrive without any work or effort.
Unfortunately many of our publishers make this same mistake when “planting” ads on their website. You may have a great, well-maintained site with great content, but you didn’t take a few minutes to customize and blend them into your site layout correctly. As a result, you might not be seeing much revenue accumulate in your account; how could this all have been prevented?
Simple customization features are available in Chitika | Premium ads that could be the key to keeping your ads alive on your site. These tricks take only seconds and when you sit back to enjoy the revenue rolling into your Chitika reports, you will appreciate the time you took to do it. Here are a few simple customization tips for your ads to thrive on your pages:
Available customization options:
Color options: these lines of code will change the color of the ad background, ad’s main link, text of the ad, and the URL of the merchant, respectively (you can use color names, such as “red”, or hex codes, such as “FFFFFF”):
-TIP:Matching your site background color, site text colors and links will help your ads blend nicely with your content.
Target: when clicked, this line of code will make the Premium ad open in a new window or tab:
ch_target = "_blank";
-TIP:Enabling this will keep your ad clickers from navigating away from your page.
Font options: these lines of code will change the font of the ad’s main link or the text of the ad, respectively:
ch_font_title = "Arial";
ch_font_text = "Arial";
-TIP:Similar to matching the colors on your page to your ad, matching the text will make it blend even better.
Inserting an alternate ad campaign to show an alternate ad unit when the Premium ads do not display:
ch_alternate_ad_url = "INSERT URL HERE";
-TIP: Since Premium will only show to US/Canada search engine traffic, displaying an alt URL can help make sure you keep a steady flow of ad revenue coming in.
All of these customization options can be edited right in your Premium Code Panel.
Posted by: Karla Escolas, CRM/Marketing -Chitika, Inc.
To apply for Chitika ads, click here. If you already have a Chitika account, you can get your Chitika | Premium code by clicking here.
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