Chitika | Select – Your Questions Answered

March 4th, 2010

Posted in: Chitika | Premium, Front Page News

We’ve received tons of feedback and questions about Chitika | Select, so I want to put the answers to some of the most-asked questions here:

So on Monday, am I suddenly going to be showing a ton of different/strange ads on my site?
No – not at all.  We will be gradually rolling this out, starting with a very small amount of additional “Select” impressions.  As we gather more feedback and performance data, we will increase the amount of additional “Select” impressions that we show.

Why is this an opt-out instead of an opt-in?
Simply due to your feedback.  Ever since we launched Chitika | Premium 2 years ago, 90% of publisher feedback has been that you love how we monetize search traffic, but you want to also earn money from the rest of your traffic too.  Since the vast majority of you want to be able to do this, we are automatically turning it on. To give you some idea: Google shows ads for 100% of your traffic. Chitika currently shows ads for less than 30% of your traffic (about 60% of US traffic across our network). Given the huge available opportunity – this was a no-brainer that a lot of our publishers are asking for. However, in all this — please note that our core philosophy of not bombarding the user with ads still remains. We will only show ads when we really believe that the user will benefit from them — the rest of them time, the ads will continue to collapse.

For publishers who DO NOT want this new functionality, it is very easy to opt-out.  Just login to your Chitika account and go to the “My Account” tab.  The opt-out is at the bottom of the page.  [Update: We will be giving you multiple levels of control -- so you can opt-out/opt-in at an account level, or only for certain ad units.  See how to do this below.]

How does Chitika | Select choose when and when not to show an ad?
We determine when (and when NOT to) show an ad by using our new click-prediction technology. What is click-prediction technology, you ask? We have been conducting HUGE amounts of research over the past 1 year which allows us tremendous amount of insight into how users interact with ads. For example, did you know that IE users are twice as likely to click on an ad as FireFox users? These types of statistical studies are the core of this new predictive technology. This type of analysis is common in other industries such as insurance, credit cards, etc., and now Chitika is bringing that to online advertising. [Note: This new click prediction technology has been running on select publishers on parts of our UK traffic for the last 3 months -- the results have been outstanding]

Your premium ads look at the search terms used to arrive on the site – as a result you get really relevant results- what about Select, how will we know the ads are something I want on my site and/or relevant?
The Chitika | Select ads may or may not be relevant to your content – however you can be SURE that they are relevant to the user.  Remember – the Chitika | Select technology will determine the likelihood of whether an ad is a good match for that user or not.  This is how we are able to command a high eCPM – by selectively showing ads when we know that they have some value for the user.  Remember: For these new ads, what YOU see might be a lot different than what your READERS are seeing (this is similar to the “interest based” ads on Google Adsense — its targeted to each user). However, since they are targeted to the user — they command higher CPMs than untargeted ads.

What do you mean by “Image ads”?  What do these look like?
Just like Google AdSense’s image ads, these will be high-quality graphic/banner ads from major brand name advertisers.  We will only choose to show graphic/banner ads if they command high CPMs.  These are the same ads that run on top ComScore 500 publishers’ sites.

I do not want image/graphic ads on my site!  But I do want to use Chitika | Select – is that possible?
Yes – in the opt-out section, you can keep Chitika | Select switched on, but opt-out of the image ads part of the service. Our goal here is to give you the options and the controls. We understand that no single size fits all.

Can I see a breakdown showing my earnings from search (Premium) vs. my earnings from non-search (Select) traffic?
Yes.  You will be able to run reports on this that separate the 2 types of ads that are showing – this will give you an accurate read on how well each type of ad is performing for you.

Can I keep my search-only ads where they are, but add new placements for the Select ads?
Yes.  If you want to use both the current Chitika | Premum ads and Chitika | Select, you should opt-out of Chitika | Select, and then you can just add this line of code into your new ads which will enable them for Select:

ch_select = "enabled";

Or vice versa – if you want to turn all of your existing ads into Chitika | Select, but then keep 1 or 2 ad Premium, you should stay opted-in to the new Chitika | Select service.  Then you can add this line of code to the 1 or 2 ads that you want to show to search-only:

ch_select = "disabled";

What if I am using an Alternate Ad to show to my non-search traffic?
Your Alternate Ad will continue to function just like it did before.  However, Chitika | Select ads will override it whenever we feel that we can earn an eCPM yield that is similar to or greater than what you are earning on your search traffic.

Can I be assured that only family-friendly ads are displayed?
Just like Chitika | Premium ads, we do our very best to ensure that our ads are family friendly. We do not allow adult advertisers or do business with adult advertisers. Period. These ads are filtered by multiple parties using various filtering tools.  Again – all of these ads are sourced from major brand advertisers and are shown on top ComScore 500 sites, so there is little room for error.

In the rare case that an ad would somehow slip through this, you are able to block ads by merchant and keyword from your “My Account” tab in your Chitika account.  Also, you can submit any offending advertiser URL’s to our customer support team and we will have them removed immediately.

What about traffic outside the US and Canada?
Stay tuned!  With Chitika | Select technology we will be incorporating lots of new advertising partners, and we will be able to open up to more than just US and Canada traffic.  This will begin to happen slowly and ramp up as we continue to roll the service out.

So… what other questions do you have?  What other info/features/etc. would you like to see added to this?  Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Chitika Ads: Going Beyond Search Traffic…

March 3rd, 2010

Posted in: Front Page News, PPC Ad Units

Up until now, Chitika ads were only able to cater to your search traffic with
Chitika | Premium.  I am now happy to introduce Chitika | Select ads, which will display to more than just your search traffic. 

This upgrade to Premium ads on will allow Chitika ads to reach more visitors and directly increase your Chitika ad revenue.  We estimate Select ads could give publishers a 5 – 10% revenue increase on top of Premium ads alone.

How do Chitika | Select ads work?

Using our click-prediction technology, Chitika | Select ads will display only when there is a higher chance the ad will be clicked. The percentage of non-search traffic that will see the Select ads will vary from site to site.

FAQ’s

Can I Still Use Chitika | Select With Google AdSense?
Yes! Just like the Chitika | Premium ads you can use the new Chitika | Select ads and AdSense together on the same page.

How Can I Upgrade My Chitika | Premium Ads?
You don’t need to, it will happen automatically Monday, March 8th 2010.

Are Chitika | Select Ads PPC (Pay-Per-Click)?
Chitika | Select will always show the highest-paying ads possible. This will include PPC ads as well as CPM image/banner ads (which pay per impression, whether a user clicks or not).

Will Chitika | Select Ads look different than Chitika | Premium?
Sometimes. Similar to how Google shows image/banner ads if they determine that it is the highest paying ad for a certain user visiting the site, we will do the same. Some of your users will see ads with the Chitika | Premium format and others will see ads that look different but will pay more.

If you would rather have your Chitika ads continue to ONLY show to your search traffic, you can learn more about the opt-out option for Chitika | Select in our knowledgebase.  *However by doing so, you will miss out on a potential revenue boost!

What do you think of our new Select ads?   Please comment below.

 

 

WordCamp Boston 2010 #wcbos

January 26th, 2010

Posted in: Front Page News, Inside Chitika, Publisher Tools

Hey y’all it’s Terri from Chitika and I was fortunate enough to go attend WordCamp Boston 2010 this past weekend and I have some great tips to share with you.

First off – WordCamp was awesome. If any of you are WordPress publishers, thinking about doing more with WordPress or even just a web publisher you ought to attend the next one close to you! You can find out more about the WordCamp events at central.wordcamp.org. If you missed WordCamp Boston all the sessions will be on SlideShare and SpeakerRate soon, and do make sure to watch the Ignite videos.

Here are the top five tips I gathered at WordCamp that I thought would be great to share with you Chitika Publishers (and blog readers)

5 Online Publishing Tips

1. Post Often and Consistently
   If you have a free week don’t post 10 articles or blogs during that week if you typically post only twice a week. Pick a schedule and stick to it to create a habit. If you have time to write more – write something relevant to your website that might not be time sensitive and schedule it to post in the future or save it as a completed draft to post when you are to busy to write for your schedule.
2. Check your Spelling & Grammar
   Most of us are not English teachers – but make your 6th grade English teacher proud by proofreading. I will usually construct a post and run it through the Word or Open Office grammar and spell check then I’ll read it aloud to make sure it makes as much sense aloud as it does on screen. If you struggle with things like word choice and grammar you should definitely read the Elements of Style by William Strunk and E. B. White. There’s a free online version but I highly recommend a copy for your desk to read through at least once – pick one up on Amazon!
3. Vary Your Posts & Style
   Don’t just post text time after time – your regular readers and RSS subscribers would usually love to see different styles of posts. Video posts, audio posts, lists, stories, interviews and add some stock photos to some of your posts too! Your content feels even more fresh when you jazz it up (on top of posting regularly, see also #1).
4. Full Disclosure is Optional but Recommended
   If you are posting reviews for products or services that you may receive affiliate payments from or referral revenue it’s polite to add some text to the page disclosing this information. It’s optional but make sure to check with your legal department or regional government about what kind of disclosure laws are in place to protect bloggers and their readers. For US Publishers: How do bloggers follow the Endorsement Guides?

Want more tips?  Post a comment and we’ll make sure to address some more web publishing tips in the future!

Mega Unit gives 450% revenue increase to PowerHomeBiz.com

January 20th, 2010

Posted in: Chitika | Premium, Front Page News, Publisher Success Stories

Isabel Isidro and her husband, Nach Maravilla, reached what Isidro calls a “turning point” for their website, PowerHomeBiz.com, in the summer of 2009. That’s when they found out about Chitika’s newest ad unit, the Mega Unit – an ad unit that would go on to increase their site revenues by 450% in the first month alone. We sat down and spoke with Isidro about her experiences as a web publisher, on running Chitika ads, and on how their earnings have been impacted over the past six months.

How did PowerHomeBiz.com get started?

“We started PowerHomeBiz.com in December 1999. We saw the tremendous growth potential of the Web and knew that we wanted to start an online business. We both were scammed by work at home business opportunities advertised in magazines, and we knew that there is a huge market of people out there looking for ways to earn money from their homes. We decided to start an information resource site to help people start, run and manage a home-based business the legitimate way.”

Do you currently own any other websites?

“We have since added two other sites to our network – WomenHomeBusiness.com for women entrepreneurs; as well as Learning from the Big Boys showcasing lessons that small businesses can learn from big businesses.”

What were your first experiences with online advertising?

“We tried several CPM ad networks, but we’ve always been so disappointed with the earnings. While our traffic increased through the years, our income from these ad networks stayed at the same negligible levels – even after giving them prime “real estate” in our site.

Our mistake was in assuming that Chitika will perform just like the CPM ad networks we have joined. We joined Chitika in 2005, and we basically didn’t expect anything from it. We just joined Chitika, and promptly forgot about it. We barely displayed the Chitika ads, and if we did, we placed it in less visible pages and in less visible part of the page. As a result, income from Chitika was negligible.”

..the way Chitika emphasized that their product is compatible with Google AdSense caught our attention.”

“We were doing extremely well with Google AdSense and direct ad sales at the time we joined Chitika, and all our premium real estate were given to AdSense and to our own direct advertisers. There was no question as to which ad network we should be focusing on and giving our prime real estate.

We started thinking about Chitika when Chitika Premium was announced. Our main priority has always been Google AdSense, but the way Chitika emphasized that their product is compatible with Google AdSense caught our attention. We already know from our experience with Google Adsense that our visitors are highly responsive to ads. Plus, PowerHomeBiz.com receives a huge amount of search engine traffic. Still, Chitika remained in the backburner.”

So what changed your mind about keeping Chitika in low prominent placements?

“The turning point was when a Chitika email newsletter announced the availability of the Mega Units 500×250 and 550×250 in the summer of 2009. The newsletter also demonstrated the best practices for these new ad units, again emphasizing that these ad units are compatible with AdSense and how these units could work with AdSense on a page. I think that was the first newsletter from Chitika that I really paid attention to and read.”

The first month alone of implementing the mega units saw an increase of 450% in revenues – and that was only for a handful of our pages!”

“After reading the newsletter, we implemented the Mega Units at the bottom of a few articles to test it out. We were greatly pleased with the results. The first month alone of implementing the mega units saw an increase of 450% in revenues – and that was only for a handful of our pages! We knew that the time of ignoring Chitika was over. We are now in the process of adding the Mega Unit in all our pages.

We’re looking forward this year to seeing Chitika become a major revenue source for PowerHomeBiz.com. And we’re off to a great start – for the first half of January 2010, our unaudited earnings is already equal to what we earned from 2005 to 2008!”

Would you like to be featured as Chitika’s next Success Story? Contact us here.
______________________________________________________________________________
Read more Chitika Testimonials and Success Stories here.
View Chitika’s Mega Unit & other ad sizes.
Login Here to get your Mega Unit Code | Sign up for Chitika

3 Top Customer Support Questions Answered

January 14th, 2010

Posted in: Chitika | Premium, Front Page News, Optimizing, Publisher Tools

Bill receives all kinds of support questions on a daily basis here at Chitika. Today he was gracious enough to share 3 important questions that ALL types of Chitika users could benefit from.

What’s the difference between an “impression” and a “page view”?
“You may see these two terms used often and different contexts. While they have similar meanings, it’s the context that makes the difference. Page views are a measure of website traffic. In this context, the term page view represents every time a page from your site is requested by a visitor. If you have three visitors that each request five pages, this will result in fifteen page views for your site.

Impressions are a measurement of the number of ads that are shown on your site. An impression occurs any time an ad unit is displayed. If you have two Chitika ad units on your page and five users request the page, the result will be ten ad impressions since the five users each saw two ad units.”

Are “unique IP addresses” the same as “unique visitors”?
“An IP address is a basically just a numeric pointer for computers and servers on the internet to be able to find each other. For example, if you type “www.Chitika.com” into your web browser, your computer and our servers know how to talk to each other based on this numerical IP address. Therefore, when you look at the number of unique IP addresses accessing your web site, what that loosely means is the number of different machines requesting information from your site.

The area where these two terms are blurred is when either a user accesses your site from multiple machines on separate IP address – for example, at work and at home. In this case, the number of users and IP addresses are both two, but there is actually only one unique visitor. On the other hand, a home or business could have a network that uses only one IP address on the internet. In this case, if two people from inside the network access your site, the unique IP address count would only be one, but the unique visitor count should be two. Generally, web statistics are reported in unique visitors, though this number is a highly-refined estimate.”

My Chitika reports give me a breakdown of impressions, clicks, CTR, Avg CPC and eCPM for my account. What is all this stuff?
“As explained previously, an impression is counted anytime an ad is displayed to your visitor. This may happen multiple times per page view if there are multiple ad units on a page. A click is a fairly easy unit of measurement – a click occurs when your user clicks on your ad. CTR or click-through-rate is the percentage of your impressions that garner clicks. For example, if your site has 1,000 impressions in a day and results in 10 clicks, you would have a 1% CTR.

Average CPC or cost-per-click is the average amount that you are paid per click generated from the ad units on your site. This number is represented as an average of the CPCs that you get on each click for each day. Specific CPC values can fluctuate depending on the market and having the average of these values helps to illustrate the overall trends of the CPCs generated for your ads.

eCPM or effective cost-per-thousand impressions (the M is for the roman numeral M meaning 1,000) is a unit designed to help normalize the performance of a CPC ad unit. On a simple level, this number represents the amount revenue you would generate for 1,000 impressions based on your current CTR and CPC. As an example, if you had 1,000 impressions at a 2% CTR you would generate 20 clicks. If your average CPC was $0.20 for those clicks, you’d earn $4 on those 1,000 impressions – a $4.00 eCPM.”

HAVE A QUESTION? Chitika Customer Support is available 24/7, please browse our knowledgebase or submit a ticket here.

NOT YET A CHITIKA PUBLISHER? SIGN UP HERE

Happy Holidays From Chitika!

December 24th, 2009

Posted in: Inside Chitika, Publisher Tools

We will also be away enjoying the holidays, and will return on Monday, December 28th to reply to your support questions.

New Free eBook: Chitika + AdSense: Ad Placement Guide

November 18th, 2009

Posted in: Front Page News, Optimizing, Publisher Tools

Do you use Chitika and Google AdSense together on your website to earn great combined revenue? Or, do you want to use them together?

Google AdSense and Chitika Premium ads can indeed be used together on your website or blog. Using both in the right combination can work together to help you earn more revenue than using AdSense or Chitika alone.

In this FREE eBook you will see how seven actual strategically place and customize the Chitika website for a successful steady income.

Chitika + AdSense: Ad Placement Guide

OPEN eBOOK NOW

Featured in this eBOOK:

-How to combine Chitika & AdSense ads for a higher total revenue.
-The importance of customizing your ad links to your website links.
-Successful AdSense & Chitika Placement ideas
-Advanced customization tips

Read the rest of this entry »

Chitika Is Hiring [Sneak Peek: What is it like working at Chitika?]

November 3rd, 2009

Posted in: Inside Chitika

The growth of the Chitika Network continues unabated — with the network growing 10-20% month-over-month since the start of the year (Quick stat: Chitika reaches 435M users worldwide per month — roughly 3 in 5 people in the English-speaking Internet). To join us in this journey of reaching 1 billion unique Internet users, we are looking for smart individuals to join us at our Westborough, Massachusetts offices.

If that looked wacky and exciting to you (besides other cool things), here are some of the positions that are open with links to more details. All positions are in-house full-time at our Westborough, Massachusetts office.

• Software Engineer –> View job posting
• Web Developer –> View job posting
• Account Manager (CRM) –> View job posting
• Inside Sales –> View job posting
• Business Development Director –>  View job posting
• Ad Sales –> View job posting

Please note: These are all current positions with approved budgets. Hiring for these positions is immediate. To apply, please send your resume to jobs [at] chitika [dot] com.

Chitika WordPress Plugin now easier than ever to use

October 15th, 2009

Posted in: Chitika Videos, Chitika | Premium, Publisher Tools

New! We have created a video tutorial showing you how easy it is to get started using Chitika Premium ads on your WordPress blog using our plugin. These instructions will walk you through step by step for WordPress versions 2.7 or higher.

WP 2.7 and Higher Video Tutorial:

Or Click Here To Read Step By Step Instructions.

Download the Chitika WordPress Plugin here:

You Don’t Have a Chitika Account Yet? Sign up here!

You Voted: Winners of PS3, $400 in placement contest

October 2nd, 2009

Posted in: Contests!, Front Page News

This year we decided to have YOU, our readers vote for which AdSense + Chitika ad placement was best integrated together in our annual AdSense + Chitika placement contest.

After hundreds of submissions, Chitika’s Special Projects Team narrowed it down to 8 finalists -  you can see them here.

Our Grand Prize Winner of a Playstation 3 Slim + NFL Madden 2010 is:

Tim Carter, AskTheBuilder.com

We really liked Tim’s integration of AdSense at the top, Chitika Premium in the right hand sidebar and Premium at the bottom of his articles. While sometimes the sidebars are not always successful ad placements, Tim made it work to his advantage- Great job Tim!

And our 2 runners up who will receive $200 each are:

Kenneth Barbalace, EnvironmentalChemistry.com
Anton Amoto, AntonAmoto.com

Ken perfectly customized his AdSense and Premium ad units throughout his site. With a Premium ad unit at the top as well as in the sidebar and AdSense complementing nicely above his comments.

Anton used an AdSense square above his titles and a Premium Mega Unit below them. The links were all customized as well making for a nice sleek integration.

Congratulations to all the finalists and winners! And a big thank you to all who participated. Be on the look out for our next contest!