Chitika Affiliates earn 10%, still a ground floor opportunity

TheHoff

Oct 26th 2005, 5:57 pm

The Chitika referral program is brand new... still only a few weeks old. Imagine if someone introduced you to Adsense when it was a few weeks old and gave you an affiliate program to use to sign people up with. That is where I see Chitika right now. The eMiniMalls program is young but is catching on like wildfire being spread through the blogging community-- the great majority are increasing their earnings with Chitika either instead of or alongside Adsense.

I've been talking this over with Compar and we're getting in early on this.. I've now opened up 2 websites to recruit affiliates. The first affiliate recruiter, Darren from ProBlogger, recently said he has 700 affiliates under him already. That is 700 people making money with Chitika and he gets a 10% cut of Chitika's portion. SWEET.

Below is my affiliate link; I'd appreciate it if you signed up with it, but if not, that is fine. You don't lose anything by using it:

http://www.chitika.com/mm_overview.php

Once you sign up, you can begin to recruit affiliates or try the advertisements on your own site.

compar

Oct 26th 2005, 6:22 pm

As the Mechanic says we are both jumping on this bandwagon early. I've already put the Chitika ads on two pages in my InfoPool. Here are the links if you want to see how I've done it.

http://www.compar.com/infopool/articles/news2vs10.html
and
http://www.compar.com/infopool/articles/news1vs3.html

BTW I put the link on the Digital Camera page two days ago and earned $2.00 on that page alone on the first day. That's a hell of a lot more than I've ever earned from a single page in a day with AdSense.

I have also just put up a banner and a link to the referral plan on this page. http://www.compar.com/infopool/Business&Finance/

If you'd like to sign up to use Chitika feel free to join from the link on vBMechanic's site or if you like what I've done then join using the link from my site.

solution2u

Oct 26th 2005, 6:57 pm

I have to agree with vbMechanic and compar. For some website, Chitika eminimall works better than Adsense. So, why not give it a try? Put both type of advertisements into your website and enjoy the increment of your revenue!

SamOwen

Oct 26th 2005, 7:17 pm

700 referrals! Egad!


If anyone wants to join using my affiliate link, check out my sig. I would really appreciate it as well.

jazzylee77

Oct 26th 2005, 9:50 pm

http://www.superpercussion.com/auction/chitika_v.jpgChitika eMiniMalls (https://chitika.com/mm_overview.php)

The first thing I thought of when I saw the name Chitika.

oziii

Oct 26th 2005, 10:53 pm

it's a great program isn't it!

In terms of my '700' referrals....

don't believe everything you read on the internet :-)

TheHoff

Oct 26th 2005, 10:56 pm

Ah, sorry if I misquoted you with blog-gossip!

solution2u

Oct 26th 2005, 11:26 pm

Just knew that oziii is Darren. :) Your site, problogger.net really helps me a lot.

tweetylover8402

Oct 26th 2005, 11:32 pm

Put both type of advertisements into your website and enjoy the increment of your revenue!

Would that be against any G or Chitika TOS? :eek:

solution2u

Oct 26th 2005, 11:43 pm

Would that be against any G or Chitika TOS? :eek:

You just need to set the chitika eminimall become non contextual. The default code generated by the chitika website itself is non-contextual already. So far, I am satisfied with the payout.

Merkersarl

Oct 27th 2005, 3:08 am

Guys, I'm not working with vBMechanic or compar but do have a competing site that links to vBMechanic's site.

Problogger may not have 700 signups but I wouldn't be surprised if it's not far off :). It's unlikely that all of them are "active" and, even among the active ones, it may not be the case that they are generating a lot of revenue. 10% of $2.00 is, after all, only $0.20. And, that's not a million dollars even when you multiply it by 30.

I've got a lot of sign-ups now what with posting here, my advertising in Adwords and the $2,000 odd I've spent advertising at various other webmaster locations. I can tell you this: it takes a lot of visitors before one signs up under your referral. And it takes a lot of referrals before one that makes any serious money.

Am I trying to talk you out of joining the party? No! In fact, it's no fun without competition. But, let's be honest, posting it in your signature is not likely to get you very far. Perhaps someone who's just had the Chitika link in their signature for the last month can tell us whether that's been successful in signing people up. To get people to sign up you need to offer a service. Some info like vBMechanic and I have done. Or something unique (and I'll even link to you like I did to vBMechanic). There's big money to be made by getting in early but it's unlikely you'll do it the lazy way, it'll probably take some work ;), sorry.

oziii got a major headstart. Way to go, mate!

compar

Oct 27th 2005, 6:50 am

There is also an interesting Chitika discussion going on over in this thread -- see post #44 and on -- http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=34532&page=5

largeheartedboy

Oct 27th 2005, 7:01 am

I've gotten a couple of friends to join, and am making a couple of dollars a day through referrals at Chitika. Great ad program, great referral program, I have nothing but good things to say about them.

blinxdk

Oct 27th 2005, 7:06 am

So.. anyone of you care to share some tips on what products seem to make the most for you? I'm still hoping for some near real-time ads soon so I can track the payout for each product. It's totally impossible now with several hundred clicks per day.

compar

Oct 30th 2005, 7:36 am

jazzylee77

Oct 30th 2005, 7:51 am

Have any of you noticed that if you have several keywords in the "var ch_queries = new Array("keyword1", "keyword2", "keyword3", "keyword4");" line that when you refresh the page ads for other products will be shown in the middle of the rotation of the keyword ads listed?????

Thats a difficult sentence to unpack! :)

You're saying that?

if you have bats, gloves, and baseballs as keywords

you first see ads for bats, gloves, or baseballs

Then when refreshing you sometimes see ads unrelated to the keywords?

I haven't seen this, but I haven't been messing with it very much.

compar

Oct 30th 2005, 8:46 am

Thats a difficult sentence to unpack! :)

You're saying that?

if you have bats, gloves, and baseballs as keywords

you first see ads for bats, gloves, or baseballs

Then when refreshing you sometimes see ads unrelated to the keywords?
It couldn't have been that difficult :) You got it.

But thank you for parsing my sentence. Specifically I have an ad on an article about animals and I have 4 animal related keywords in the "array". When I refresh the page several time I'll suddenly see an ad for digital cameras or the iPod interspersed with my "animal" ads.

jazzylee77

Oct 30th 2005, 9:27 am

SO I guess the question for chitika is how and why?

Do keywords only partly control the results?
Or do advertisers bid on non-relevant keywords?
Or is there an error that defaults to popular ads?
Does this only occur on refresh?
If so is this good or bad? Is there research showing randomized ad themes after refresh increase clickthrough?
Is it random when different than keywords or is it contextual...adsense paranoids lookout!!!

blinxdk

Oct 30th 2005, 2:39 pm

jazzylee77

Oct 30th 2005, 3:10 pm

The unrelated add thingy happens to me if I select a keyword that chitika doesn't have any products for. So I guess you should test all your keywords at chitika.com and see if one of them returns nothing.

Testing! We aint got time for no stinking testing!

OK, that seems to be more likely what it is. :)

webstien

Oct 30th 2005, 3:19 pm

When does chitika go out of "beta" testing mode?

compar

Oct 30th 2005, 10:33 pm

Testing! We aint got time for no stinking testing!

OK, that seems to be more likely what it is. :)
That is the obvious conclusion, but I tested for every keyword before I put them in array.?????

blinxdk

Oct 31st 2005, 12:24 am

That is the obvious conclusion, but I tested for every keyword before I put them in array.?????

Sometimes keywords or products dissapear from chitika, other times they just change to show other products - bit annoying when you see that you're +5000 views/day page shows ads for a $10 "fiberoptic wizard halloween costume" :)

amitpatel_3001

Oct 31st 2005, 9:16 am

Does Chitika only support Gadgets?
I myself have a articles site.
Any suggestions 4 me

TheHoff

Oct 31st 2005, 9:31 am

Does Chitika only support Gadgets?
I myself have a articles site.
Any suggestions 4 me

There are books, movies, pet products, supplements... almost anything you can find on shopping.com and most of amazon.com as well. Click the search tab of a Chitika ad, or the page linked in my sig has a search box at the top to locate keywords.

sleuth1

Oct 31st 2005, 1:42 pm

Is Chitika very fussy about site content and do they knock back ( not approve) many sites ? thanks

compar

Oct 31st 2005, 2:50 pm

Is Chitika very fussy about site content and do they knock back ( not approve) many sites ? thanks
Not in my experience.

TheHoff

Oct 31st 2005, 3:13 pm

Is Chitika very fussy about site content and do they knock back ( not approve) many sites ? thanks

I've seen a few cases where if you are denied the first time, you might be accepted if you re-apply with a different site.

oziii

Nov 2nd 2005, 2:32 am

Chitika has ads in their archive for a lot of things - wider than gadgets. Of course gadgets seem to be paying out the best at this stage - although when they bring in channels we'll be able to test what pays how much.

In terms of signing up people for the affiliate program - it's always a tricky thing. It's not easy to get sign ups via advertising - I find that personal recommendations work best - when you're recommending to people that you have a relationship with.

So signatures won't convert much unless you have a great reputation I suspect.

blinxdk

Nov 2nd 2005, 2:56 am

So signatures won't convert much unless you have a great reputation I suspect.

I concur, 23 clicks on my signature link since I started tracking - as of yesterday I have 2 approved affilates.

Des

Nov 2nd 2005, 11:19 am

Sometimes keywords or products dissapear from chitika, other times they just change to show other products - bit annoying when you see that you're +5000 views/day page shows ads for a $10 "fiberoptic wizard halloween costume" :)

Little tip, when you place an add on a site and you notice it works well, try to make the keyword as concrete as possible, they there is little change it will change to some cheap item...

Example:

'Ipod Nano' showed an ipod nano ad first, 2 days later it showed some kind of ipod case worth a lot less and not really appealing. Then I changed the keyword to 'Ipod Nano 2GB Black' and it showed the ipod again.

blinxdk

Nov 2nd 2005, 12:00 pm

Little tip, when you place an add on a site and you notice it works well, try to make the keyword as concrete as possible, they there is little change it will change to some cheap item...

Yup, I try that too. However sometimes I also try picking generic words like "clothing" or such, I have a nagging suspicion that those chitika choose for you might pay more than some I pick myself.

Oh how I long for channels so I can figure it out :)

Des

Nov 2nd 2005, 4:39 pm

Yeah, we just have to wait... When channels come available there will be a nice trade in valuable keywords/products lists

oziii

Nov 3rd 2005, 4:11 am

hopefully it won't be long for channels

btw - if you're impressed by chitika eminimalls you might like to vote for them in this poll I'm running on essential ad systems over here (http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/11/03/essential-advertising-systems-poll-of-the-week/)

I'm surveying people to see if they could only run one ad program which it'd be. I've heard loads of people raving about Chitika - but would they be willing to give up adsense to run it?

I know I would - but I'm wondering if I'm alone.

compar

Nov 3rd 2005, 8:55 pm

- but would they be willing to give up adsense to run it?

I know I would - but I'm wondering if I'm alone.
But that's sort of a dumb ass question. You don't have to give up AdSense to run eminimalls, so why ask the question? Run them both and prosper.

usedmac

Nov 3rd 2005, 9:06 pm

I've heard loads of people raving about Chitika - but would they be willing to give up adsense to run it?

I know I would - but I'm wondering if I'm alone.

I actually took adsense of of my site (usedmac.ca) in place of Chitika for about 1/2 a month. Then I optimised the placement of the Chitika ads to the middle of the page and found that I could also ad Adsense to the top half of the page and now enjoy great CTR of both programs.

But I guess it depends on the topic of your website as to the sucess you will have from either program.

compar

Nov 19th 2005, 3:16 pm

compar

Nov 19th 2005, 3:20 pm

I just found this on their Blog:

"To help filter out so-called “curiosity clicks” that typically do not lead to conversions on the merchants’ side, we updated the eMiniMalls units to drive qualified clicks. Hence, eMiniMalls users will notice a dip in the overall click through rate (and hence the overall revenue).

While we do strongly believe that in the long run everyone will benefit from our efforts to optimize this eMiniMalls (beta) service, we do recognize that in the short term this might lead to potential drops in revenue for some of our publishers. To best compensate for any potential revenue loss, we are issuing a network-wide 10% bonus through the end of November."

Does "updated the eMiniMalls units to drive qualified clicks." mean pay for purchases only?

gary99

Nov 19th 2005, 3:20 pm

Someone told me that Chitika has stopped paying by the click through and started to pay only on a actual purchase. I can't find this on their site, nor have I received a notice via email, but my earning have been "0" for the last three days and that would be an explanation.

No, they just changed what was clickable on the ad units (we think/hope, anyhow).

There's some chatter about it here:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=39571