Chitika survives because its advertisers are getting their sales, and making nice money. Chitika is getting a portion of the clicks. Wouldn't it make more sense if we subscribed with commision junction and picked the products to advertise, and make the full 15% or so of the sale?? Anyone have experience in successfully using both these services?
There are a lot more factors than just picking an item in CJ. What product would you pick for each of your pages? If you can figure that out, sure it might make more sense. But chitika already knows what products are converting for each keyword you send them, so they fill in a major piece of the puzzle. CJ has thousands of advertisers, who have tens to hundreds of thousands of items to choose from. You have to monitor what is converting and what isn't. Perhaps there are several advertisers that offer the exact same product (many times thats the case). Which one has the better converting landing page? Which one pays more? Is one store a known brand already (usually converting better because user trust is already established). Then you have to watch out for "deactivation notices" that are quite common for cj offers. I've had dead links up for months because I missed the deactivation notice. Another factor is traffic. Chitika will still pay per click while you test keywords, where as CPA offers are a little more difficult to test if you don't supply a lot of traffic to them. Its a lot of hassle, but can pay off very well if you get the targetting formulas right. Chitika is known for their simplicity. Slap their code and a couple of keywords in your template and you are done. CJ is a lot more micro-managed. There are instances where one makes more sense than another. Or you can do what I do: use both!
I have thousands of pages, and CJ product links change so quickly that it's impossible to keep that many up-to-date profitably. That's why ad networks are so enticing -- they are easy. That lets me concentrate on building quality content.
I would take Chitika any day over CJ. Chitika is PPC so you make your money instantly with them, wheras if you just went the CJ affiliate route you first have to get your visitors to click (which is fairly easy) then buy something (which doesn't happen all that often) I prefer to take my money and run.
just because it's ppc doesn't mean you will make money instantly with them...it just means you don't have to worry about sales.