I keep going back to Chitika for some strange reason- but my main site isn't directly related to products, so CTR is extremely poor. Lucky to get 1-3 clicks a day on 10,000 impressions. I'm beginning to think people do not click these things because they don't look like other ads, and they are afraid it will charge their credit card or something for the item showing. I'm serious. Been scratching my head trying to figure out why people avoid these units like the plague. Obviously, it is playing out similarly with most webmasters. Think about it. Say you have a site about blue widgets. Your visitors are die-hard blue widget enthusiasts (absolutely rabid fans, you understand) and the latest, sparkling new blue widget is staring them in the face screaming "come and get me...I want you". Why is the cursor running the other way? Makes no sense. Somebody take a consumer poll- quick!
I actually noticed a group of ads with no images, just crappy text and a headline that look well out of place. I ended pulling all the code off the site.
I think it really depends on how closely your site relates to the ads, how much effort you place on targeting the ads on each page to the content on that exact page, and really thinking (and experimenting) with placement and ad type. When I first started using Chitika the ads did not perform as well as AdSense. The CTR was very low. However through lots of work targeting each page to specific ads, experimenting with placement, etc the results dramatically improved now the Chitika ads make me five times as much as AdSense does. The CTR I have now is very high. As you said at the top of your post, you need to have a site that is directly related to products. You also need to spend some time making sure the ads on each page of your site are setup to display ads relating to the exact product being talked about on the page. People will click on the ads if the ad is right for the page.
So then their original idea of using a contextual format may have been the ticket- if it was to work out, which sadly it did not. I don't believe that option is even available any longer. Perhaps "review" type sites are about the only way to really make these work.
Reasons I think CTR is low on some sites: - Irrelevant ads. - The product title isn't linked, the "Best Deal at blah, blah, blah" is linked. It makes you feel like you're going online shopping if you click that link or that you have to actually buy the product if you click that link. - Some products have no images. - Site is not product oriented. (shopping site, product reviews, etc.)
Chitika accept only some countries. Last day i have only 1000 imprression and 6 click and i earned 1.8$ for 6 click. You can use relevant categories or high paying categories (HDTV, LCD , Laptops). Regards, Mustafa
The Leaderboard, Small Rectangle, Blog Banner, Medium Rectangle, Square, Skyscraper, Wide Skyscraper, Small Square, and Rectangle formats all have the product title beside the photo linked. Also the Product tab of the Banner, and the Description tab of the Blog Banner have the product title linked. Which format you use and which tab you set as the default can make a big difference in CTR. This makes Chitika not as easy to use as AdSense because Chitika gives you more choices over how the unit of a particular size is displayed. For example here are some tips that have significantly raised the CTR of Chitika ads on my sites. If the unit is being displayed above the main content of the page, display a unit which doesn't display a price by default. Try setting the default tab in that location to 'Description' which normally has linked text that says 'Read More', 'Read More at PC Connection', or 'Read more at Buy.com'. If the unit is being displayed after the main content of the page try to use a unit which does show the price such as the Blog Banner and set the default tab to 'Best Deals'. Of course none of those tips will work well if you have a site about skateboarding and have ads for HDTVs. Chitika really works best on sites where each page talks about a specific product and Chitika has ad inventory for those specific products. On those types of sites people are probably there for online shopping information.