Pulling my Chitika ads.

I have decided to stop running Chitika for now. While I expected the CTR to be lower (it is) the payouts are just too small. Even without the lower the CTR, the per click rate is much lower than adsense, and FAR FAR lower than YPN. My guess is that Chitika pays the same per click whether your site is a scrapper or an authority site and I think this is what wrong in my case. I have a high CTR on the sites I ran Chitika on (with a combination of adsense or YPN) and I think that google pays more per click because of this.

I REALLY like the Chitika concept. Their ad targeting is awsome. Their tracking and reporting sucks. I was running ads for products that were 100% relevant to my site and ranged in price from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. 25 cent per click just isn't going to do it.

I intend to experiement with Chitika with another site I have planned and am hoping I will experience better results. I think the sectors I ran the ads on, which traditionally high paying, just aren't with the current Chitika inventory. I do know people who are doing quite well with it. I am going to wait until Chitika gets a tracking program - it may have been that only certain ads were pulling my average down, but I have no way of knowing.

 

Am I under the impression that Chitika ads are only for computer products, cameras, etc.?
Or do they have everything? (ex. toys, pet supplies, sports equipment, etc.)

 

It's a mixed bag on what the cost per click will be. Listing the top selling items in your category might not be the best...

I think a little testing of various products is in order until you find a niche.

 

There are ads for just about everything including the stuff you mention and much much more. Clothing, over the counter medicine, actually even dildos.

I'm doing very well with a site that is not product or computer related.

 

TOTALLY cracked me up! Just wasn't ready for that one.
I too thought it was mainly tech products.

 

I put it on my joke site yesterday. About a 1000 PVs and no clicks. And its top center on the page next to the content. CTR on that site sucks LOL

 

Gave me a good laught too when I saw the results of that search

 

Maybe you need to target the keywords better.

 

lorien, did u really expect people to click it? Your site has jokes, why would the visiters want to look at other things?

And why dont you use chitika with google or yahoo... im just confused you dont... you wont lose anything

 

I didn't really to be honest. Figured I'd get a random click thru though - even accidental or something LOL

I don't want to jeopardize my google account by putting adsense on a site with some adult material. So adsense it out of the question.

I'm trying to find a good CPM advertiser or something right now.

 

sorry the 2nd line was for the thread creator

 

I was using it with both adsense and YPN. It was affecting my CTR on them, and the payout was lower than adsense, and MUCH lower than YPN. YPN ad targeting can be really bad, even from page to page, and I use adsense on those pages. People were clicking the Chitika ads, but I was losing clicks that would have gone to adsense or YPN.

I love the concept, its just in my particular case, the payout was far too low compared to the others. If my sites were new, the payouts probably would have been a little more than adsense due to smart pricing - but the CTR was far less. I know Chitika is planning on a tracking program, and I will give it another shot when I can get exact data rather than an overall average.

 

Interesting.. I find the chitika ads with way higher payouts than adsense, and even higher than YPN. Better than YPN too because they actually get clicked on.

Different strokes for different folks. I can't find a useful place for a yahoo ad, but I have had a lot of luck with chitika myself.

 

All depends on the topic/keywords. Some sites it does much better on - others not so great. I guess it's about finding what works and going with that.