I was running RPUs on my site and had decent success with them - recently they have disappeared and my Chitika earnings per day have decreased dramatically ... what has happened to the RPUs?
Same here, I was starting to do really well with the RPUs, but suddenly it seems that Chitika has practically abandoned them in favor of their new "Premium" eMiniMalls, which to me look exactly like the old eMiniMalls which had no success at all on my site. They take up too much space and their design practically screams "Avoid me, I'm an ad!!". I swear, Chitika has no direction at all. Even when something seems to be working (the RPUs), they abandon it to try something else.
Exactly my point too - the PRU was doing great and now my Chitika clicks are paying a fraction of what I was getting. And I mean a VERY SMALL fraction. If it doesn't get better very soon I'm taking them off entirely.
I had been earning $15-20 a day from the RPUs not too long ago. Two days ago, I earned 99 cents from them. I removed them at that point. I'm trying the new eMiniMalls but if I don't see decent earnings within the next couple of days, I'll be removing Chitika's ads completely.
It seems the keyword targeting is off. I was getting highly relevant ads for my home theater electronics niche and now one RPU is showing an "Uplight Lamp with Crackle Glass Shade" - WTF is up with that?
Very disappointed here too with the new RPU. Dates are nearly the same. Comissions, impressions, clicthroughs dropped dramatically. A response from Chitika: "The ads are not based in any particular "category" - they will be tailored to specific behaviors of your users, so it will show ads relevant to what they want to see, how they got to your site, etc."
So the fact that my site is about a specific topic is no longer relevant to Chitika? I guess that explains why I was seeing ads for hotels and vacations on my computer software site. And it explains why my RPU earnings have dropped down to nothing.
Well, I received an official email from Chitika today. I sent them an email asking for an explanation for why my RPU earnings have dropped down to nothing. They replied today by telling me that it looks like their new ad format and new advertiser base isn't working out too well for me and that there's not much they can do. Then they suggested I try their new Premium ads, which I've already tried and earned even less than I'm earning with the RPUs. I guess it's official. Chitika is no longer an option for me.
I took Chitika off a block on my homepage and replaced it with another Adsense block and it got more in one click than I got for the whole day collectively from (S)Chitika... they've really tanked now...