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Articles Index >> Marketing
What Is Chitika and Does It Pay Well?
by Michael Cheney
A new trend has been surging through internet marketing circles recently. It’s
been about a new form of advert that you can place on your website. The idea
is that it’s better than banner ads and better than Google AdSense ads.
It’s called Chitika or eMiniMalls. The ads look essentially like a short
advert that you might find in a magazine. They have various tabs such as best
deals, description, reviews and search. They also include a small image, which
is a move forward from AdSense. The image describes the actual product that’s
being advertised.
The main difference about Chitika ads is the fact that you can actually browse
the ad without clicking away. You can run a search for the best deals. You can
run a search for other related products. You can also read reviews on products,
looking into the pros and cons of the products that are being advertised. You
get a lengthy description and also a selection of the best deals from the name
brand merchants.
What this does all together is draw the user’s attention towards the
ad. AdSense ads are obviously just text; headlines with a link. Whereas Chitika
ads include images; images of the product and sometimes images of the brand
logos.
Chitika ads can be contextually delivered. That means you place a code on your
site and the software reads your site to see what your site is about and then
delivers ads that are relevant to the content. If you run it in this way, it
is in direct conflict with Google AdSense and you wouldn’t be able to
run them both together.
However, the good news is that you can deactivate this functionality with Chitika
ads and insert your own phrases. This removes the contextual element so that
you are actually dictating what product will appear.
It’s very simple to sign up and very easy to get implemented. Although
it’s still in its early stages, indications are that for retail sites
selling physical products to consumers it can pay a lot higher than Google AdSense.
I’ve launched it on some of my sites and the results have been mixed.
Some earnings have been down as opposed to AdSense and some earnings have been
up. One thing that remains is that it’s a great new format and it’s
generating a lot of interest on the web.
The other thing to remember is that it is only in the early stages of development
and support isn’t what it should be. You sometimes do have to wait a day
or two for responses from them.
Also, the number of advertisers using Chitika is only set to increase. But
as with most trends on the Internet, it’s the early adopters who get in
early that will benefit the most in the long run.
So check it out and sign
up now for free and see if Chitika MiniMalls is for you.
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