I just logged into my Chitika eMiniMalls reports and found that they’ve finally gone live with their channels feature. They’ve also added some new columns to the stats that they report including CTR (click through rate) and Avg CPC (cost per click).
The CPC is a stat that Adsense have never given (it can be worked out by an easy calculation) but which will be handy. I suspect that their reporting will continue to improve over the coming weeks and months (ie they will probably get more dynamic over time and add more ability to check certain periods of time etc) – but so far so good! Channels is a massive step forward.
When you log into you stats you can view your channels all at once by clicking the date – or by channel by using the drop down menu.
If you haven’t already added the channel code to your Chitika codes it might be a good time – this way you’ll be able to work out what positions, design and keywords are working best.
To implement the channel code insert this mini bit of code into your ad unit
ch_sid = ‘xxxx’;
How do you use channels effectively?
The way I use them is to make every different ad unit on my blogs have a separate channel. ie the ad unit in my side bar has a challel code called ‘Problogger Side Menu’ – the ad unit on my individual posts pages has one called ‘Problogger Indiv Above Comments’ the one on my digicam site’s menu is called ‘DPB side menu’ etc.
This will enable me to track which ad on which blog performs best in terms of click value and CTR which in turn will teach me about what is the best position, design and keywords to target.
So now go experiment – and tell us all what you find!
update: It seems as though they’ve also added some new affiliate banner sizes to the 10 that were released last week. There are now 16 options including some larger banner and skyscraper options.
Hm, about two weeks after I manually added channel code to all my Adsense sites, they made a change that just let you track everything by URL (which is all I need, since I only put one block of ads on a page and in the same spot throughout a site). I wonder if Chitika will do the same thing. I suppose I could ask them. :)
And thanks for the heads up, Darren.
Fantastic – I have been waiting for this. If only they can get their reports delivered in real time.
I’m off to make some updates!
I noticed that today as well. I think this step will be making Chitika more and more popular around the Net since chanelled reports are essencial in generating money from online advertising.
I am pretty excited with this improvement, I was wondering blindly where clicks were coming from for far too long :)
Great !
Now we can optimize chitika ads position to reach the best revenue.
Another step to become the top affiliation program.
Ahhhhh! Now the big question can be answered. Do Chitika ads work on non-product blogs? I’ve only been using Chitika channels for a week, but the answer appears to be no.
Which then raises a further question – what products will get clicks on a non-product blog?
ChrisH,
I think that advertising depends on the audience that is targetted. If your non-product related blog/website is targetting a specific niche, then you can ask “what is a group of people that is reading this might be interested in?” I am a firm believer that people’s interests reflect products they are purchasing, therefore your non-product related blog/site can still be succesfull with Chitika.
Plus, there’s always the Christmas shopping season…
Wohoo! It’s nice to wake up to such great news! =)
Thanks for making my day, Darren. The mini-malls are doing 5X what another ad type was doing.
Adding channels is only going to make it better.
So far, this has been my favorite ProBlogger case study.
This is excellent news. Now comes the task of adding channels to all of my ad units. Something I said that I was going to do over the weekend but got lazy and put off.
I enjoy Chitika’s transparency, it’s this close relationship that they have with “us” (publishers) that will help ensure their continuing success and I for one salute them for it.
Hey Darren,
Your code is wrong. You used a comma (‘) instead of quotation marks (“) in your code listed in your article.
Can you confirm?
Scott
I’ve used (‘) around my channel code on all my blogs and it seems to be working.
the FAQ seem to indicate that it’s (‘) see question 12
Strange. When I placed the code with (‘) on my site all the ads dissapeared. After replacing with (“) they came back. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that my ads are placed on a PHP page?
I guess I will know tomorrow when the channel data should hopefully appear.
Thanks for the follow-up.
That is strange.
My ads disappeared initially when I used a (“). They worked fine after I switched to (‘). My ads are on a php page as well.
Thanks for the heads up. The folks at Chitika really are taking great strides in improving their eminimalls program.
[…] Darren reports “I suspect that their reporting will continue to improve over the coming weeks and months (ie they will probably get more dynamic over time and add more ability to check certain periods of time etc) – but so far so good! Channels is a massive step forward. […]
That’s cool.
From my Chitika Hacking Guide : with channel you can track clicks and ad performance down to stats for each product and see which one generates most clicks (ipod ? digicam ? etc…)
http://gotgoodlist.com/2005/10/09/chitika-tips-tricks-and-hacking-guide/
The amount they pay has drop dramatically. Is there anyone else thats seens this?
Sean
I had the same problem. My blogs are wordpress blogs. changing the code to (“) got the ads to reappear.
I had the same problem. I’m using ” insted of ‘.
[…] Chitika have been getting a ton of press recently, but anyone who has used their system will know that their reports are rather lightweight to say the least. But as Darren Rowse found out they have just upgraded their reports to allow channels, which is a massive improvement. Just stick this little line in with the rest of your Chitika code to get going: ch_sid = ‘xxxx’; […]
[…] Via: ProBlogger. […]
[…] Chitika add channels to eMiniMalls: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Chitika now also shows cost-per-click, which others don’t (tags: advertising ads chitika) […]
Thats a great feature, no doubt. Chitika do not have this information on their site and on my inquiry they have referred me to this post :)
[…] Problogger also has a nice blog post [Link] about using channels effectively. […]
the new feature is making me happy, now they only need to include a keyword performance report to make me 100% happy ;)
Martin, with this channel thing you already have been given the ability to track your keywords. *wink – just use the randomized keyword variable as your id.
JL, thanks a lot for the info, found out how to do it ;)
[…] 5. Not using Channel Tracking I was quite surprised by the large numbers of publishers that were not tracking their eMiniMall ad units with channels (I can tell this by looking at a page’s source code). I won’t go into how to set them up here (I’ve done that previously) but would highly recommend that publishers consider using them. I’ve been tracking my blogs with channels since they went live last week and have used them to identify a number of under performing ad units that I’ve now reformatted in terms of keywords and positioning in attempt to increase CTR and click value. The results have been very encouraging. Channels enable you to take out a lot of the guess work about which ads perform best and worst. […]
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I get over 1800 Hits a day Chitika ads aren’t paying as well as I planned,Ill give them another month.
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