Chitika (the #2 way that I make money blogging) have come out with a handy new ad unit option for publishers wanting to monetize traffic arriving on their blog from search engines – the ‘mega unit’ premium ad unit.
This ad unit is a 550×255 pixel sized ad – it’s not small but their testing has shown some pretty impressive results with publishers reporting big increases in earnings as a result of using this rather than their smaller ad units.
Here’s how the mega ad unit looks:
How do Chitika Premium Ad Units Work?
- As with all of Chitika’s ‘Premium’ ad unit range these ads only show to US/Canadian readers arriving on your site as a result of a search on Google or one of the other search engines.
- If the reader is a loyal reader that is coming from your RSS feed or another site OR they are a reader from outside the US/Canada they won’t see them (note: there is an option to have an alternative ad shown for non search traffic if you wish but I don’t choose this option and have the ad collapse and not show at all).
- The ads showing on the unit relate to the search that the person arriving on your site is doing – this significantly increases the chance that they’ll find the ad relevant to them and click the ad.
- The ads can be customized to have different colors and fonts.
- Chitika’s testing finds that this ad unit is converting best if you slot it above your content (as you’d expect) or below content (above or below comments would work). Remember this is only showing to search engine visitors so an aggressive ad placement won’t annoy loyal readers.
- If this mega ad unit is too big or the wrong shape for you – Chitika’s premium ad units come in a large range of other sizes. You can see the add unit size options here (you can also check out what kinds of ads will show for different search terms on that page also).
How do they perform?
I have only started testing this new mega unit sized ad on my blog but have had a lot of success with other sizes of premium ad units for a long time now – I fully expect to see some great results with the larger ad unit.
I have a smaller ad unit showing on my photography blog above posts and have added a mega unit below posts to see how they perform.
What I particularly like about the premium ad units is that unlike previous Chitika ad units these convert on sites of all kinds of topics. Their previous ad units were very much suited to product/gadget related sites – but these ad units are converting for all kinds of sites and topics.
In a newsletter that Chitika sent to their publishers today they are reporting some fairly amazing results from other publishers who have been testing this ad unit. Here’s a screenshot (my highlighting):
I’m sure results will vary from site to site but at the very least I think they’re an option to be testing if you’re looking to make money from your blog.
If you’re not a part of the Chitika ad network yet – sign up here today and give them a go for yourself.
I have only good things to say about Chitika. The CTR is 5 times AdSense on my blog and I only use a 460 x 90 block below titles!
Thanks for notifying about this new size, I will surely try this!
Sliding off onto a bit of a tangent …
What kind of experience have people have with Chitika vs. Adsense? I’m using Adsense, and the results have been a bit disappointing. Then again, maybe my readers aren’t very clickety people by nature – and I don’t have a particularly large number of them at this point, anyway.
I always hear that search engine traffic is more likely to click ads than repeat visitors (and I have thus disabled my ads for repeat visitors) but does anyone have statistics on this? Are they twice as likely? Ten times as likely?
Hi,
This looks like a good option! It is rather big, but as you have pointed out, it would not be annoying as it is only for search engine traffic!
I think showing the premium ad units to just search engine traffic is a great idea in itself – in any case, regular readers are mostly ad-blind, and the ad would just waste valuable real estate apart from annoying the readers!
Would definitely check this out – thanks!
I constantly struggle with the tension between making money and putting too many ads on a blog – these looked a bit too large for my taste but if they’re working I might just have to swallow my pride and give them a go.
I joined Chitika on your recommendation about a year ago and have been impressed with the return so far. Let’s see what happens this time ;)
Interesting, I hope you will be giving a follow up on this in the months ahead ?
P
I have never try using Chitika in any of my blogs, maybe it’s high time that I should.
Been reading good reviews about Chitika of late…. Cool
Thanks for posting about this. I signed up for Chitika but never actually made it work on my blog. I was blown away when I saw their email about their increased revenue. Thanks for the insight.
I just installed the “Mega Unit” on djchaos.com yesterday. After 10 or 20 thousand impressions today I will see how they do. I must say that I have not been impressed with the CPC payout for the premium ad units. The typical rate has been low about .04 / .05 cents. I like Chitika LINX for building revenue which has been producing 8 times or more the CPC of the premium units. I wish Chitika could do something to increase the CPC on the Premium units, afterall these were supposed to be the highest paying ad units they have. Right?
What about Clickank Ad Units. I am currently trying them on my blog. However, I must admit that Chitika looks much better
There have been many such claims and there are a lot of bloggers and website owners who have fallen for such claims….. the claims and the achievements are from people who’ve been in this internet business for longer than we know.
The authority they have amassed among the readers is a quintessential factor to their achievement. No campaign is successful without the traffic and bloggers who vie for this need to understand that traffic building is more important than the newer versions of ad serving on your website.
That is definitely a BIG ad unit.
The fact it is shown only to search engine visitors may very well make it worth the aggressive front and center placement, and worth the time to test out.
That’s a big Ad, but it looks like it only works for big blogs with high page rank.
I installed Chitika Mega Units on my site yesterday. The first day’s earnings were solid, but not “777% better.” – probably because it was replacing an ad in an already-optimized ad position.
I’ll keep testing for a month or so to see how it impacts the site’s bottom line.
I tried installing it and test chitika a while ago, but never got it to work. Might me time to try it again.
Hi there,
This is an excellent means to make money online via blogs.
Cheers,
Eddie Gear
Looks like just like Adsense with images by the side (before they were disallowed)…..about 3 years ago, when everyone was doing it.
I wonder if this new kind of Chitika format can be used WITH Adsense on the same page now?
Thanks Darren for the news. I love Chitika and I have had very good results. I am sure this new ad type will perform really well on my sites. I am going to install it and test some positions.
I’ve started with Adsense since it’s so easy to set it up. But of late I’ve been hearing a lot of Chitika.
I’ll try it out, and I’ll share with you my experience with it.
We’ve had very little luck with Chitika in the past, but those numbers are impressive. I just put the code in – we’ll try it for a week.
I have only good things to say about Chitika. The CTR is 5 times AdSense on my blog and I only use a 460 x 90 block below titles!
Thanks for notifying about this new size, I will surely try this!
That’s surely encouraging, but this means that readers have to *find* your blog first, right? Which takes us back to the whole SEO thingy.
They seem to be promising too much ! I received an email promoting this new ad unit however i have not used them yet . If the difference is really that big i will soon have them installed .
I just reviewed the site. The only problem I see is they want you to fill out a lengthy application and, they only accept sites with tons of traffic. In Addition, I’m not sure how my first time visitors would respond to large advertisements, as they tend to annoy most people. But it’s something I will definitely investigate further.
That’s really huge.. been notified also through email and haven’t confirmed it yet, thanks for the reminder. Checking the code now.
I vaguely remember something about Google having resrictions on other advertisers.
Is it O.K to have both adsense & chitika on the same site or is it just that you can’t have them on the same page or am I just confused?
Paul
The mega-unit is too wide to use on my blog but following your advice I added the regular premium units below the content as well (only had them above the content before) and they perform better than those above…
Thank you very much for the tip.
I definitely wouldn’t use them because it would lower the quality of my website. Users would soon become ad blind. Am I right?
I’ve been using Chitika premium ads for almost two months now and have a few things to say about it:
1. The click-through rates are good. Mind you, it’s high quality traffic.
2. So far, it’s paid less per click than Adsense.
3. I find that Adsense ads look nicer.
4. Chitika should provide more advanced statistics.
All in all, I recommend anyone to try them out to see how they perform in your niche.
Well chitika is for the already made bloggers not starter with low page ranking. Its still a great way for bloggers to make money on the long run.
I just tried Chikita for about a week but they didn’t seem to pay as well as Adsense – about 10 cents per click. Also, I noticed my Adsense CTR went down a lot. When I removed Chikita, it went back up. Same thing happened when I tried Kontera. Was it just coincidence, of does can Adsense detect competitors ads and get ticked?
BUt it is only for premium, that is US targeted traffic.
Typical! The only program that won’t let me in!
Its a shame that it is only shown for visitors from Google search.
I’ve been very careful to make sure that I get traffic from a wide variety of sources – I dont want to have to depend on the big G. So only about ~10 to 15% of my traffic comes from google search.
So I will consider trying it out (I always experiment to see what works), but I cant see it being worthwhile because of their very restrictive terms.
-wf.
This sounds pretty good. I’ve just placed it on some of my sites. But I can already say that this new ad units by Chitika really looks promising.
The more options the better. Sounds good.
I have been using chitika since a while, thanks Darren, first heard from it via you after which I signed up and the results are quite interesting. Chitika delivers me triple the income that I used to have with Adsense (add to that that the Adsense CPC has gone down enourmously + idem for their click through) and it gives no problem for my normal users. In fact due to the very bad results of Adsense lately I plan to get rid of them pretty soon once the new site layout is ready. My site gets between 7000 to 12000 unique visitors a day.
I wanted to report back with some results. The new ads have much better click through rate. 2-4% for us. Unfortunately, Chitika has a pitiful CPC, at least for our niche.
look like new ads rocks this will make some massive increase in revenue.
I’m not interest in Chitika, Adsense is mylife……………
I too am not at all interested in Chitika. Adsense pays me very well and the banners I’ve used before with Chitika have been pennies a day.
It’s worth noting that these ads will also be displayed to search engine visitors from Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
Expanded my content width in order to make room for a mega unit after my posts. Gonna test it out and see how it compares with Adsense, for the first three days, I’m getting 2% to 4% CTR. Tomorrow’s the day I find out how much it’s actually making per click.
I immediately tried the ‘mega unit’ at first reading on the Chitika newsletter. Good God, it works wonders and wonders.
Hi have been using chitika but not satisfied yet see blog:
http://www.mobmani.blogspot.com
I have been looking into Chitika more, based on your other post, and based on the need to increase the monetization of my blogs. I think this is a great idea. I am going to implement it in a few blogs and see how it goes.
I love the fact that it can only shows to those who arrive through search engines and otherwise collapse, so that, as you said, regular readers or people who come directly to your site through a link etc, won’t be put off by the ads, but searchers will be benefited by them.
I wonder if these kind of ads would pay better than Adbrite on page views.