Chitika Mini-Malls Ads
First of all, Chitika is offering few types of advertiment formats but I am only talking about the Chitika Mini-Malls ads only (because only it can stay with Adsense in same page).
Unlike other online advertisements, Chitika eMiniMalls is live! Each ads has a few tabs (description, best deals, reviews, and search) that give more product information to the visitors. So, it gets high click-thru-rate? Sorry, the answer is NO.
Low CTR
Do you surprise that Chitika eMiniMalls actually gets very low CTR? Move your mouse arrow on the ads, you will find that only graphic and the linked text is clickable (which make money). Other than that all the plain text is NOT clickable.
If a visitor clicks on plain text or empty space of the ads, the click is not valid. This is different with the Adsense ads, which the whole ads block is clickable. Base on the clickable area, I am not surprise that eMiniMalls get lower CTR.
High Pay per Click
Though eMiniMalls has low CTR but it pays VERY well! It pays 60% of Chitika’s revenue, which per click will easily gives you 10x more than Adsense click! This is the reason why many web publishers love Chitika.
Chitika Report
Frankly, Chitika really need to improve the reporting system interface. It looks so plain and simple, which made me think it is a fake (until Chitika paid me). Basically, you have three links only: Get eMiniMalls code, Unaudited Revenue, and Audited Revenue.
Every click on Chitika ads need to be audited before it is actually counted as your revenue. Therefore, current clicks will be listed under “Unaudited Revenue” and Chitika will review the clicks at end of the month. Approved clicks will become “Audited Revenue”, then Chitika pays you by PayPal if your revenue is over USD$10 (cheque payment is also available for revenue more than USD$50).
Unlike Adsense report, Chitika report only updated once per day. It saves you from checking the report every ten minutes. Also, Chitika does not provide ads channel to track the ads performance (heard that it is going to implement soon). Update: ads channel is implemented.
Adsense and Chitika
Previously I was using Chitika eMiniMalls ads along with Google Adsense. I contacted Adsense team to make sure Chitika ads is allowed but received a “No”. Chitika ads was removed immediately then. But, two weeks before, I was told that Adsense actually confused about eMiniMalls with other Chitika ads, Chitika eMiniMalls is ALLOWED!
