Chitika Alternatives
Posted on July 1, 2008
Filed Under Earn money online
If you are a Chitika publisher, then you’ve surely noticed a big change in your average CPC and earnings in May. Unfortunately, for most publishers this resulted in much lower earnings than before.
You can see some of the comments in this post:
What the f is going on with Chitika?
There was also quite a bit of discussions in the Chitika forums and other IM forums like Digital Point.
I use to get around 0.35 per click 6 months ago in my vacuum cleaners niche. Later, the CPC dropped to around 0.21 to 0.25 and was quite stable there.
Here’s what happened to my CPC in May:
With the introduction of a different business model, Chitika earnings have dropped almost 50% in my niche. It seems to me that most product based sites are now earnings less per click than they did before.
Chitika claims that some publishers now enjoy much higher earnings than before. Well, if you are NOT one of those, you may start looking for Chitika alternatives.
1. Google Adsense
In my case, I’ve removed some Chitika ads from my sites and added an additional Adsense unit. Google Adsense average CPC is now higher than Chitika’s so that’s one alternative to look for.
2. Amazon (Context links)
Another Chitika alternative that proved quite positive are Amazon Context links. I’ve installed the code on my site about 2 weeks ago and have earned almost $500 in June.
The cool thing about Amazon Context links is that you only paste a code on every page of your site (very easy if you use SBI Includes files) and Amazon automatically links keywords which represent products in Amazon’s database.
And once people get on Amazon, they like to shop. As you can see in the picture above, my conversion rate for Context links is over 2% which is quite good.
3. WidgetBucks
I applied to WidgetBucks.com program, tested it on my sites for a week and was disappointed with the earnings. Your results may be different and it won’t cost you anything (except some time) to test them.
4. Affiliate programs
Chitika works by getting the feeds from major online shopping sites (Shopping.com, Shopzilla.com, …) and using them in their eMiniMalls, Linx and other units. These are then used by publishers and that’s how Chitika connects the advertisers and the publishers.
One way to avoid Chitika is to become an affiliate for Shopping.com directly. I have applied to Shopping and Shopzilla and am waiting for their reply.
You can of course check CJ.com, Shareasale.com and other affiliate networks for possible replacement of Chitika ads.
So far, I am sticking with Adsense, some Chitika ads and Amazon Context links. If you have found a good Chitika alternative, please let me know in the comments below. Of course, share your Chitika story too!
Update: I just received an email from Kate who represents Tinymassive.com (aff link). This looks like a Chitika similar network and I have signed up for it and am testing it on my site. I’ll let you know in a day or two how they perform…
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8 Responses to “Chitika Alternatives”
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I have got the same problem with my chitika earnings. The average cpc in my niche was about $0,20 and i can be happy if i average $0,11.
So i applied for kontera and tested for about 3 weeks but without good results
I think i gonna implement amazon context links as you suggested.
Also applied for Shopzilla but they didn’t accepted me, probably because my google PR is just 2.
Tomaz,
I share your frustration, literally. As a reminder, our relationship has Chitika earning a minority of the CPC revenue, with the publisher earning the majority. As your cpc number decreases, so does mine.
That being said, we absolutely ARE seeing great success with the *Premium* ad program. My recommendation to you (and others who read this note) – is to leverage the ability of our *Premium* ad unit to redirect to a non-Chitika ad when we cannot serve a *Premium* ad. If you do not redirect we will serve the best performing ad unit we can serve at that time (and hence your overall eCPM will be lower than it should). If you need help with setting this redirect up, contact me (jeff at chitika dot com) and I will assist you or I will point you towards one of my smarter teammates who will assist you.
The good news for product sites is actually great news – the CTR (click through rate) for *Premium* ads is, on average, much greater than the CTR was with our former eMiniMalls and RPUs. Even with a lower CPC, our eCPM yield is better (in most cases) on product pages than what was happening in the past, due to the much higher CTR. (Keep in mind, use the *Premium* ad AND redirect when we cannot serve a *Premium* ad).
Tomaz, we want to be a mission critical partner for you for a long time. If you’re not benefiting from the *Premium* ads, let’s fix this asap.
jeff
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for this explanation. If I understand correctly (talking with Ryan about this), Premium ads are shown “automatically” instead if eMiniMalls if they can be shown. (If someone found the page through a keyword search).
So I don’t really need to replace eMiniMalls with Premium, right?
I don’t worry that much about eCPM, since if people don’t click on Chitika, they can click on Adsense. Which right now pays more than Chitika.
What I worry about is that I get 0.15 per click instead of 0.25 per click.
And 90% of my traffic is search engine traffic. So, if you can suggest any changes, I’d be happy to implement them.
Tomaz,
Any luck with TinyMassive.com?
Phil
Hey Phil,
Not really. ;(
I used one very targeted ad and it got a few clicks for around 0.11 and 0.12 but no clicks in the last week despite over 400 impressions every day.
Chitika is now improving slightly (in my niche) with around 0.17 and 0.18 per click on average.
[...] I’ve been positively surprised by the Amazon affiliate program last month. When Chitika average CPC dropped a few months ago (now it’s back up!) I was looking for Chitika alternatives. [...]
Hey Tomaz,
Over the past month or so people have been complaining about Chitika dropping their websites because they are not certified for premium links anymore. The forum discussion is already 3 pages long and I am wondering if I should continue to try to get into the program.
They are already considerably backlogged from acquiring all the yahoo subscriber links. They stated it would take 3-6 months to get to my application.
Hi Dwight,
Chitika works fine for me. If you have LOTS of traffic (over 1000 daily visitors), then you have some negotiating power as your site is valuable to advertisers and Chitika. If not, you’re not really interesting to them.
Whether you should apply or not is really your call…