Get Started Quickly with Chitika|Premium

July 22nd, 2008

Posted in: Publisher Tools

YOU: Have a website with a good amount of US search engine traffic and are looking for highly targeted text ads that will earn you revenue. You need access to a large, diverse set of inventory with clean content for your pages. After all, you like to keep your visitors happy.

Chitika|Premium ad units: Behaviorally-targeted ad units that shows text ads from a diverse set of advertisers.

Steps for easily getting started:

1. Login to your account / Sign up for Chitika

2. Once logged in, click the arrow on the Get Code tab, then choose Chitika|Premium:

3. Follow the simple Steps to choosing your format size, ad unit colors, and setting your alternate URL (optional), then COPY YOUR CODE by clicking in the code box.

4. Now you paste the code on your website/blog.
Use this heatmap for placement tips.

How to insert Premium into The New Blogger, Classic Blogger, WordPress, TypePad Pro, TypePad Basic or Plus.

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Chitika | Premium for Ad Networks

July 17th, 2008

Posted in: Front Page News, Optimizing

Over the last couple of weeks, a host of ad networks have begun using Chitika | Premium within their own advertising inventory; some small, some much, much larger (Think: Comscore Top-50 type). This post is about the dynamics of using Chitika | Premium in your own ad network. [Due to the sensitivity of each ad network’s business model, I cannot ‘name any names’ in this blog post]

Please Note: If you don’t own or work for an ad network, you might want to stop reading :-)

What is Chitika | Premium?
Chitika | Premium is a behaviorally-targeted ad unit that shows text ads from a diverse set of advertisers. Here are some features of this unit:

• Large diverse set of inventory. There are advertisers for pretty much everything under the sun (from “Batman” to “baseball” to even “Britney Spears”)
• Very highly targeted: Ads are targeted to user behavior (specially search behavior). Due to this, the CTR is high (much, much higher than regular banner AND text ads)
• Clean content: The format is aesthetically pleasing and clean, so your users find this appealing (there is none of the flashing stuff that will make your publishers mad!)

Why would I use Chitika | Premium?
One word: Backfill. Also…

• No channel conflict (there is a good chance you and Chitika are not going after the same advertisers. And if this happens to be the case, Chitika has the systems to exclude your advertisers)
• We only take the inventory we can deliver on, so there is no inventory wasted. If we can’t deliver, we redirect back to your ad server.

How does the implementation work?
The concept is simple: You use the Chitika | Premium ad unit for parts of your inventory. If we have a behavioral profile on this user, we show the unit. If not, we redirect back to your ad server so that the next campaign in line can run.

What Ad servers are supported?
At this time, we have tested this with Doubleclick, 24/7 Realmedia’s OAS and Openads/Openx/phpAdsNew . If your ad server is not on this list, contact us and we should be able to make it work (our engineers are smart and have gallons of coffee at their disposal!)

Who to Contact?
If you are an ad network and this sounds interesting to you, please contact Jeff Sable (jeff [at] chitika [dot] com) OR call 866-441-7203 and select option 1.

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26,000+ Publishers and Counting…

July 15th, 2008

Posted in: Front Page News, Inside Chitika

Chitika Inc. was founded just 5 years ago in 2003 and since then, we’ve created over 70+ power-packed revenue-earning ad units for our publishers. We increased our publisher base by almost 15,000 in the past year alone by expanding our advertiser inventory to be suitable for ALL types of websites.

Here’s a list of a few of the awesome things we’ve done over the years that got us where we are today…

• Chitika extends referral program from 12 to 15 months so publishers have extra revenue for the holiday season.
• Chitika experts get busy providing Holiday Expert Optimizations in Chitika SPHERE
• Chitika kicks off the Facebook referral program & eMiniMalls Facebook API
• Chitika releases first study estimating the revenue in the blogosphere - $500 Million
• Chitika launches Premium Publishers Club
• Chitika publishes 3 eBooks
• Chitika continuously adds to its growing list of awards
• Referral program continues on strong! Now offering two kinds of referral programs!
• Chitika launches new lineup of services: OnDemand, a Self-Service Advertising Program & AdPro is a new hosted self service ad management platform

Keep up with us and our journey to the next 26,000 by subscribing to The Chitika Blog and/or by signing up for our monthly Newsletter.

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SBM. The Extended SEM.

July 14th, 2008

Posted in: Front Page News, Industry Pulse, Inside Chitika

Extend Your SEM Reach. Keep Your Keywords.
Why are we stopping SEM at search when we can take the power of keyword targeting beyond search? Ask any successful search engine marketing client what their successful, perhaps kick-a$$, keywords are and he or she will happily list off enough to compose a lengthy tongue twister. We all know the SEMantra:
Kick-A$$ keyword line-up = Ability to drive Quality traffic to e-business

After a web user searches for something they do not disappear into thin air, or the world-wide-webosphere… SEM has proven to be the most effective online marketing channel for driving relevant, valuable—ideal—web traffic to e-businesses. With SBM, or search behavior marketing, marketers can now extend their SEM success, and use their same Kick-A$$ Keywords to target ads to their ideal audience beyond the search listings page and into content-rich websites.

SBM targets web audiences based on their search behavior by tracking their web activity, including affinity to search for certain terms as well as sites they frequent (ie; a web user who searches for Travel in Paris, and visits WSJ.com every few hours…) Learn more about SBM.

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Yes, I’m camping out for an iPhone…again

July 10th, 2008

Posted in: Industry Pulse

I will not be in the office tomorrow, for I’m going to be on a mission; despite the snarky comments from some of my colleagues, I will be, once again, waiting in line to buy an iPhone.

I waited for 5 1/2 hours last June 29^th for an iPhone on a beautiful, sunny Massachusetts afternoon, and in a few hours I will set up my camping chair and endure a humid, bug-infested Massachusetts night to purchase the new iPhone 3G and, hopefully, get my picture on the front page of the local newspaper again. I’m not an Apple “fanboy”; the only Mac computers I’ve ever owned were purchased for the sole purpose of repairing and re-selling. However, I’m a HUGE iPod fan (I’ve owned 2 iPods, a Nano, and 2 Shuffles in my day) and love the concept of carrying one device that handles everything I need.

^{[image credit: apple.com]}

I’ve had many, many different cell phones over the past 10 years; a StarTAC, a RAZR, various Windows Mobile phones…I’m officially hooked on the iPhone; all the other phones, in comparison, seem slow, underpowered, and user-unfriendly. I even imported an “iPhone killer” thinking it would be an alternative to my mild un-satisfaction with Apple’s offering.

I had 3 major complaints about iPhone 1.0 - no GPS, no 3G internet, and no A2DP (stereo audio over bluetooth). The iPhone 3G solves two of those issues and the third, audio over bluetooth, will probably be solved by a crafty developer’s iPhone application.

Yeah, I forgot to mention that - 3rd-party apps for the iPhone. Say what you will about Apple “finally” catching up to the rest of the mobile world and allowing 3rd-party apps, but it’s always been…oh my gosh, is that “Super Monkey Ball” for the iPhone?!?

So, will I see you in line tomorrow, too?

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High Search Engine Traffic = High Chitika|Premium Revenue

July 9th, 2008

Posted in: PPC Ad Units, Publisher Tools

Darren Rowse at Problogger has posted some great tips on How to Grow Search Engine Traffic to Your Blog. How does this relate to earning revenue with Chitika?

Chitika|Premium ad units are specifically designed to display when, among other behaviors, your visitors are coming from a search engine; so it only makes sense that you’ll earn good revenue from Premium ad units if you have a good amount of search engine traffic.

Since we already know that search engine traffic is more likely to convert to ad clicks than non-search traffic (see our Google/Digg traffic study here), increasing your search engine traffic will give your Premium ads more exposure and, therefore, increase your revenue.

This winning combination yields a high eCPM for many of our publishers already.

Have a lot of search engine traffic from the U.S? Then you can find great ad placement tips here.

New to Chitika?

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Apparently Domain Names ARE Important…

July 8th, 2008

Posted in: Industry Pulse

Last week I posted an article about top-level domains, and added some of my own pithy analysis. Rather than keeping to the topic at hand, I started rambling about various other topics, and I asked “are domain names REALLY that important anymore?” In response, a reader named Bruno emailed me the following:

I would like to add that Direct Navigation, or traffic received from users typing the domain name directly into the address bar - bypassing search engines - amounts for a large percentage of overall Internet traffic (I don’t have the exact number off the top of my head). I have a personal portfolio of names, and have many colleagues that also do, that receive thousands of views/day from this type of traffic, without any marketing or seo.

He’s absolutely right - direct navigation has always been a very significant portion of overall internet traffic; a 2003 study found that 64% of internet traffic was via direct navigation. Much of that navigation is “good” domain names of generic things - if I want pizza, isn’t pizza.com a good place to look? However, there’s only a finite number of names like this, so everyone else must be getting direct traffic through other methods that aren’t so random.

But, my question is, how much of this traffic is due to a “wicked good” domain name, and how much is because of bookmarks, RSS feeds, etc.? I’d never randomly navigate to woot.com based on the domain name (is it about owls? Who knows?) but it’s bookmarked in all my browsers and it’s my first stop every morning.

…after I visit chitika.com, of course.

So I guess the point of this rebuttal is this - domain names are, indeed, very important, but so are all the other tools to drive traffic to your site, gain an audience, make money…

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Fireworks, Freedom, and the 4th of July

July 3rd, 2008

Posted in: Inside Chitika

^{[image credit: osha.gov]}

Many of us here at Chitika are getting ready for the 4th of July holiday; planning barbecues, taking vacations, and lots of other activities that involve being stuck in a car for 6 hours.

But, rest assured, our ads and servers will be closely monitored this weekend:

^{Desk of Ryan Travis, Director of Client Services}

The Chitika offices will be closed on Friday, July 4th for Independence Day and will re-open Monday, July 7th.

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Chitika Gets LinkedIn, And So Can You!

July 3rd, 2008

Posted in: Industry Pulse, Publisher Tools

LinkedIn is a social network for professionals from industries of all shapes and sizes; at present more than 20 million users from around the world use it to find potential business clients and opportunities, post job listings, and meet other professionals through your network.

We created the Chitika Revenue | Feedback Group as an open forum of publishers who meet monthly to learn new ideas, explore best practices, and discuss opportunities to grow their advertising revenue.

If you use Chitika’s products, are interested in learning more about our services, or just want to meet some great people, sign up by clicking the button below. We look forward to connecting with you!

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Unlike Google, Chitika Referral Programs Still Going Strong

July 1st, 2008

Posted in: Front Page News, Industry Pulse, Referral Program Rewards, Inside Chitika, eMiniMalls

For absolutely no reason at all, and with no prompting whatsoever, we here at Chitika wanted to mention our referral programs. We have one of the longest and highest-yielding referral programs of any advertising company. In fact, we have two!

Publisher Referral Program

By referring others to the Chitika program you will earn 10% of what they earn for 15 months! (Don’t worry, the 10% comes from Chitika, not your friends; they get the same amount) Any Chitika publisher can benefit from our referral program. Spread the word with one of our referral banners (as seen above), pass out your referral link, or by using our ads - the “Chitika” link in the top right corner of our ad units is also a referral link!

Advertiser Referral Program

Chitika users can earn referral revenue for advertisers they bring to our network. You’ll earn $25.00 once your advertiser referral reaches $100.00 spent in their ad campaign, and there is no limit to the number of referrals you can generate each month.

Not yet a user? Sign up now!

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