Chitika Tutorial

Chitika is the latest PPC ad network sweeping the internet. It has taken off in the blogging community especially mostly I would say by a combination of excellent product and smart marketing. Prominent bloggers have taken to it and it’s service is attracting the big guns.

Chitika is the next revolution in contextual search marketing (not just my opinion) and will be experiencing explosive growth. It already has a strong subscriber base.

I have signed up with Chitika and my own experience has been extremely pleasant so far. My account console is clear and simple and I was up and running in less than 24 hours. For anyone who has used adsense before it is a breeze.
What’s the difference between Chitika and Adsense

Firstly the similarities are that they both can be contextual - meaning that the ads displayed on a publishers site relate to the content in a dynamic way. However with Chitika you have the option of turning off contextual advertising - and in fact have too if displaying Adsense and Chitika on the same page.

This is a simple matter.
How to turn off Chitika contextual ads

The Chitika code is pasted into your page - just like adsense. There is a line in your code:
ch_non_contextual = 1;

This is actually the default so you really don’t need to change anything to make it non-contextual.
If the value of this code about says 1 it means it is already non-contextual.

Now you can display Chitika ads and Adsense on the same page.
How to change the colours of my Chitika ads

There is a easy point and click colour picker provided in the Chitika admin interface.
How often does Chitika update your stats

From my experience this is done once per day, but they say that they are working on
more frequent updating.
What’s the coolest thing I found out about Chitika recently

There is an important difference with regard to price per click. Currently Chitika pays the same click price to a publisher with only a small amount of traffic as they do to a huge traffic site. Adsense has something called smart pricing which means that if you are low in the search engine you may only be earning a few cents a click while someone else may get several times as much for the same ad.

I have a number of high position pages - but overall with the new adsense smart pricing - my income has dropped from adsense. I believe Chitika is a fresh look. They seem to be taking the best from everywhere and putting it into their program.
How do I get Started as a Chitika Publisher

Simply apply here - once your site is approved - takes about 24 hours - you can place the Chitika code on any of your sites.
How to increase the clickthru with Chitika

Optimising Chitika ads to increase clickthru rate, follows the same principle as adsense. Merge the ads into your site - so that the background colors match - using Chitika color picker - or even hacking the code - they don’t mind if you change the colours to suit your site. Place the ads above the fold (so they are in the most prominent place ) Use Similar positioning techniques to adsense and then test.

The ads are themselves interactive but strangely pleasant. I don’t know how they did this but I’m impressed.