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Chitika eMiniMalls – How Much Money Do they Earn Me?

Posted By Darren Rowse 5th of October 2005 Chitika eMiniMalls 0 Comments

Chitika-EminimallsI’ve been getting quite a few excited emails from readers who have signed up for the Chitika eMiniMalls that I reviewed last week. There has been a lot of positive feedback so far from those who I’ve referred over to the program with some people earning some significant money from it so far (including ‘Rachel‘). There have also been a few (less) emails from bloggers who have failed to see them as effective.

The most common question that I get asked by readers about the eMiniMalls include:

  • ‘How do the money from eMiniMalls compare to earnings of Adsense?’
  • ‘How much money do you earn from eMiniMalls?’

(update: the third most asked question is ‘how do I increase my earnings?’ If you’re asking this you might also like to check out Chitika eMiniMall Tips for increasing earnings)

I’ve resisted talking about specific figures of money earnt to this point because I wanted to clarify with the Chitika people whether I was allowed to do so. Today I just got confirmation that it’s ok for me to talk about daily earnings figures but not CTR, impressions etc. The reason I want to talk about this is simply because I really believe in this ad system – as you’ll see from the figures below – it’s had a pretty amazing impact upon my earnings and I’d like readers here to have the full picture of what the potential to earn money with it is.

So let’s look at yesterday’s earnings for me with both Adsense and Chitika were. Update: due to Adsense terms (that I misread) I have been told that I cannot reveal my daily Adsense figures but only gross payment figures (monthly totals). So I’ll do that here instead of a daily figure for yesterday. You can pretty much work out what the Adsense earnings are from the figure if you know how many days are in August! All I’ll say is that yesterday was a bit under August’s average.


Adsense earnings for August – $15,849.73

Chitika eMiniMalls earnings Yesterday – $702.45

Let me follow the figures up with a few statements of qualification:

  • Yesterday Adsense was a little below average for me
  • While I can’t mention how many impressions there were for either program – they were very similar to one another
  • The Chitika eMiniMalls figure is before their auditing process takes effect. From what I’ve seen of this process last month – this is likely to decrease that figure by around 10% – update this turned out to be an accurate estimation of the audit figure for this day.
  • The ads appear across a range of sites (17 or so – NOT just this site). In most cases they appear on the same pages as one another (remember that you need to disable the contextual ad function of the eMiniMalls to do this and stay within Adsense’s TOS
  • The CTR for Adsense is significantly higher than it was for the eMiniMalls
  • The click value for eMiniMalls is significantly higher than it was for Adsense
  • From what I can tell from these results and those of readers who are trying eMiniMalls (Chitika is yet to add channels) – the best performing sites seem to be product related blogs including blogs about gadgets, clothing, etc. Having said this I’ve heard from a number of bloggers with VERY general, non product related sites that are doing reasonably well out of them also.
  • These are not just one off or fluke numbers – I’ve had no major increases in traffic over the past few days – I have added the eMiniMalls to more pages in the past week – but the numbers seem to be consistent over the past few days. Time will tell whether they will remain at this level but I have no reason to believe that they will not.
  • The above figures are in US dollars.

As you can see from the numbers – I personally have reason to be pretty excited about eMiniMalls. If these numbers continue they will more than double my daily earnings and taken them to a level that is over $1000 per day. This is less than some of the bigger blog networks out there but for an ordinary guy like me who has only been at this blogging thing for under 3 years – I have to say that it’s very promising. I can’t guarantee that they work on every blog – but they are definately worth experimenting with.

Disclaimer: the links to Chitika in this post are affiliate links – if you sign up using these links I earn a small amount as a commission. It does not impact what you earn from Chitika but rather is paid by Chitika. While these links are affiliate links I genuinely believe in the product and have endeavored to point out both its benefits and weaknesses in all my writing about it.

Update – I give an update on my Chitika Earnings in this post.

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. Congratulations, you deserve every penny. I bet Chitika is going to love you, they’re getting great exposure. It will be interesting to see your referral earnings after a couple of months. I bet they end up being quite significant.

    BTW, are you replacing adsense spots with these ads? Or are you just adding new ad spots?

    Anyway, that does it. It’s time for me to implement!

  2. I havn’t replaced any ads yet.

    I say yet because at these rates I think it might be worth me considering doing just that because the mind boggles at what they could earn if they were put in the prime positions that i’ve got Adsense ads in!

  3. Yeah, that’s absolutely insane. I just implemented into ForeverGeek so we’ll see how it does. As you know, it’s a pretty high traffic site, so hopefully it can earn both of us some money(since I signed up through your referral). Anyway, that’s awesome news, congratulations again!

  4. […] Thanks to Darren’s chat with the Chitika guys, I can now reveal exactly what Chitika is earning me, though I can’t report traffic or CTR. […]

  5. Chitika is earning me 1/5 of Adsense earnings. I am still figuring out some optimization tricks. The CTR is very very low, but the click value is definitely good.

  6. So you’re telling us that you now earn $1100 a day! Shit man, this is amazing. You are going to earn $400,000 in the next 12 months if this keeps going!

    And this doesn’t even include your Affiliate programs, that course you are running or the other advertising you run on your sites!

    SHIT! Can I be your friend?

  7. […] Recently, as you might have noticed, I saw quite a number of bloggers adopting a new advertising program, Chitika. I think it’s worth for us to spend some time to learn more about it. The thing that caught my eyes was the eMiniMalls which looks so much more interesting, if to be compared to the normal text ads. In addition to that, it has been said that the pay per click is higher although the click through rate is lower. What do you think? […]

  8. Francis says: 10/05/2005 at 4:30 am

    We’ve implemented eMiniMalls and had lukeware CTR in the beginning, but nice click value. After testing in various locations we found our sweet spot and the CTR just shot through the roof. We were making good coin and we were optimistic with eMiniMalls.

    Then the click values dropped. What was making us $X dollars a day was now making us $X – 50%. It was ridiculous. We just started making cash too. What was also aggrevating was the non contextual ads that were being put on our site. We had home appliances on a gadget site for god’s sake!

    It’s good to add some variety to your site especially to clear ‘ad blindness’, but I’m convinced that eMiniMalls are no Adsense when it comes to contextually based adverts.

    We continue to use eMiniMalls but we’re waiting till they get their shit together before we give them premium placement once again.

  9. these are interesting figures.
    its funny that it took so long for some concept as simple as this to emerge. I had heard discussions about rich banner ads like this back in 99, but people were afraid of losing the clickthrus and such. guess they were wrong to be afraid, especially if they are pushing so much business.

  10. Chitika is really good for product review sites

  11. having problems with getting the right ads displayed??

    In the FAQ they mention the following:

    Can I set my own keywords and products instead of contextually targeting products?

    Yes. By default, the products are contextually targeted to your content. If you’d like to set your own query or product, we can do so by specifying it in ch_query javascript param. For example, to target the “canon powershot” camera you would add this line to the javascript code:

    ch_query = “canon powershot”;

  12. I’m really liking the eMiniMalls system, and have added them on DigitalTechNews.com and will add to other blogs as well. As Darren said, don’t forget you need to disable the contextual ad function of the eMiniMalls to do this and stay within Adsense’s TOS.

  13. Wow, every month you break new barriers. It is nice to see what some hard work will do for someone. I need to get off my rear and make some of the dough you are!

  14. to stay within the adsense TOS, i assume it’s only disbale contextual ads on the same page as adsense ads?

    I’m considering trying the chikita ads on similar traffic pages to adsense ads, but not on the same page together – would that be ok?

    congratulations darren (and also chikita who probably can’t believe their good fortune ;-) )

  15. dang

    that’s pretty good money for blogging. congrats.

  16. Does anyone know when channels will become available in the reports? It’s sort of hit and miss as to what’s working and what isn’t until that feature is added. I’ve implemented the code ( ch_sid = ‘xxxx’; ) already, just waiting for the reports to start showing it.

  17. No idea on when they’ll be available – but I know they are working on it.

  18. Hey Darren, you are right on Chitika. I’m getting anywhere between .60 – .90 cents per click on a very general topics. CTR is something I need to work on, but looks very promising.

    I got a question for you. You said you have an affiliate link there, but when I asked Chitika, they said it should be available very soon, like this week. How did you get your affiliate link? is it something special for the original beta testers?

  19. I can’t really speak on their behalf on that question Niche Marketing Guy but its probably a combination of:

    1. me asking for an affiliate program (I think they were thinking about it already but I pushed a bit)
    2. me spending some significant time feeding back tips and suggestions to them on eMiniMalls
    3. luck (maybe they wanted to test the affiliate program before going live with it)

    Not sure – there might be other factors. I’m not complaining though.

  20. Very interesting, but unfortunately I’m afraid that it won’t have the same impact on non-English countries…

  21. Congratulations! Jacob is right, you deserve every cent. I have to admit, I read figures like that and nearly faint because I can’t *fathom seeing that kind of income from blogging. I read your posts and become alternately paralyzed by assuming certain defeat if I hope to earn 1/100,000 of those numbers and energized at the possibility. Right now? I have a cool cloth on my head.

  22. Yes Carlos – its unfortunately that they don’t have any other language options than English at this stage. If they expand though I’m sure its something they’d love to do down the track. I guess they have to start somewhere though. Adsense used to be just English from memory and they’ve gradually added options over time. Lets hope they have the same approach.

    Thanks Lisa – yeah those figures make my head spin a little (or a lot) too

  23. I recently got my eMiniMalls and experimenting with one of the Adsense placements. So far there hasn’t been any clicks but views rather. So I’ll be monitoring further and report it later. But readership is the big driver behind the drive of ad revenue. :)

    Cheers.

  24. […] Darren Rowse over at Problogger reported $700 yesterday from his eMini-Malls alone. […]

  25. I have yet to make my first dollar with Chitika :( but congrats on your thousand a day.

  26. Thats amazing. Well done Darren!
    (is that USD or AUD?)

    Andrew

  27. USD

    And just to clear this up because some have said that the Chitika total must include ‘kickbacks’ for referring people to the program. This is incorrect. the totals you see there are totally and completely from advertising revenue.

    I have no idea what the affiliate program will bring in as the reporting system for it is still being put together and is days or weeks away.

  28. I am going to implement chitika on my blog and couple of network sites. I was wondering whether to use them side by side adsense or not. As they are context based ads and it’s against Google’s terms to use other contextual ads along with adsense.

  29. Read the review that I link to in this post – it gives some information on this.

  30. damm.. I want that figure :)

  31. Wow! Rocking figures, I can dream of that kind of figures.

  32. Phenomenal numbesr Darren.

    You are a mentor to many, including me, and deserve good fortune.

    Thanks!
    Rick

  33. Blog Intro has a list of Chitika tricks going. He has a way of changing the default tab order in the miniMalls.

  34. Thomas says: 10/06/2005 at 1:34 am

    Are the numbers given by Chitika on the unaudited reports page pre of after their 40% cut?

  35. How do you target several phrases?

    Using the above example…

    ch_query = “canon camera photography”;

    -or-

    ch_query = “canon”;
    ch_query = “camera”;
    ch_query = “photography”;

    I really wanted to try and automate these (by feeding my blog post title into ch_query) but this doesn’t seem to work too well. I’d rather not have to find a good match first and then manually enter this keyword on every blogpost(and even if I did do this how do I know which keywords *are* giving good targetting, where do I test keywords etc)

    The chitika admin & reporting leaves a lot to be desired, remember they earn the other 40% so with all this PR etc they must be earning a few dollars, hopefully they will reinvest some in their backend (oh and maybe someone who reply to mails at CS :)

  36. Found the answer to my question:

    var ch_queries = new Array(’phrase1′, ‘phrase2′, ‘phrase3′);
    var ch_selected = Math.floor((Math.random() * ch_queries.length));
    ch_query = ch_queries[ch_selected];

  37. Thomas – the numbers that you see in your reports are after Chitika has taken their cut – you get everything that you see after the audit.

    lart – good spot – that’s the code I use to rotate the ads you see here on my sidebar through 4 or so different rotations.

  38. […] – Earning a Six Figure Income from Blogging – Look what Blogging Bought Me – the house that Google Bought – Network Blogging vs Individual Blogging – I’m a Six Figure Blogger – Chitika eMiniMalls – How much do they Earn? – the day eMiniMalls became my number 1 earner! […]

  39. […] Chitika eMiniMalls – How Much Do they Earn Me? by Darren Rowse […]

  40. […] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. […]

  41. Loren Baker says: 10/06/2005 at 3:08 pm

    For publishing on non-product review sites I’ve tried placing multiple queries for popular top dollar tech items in the ads; ipods, pdas, sony psp.

    When I had the contextual targeting running, it was showing ads for shoes in an Opera browser story…

  42. […] Overall – I’ve been beta testing mini-malls for 5 weeks now and am very happy with them. They don’t out perform Adsense – but my overall earnings with them for the month of September is more than a quarter and less than a half of my Adsense earnings for the month (regularly readers will be able to do some sums and come up with some approximate earnings there). Take into consideration that I don’t have them running on every blog I own and have not spent much time optimizing them yet and you’ll see that they have some real potential. (update: after another week of testing them I can now announce that they are outperforming Adsense for me – in fact my daily earnings from them have been very high so far – over $700 in a day). […]

  43. My Chitika eMiniMalls earning today performs better than Adsense. Its better than my highest Adsense earning with 50% less clicks

  44. […] This ProBlogger entry has just scared me. Fifteen thousand dollars a month… and he’s just found a way to double it?!? […]

  45. […] This ProBlogger entry has just scared me. Fifteen thousand dollars a month… and he’s just found a way to double it?!? […]

    By getting this article Slashdotted perhaps?

  46. According to Darren, being Slashdotted doesn’t help a lot, because people coming from there don’t tend to click on ads… it’s still nice to see the traffic, though. Maybe it’ll happen to me someday. :)

  47. vivek says: 10/07/2005 at 1:12 am

    Sorry I cannot find solution to this, where Can i find info on this:
    “Don’t forget you need to disable the contextual ad function of the eMiniMalls to do this and stay within Adsense’s TOS”
    Plz let me know. Thanks

    Regards,

    Vivek

  48. I’ll give ’em a try – I don’t like the fact that they only do american $$ stuff (something you should have much of a problem with), and they are quite uglay, but the PayPal thing is nice. I might treat myself to a little ebay here and there :D

  49. Un interesante formato publicitario para blogs

    Llevo unos días investigando sobre este formato de publicidad, que está haciendo bastante ruido últimamente porque su efectividad está siendo bastante buena. El concepto es interesante. Se llama Chitika eMiniMall y como form…

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