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Chitika launches Multi-Product Unit

Posted By Darren Rowse 21st of June 2006 Chitika eMiniMalls 0 Comments

Chitika have just announced a new ad format – the Multi-Product Unit.

Basically they are the same as single product units in operation except that they highlight 4 products at once. One is more dominant than others but if you scroll over the other products you’ll see them highlighted live in the ad unit.

 Images Multi

Those who are already Chitika Publishers can automatically use them by just logging in and choosing the ‘468 x 180 Multi-Product Blog Banner’ unit from the ‘Select eMiniMalls Format’ drop down menu.

At this point they only come in the one size which might make it difficult for some blogs that don’t have an appropriate space but it’ll be useful for others. Hopefully they add some more sizes down the track (although it’d be hard to do small ones with space considerations).

You can test them at Chitika’s Multi-Product Unit.

PS: Links in this post are affiliate links.

Update: I’ve had a lot of emails from people asking me whether Chitika are ‘better’ than they used to be – let me give a quick response.

My advice on Chitika eMinimalls has never changed. They work brilliantly for me – they earn me a similar amount as I earn from AdSense and do especially well on any of my site’s with a product focus (gadgets especially) BUT they don’t work for everyone.

There have been a lot of “Chitika Hate” campaigns over the last few months (most of them unfair in my opinion) as a result of some problems that they had initially around auditing and one or two months when payments went out late.

Since it all ‘hit the fan’ I’ve personally not had any problems. My payments have come on time and they’ve continue to perform well. My monthly audit is still in the 10-15% range and from talking to others their audits have not really varied month to month. The amount you are audited depends upon many factors including the source of traffic.

My advice is that if you are going to give Chitika a go to go into it like any other ad program – ie with realistic expectations. To do well from it you’ll need decent traffic, you’ll need to be smart about how to place and design your ads and you’ll need a topic that relates to the products that they feature. As with all programs – I advise to enter into them expecting good things but willing to experiment with different placements and targetting to see what works best. If it works – keep tweaking it to improve your results – if it doesn’t and you’ve given it a fair run try something else.

For more on Chitika eMinimalls check out my review on them and my Chitika eMiniMall general tips and tips on how to increase CTR.

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. Thats Good, I thought of Dropping Chitika, But I’ll continue with it.

    Thanks Darren

  2. OK, I strategically placed them at my blog’s frontpage, but still it doesnt look good due to its bulky size.

    Chitika needs to launch different size of Multi Ads Unit

  3. Chitika has also not shown the best returns for me, but I’m willing to try it again and see if it does better with these features.

  4. Definitely like this new feature, though I agree it needs to be available in some other sizes before I can start using it.

  5. Interesting…Kinda makes me want to give Chitika another chance on my sites.

  6. I’m still considering … your points are quite useful… THX

  7. I’ve still got the C account and am considering where best to place them. The truth is that they are still very limited compared to AdSense – not only are they purely product based (whereas AdSense will display ads for services, information, etc. as well, even though these might not always pay as highly) but their range of products is limited, so even using the contextual feature doesn’t always bring up relevant ads (if I see that iPod one more time… :)

    I reckon it will work better on one of my new projects launching in the next couple of months.

    As to the new ad unit, it looks quite good but it’s quite prominent and might be too dominant on the page – it’s heading for some of the large Amazon banners which I never understood why or where anyone would use.

  8. I had problems with that new “multi” ad yesterday (no product display), but it seems it starts working OK today.

    Chitika is working well for product oriented blogs. It is doing fine on my paddling and photography blog where I can talk a lot about cameras and photo equipments. Cpc is not so great any more. In addition to some decent Cpc I am also getting for the same product a bunch of “two pennies” payments.

  9. Well im going to try them and and see how they do.

  10. Chitika is doing well for me on my tech related blogs, not as well as adsense, but then again they are not in the primary positions either.
    Definitely a worthy adition to adsense though.
    I look forward to testing these and to see how relevant etc the other products are.

    Is Chitika down for anyone else? it’s been down for me all day long, both IE and firefox. Ads are still showing though :)

  11. I’ll give ’em a few pages to try this on, but frankly I’m not expecting much. Chitika performed horribly on my site – I like the ads, they should fit well with my pages, I really like this multi-unit ad, but they brought in a fraction of what Adsense does for the same exposure.

    But who knows? Maybe these will turn the tide.

  12. Guys, I see a bug with this Chitika’s new Multi-Product unit. Anybody saw the same thing?

    Darren, what would you say about this?

  13. havn’t seen the problem myself. If you have questions I’d direct them to Chitika.

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