Chitika have been rolling out some interesting offerings to publishers lately. Their eMinimalls are over a year old now, they’ve exctended them to Multi Product Unit minimalls and more recently announced Shoplinc shops and their Forums.
Another product that they’ve been testing lately with a small group of testers is ‘Related Product Units’ (RPUs).
I’ve been one of the testers on these units and they’ve been responsible for a good increase in my Chitika earnings over the past week or two.
The RPU units are perhaps the most simple and easy to integrate ads that Chitika offers – they simply list three related products to the post you’ve written. Here’s how they look:
This screen cap of the RPU ads came from my recent review of the Fujifilm Finepix F30 (my new favorite point and shoot camera).
A click on the link brings in the revenue (CPC) and readers are taken directly to the advertisers page.
The code behind these ads is very similar to Chitika’s other ads.
As the ads are still in testing the code generation process is not really automated – you need to get the code from Chitika via email but I’m told they are generating an automated system that will spit out customized code as you need it.
How do they perform? At a glance – very very well. They integrate nicely into a site and as a result CTR is good. The cost per click amount is 50-70% lower than eMiniMall ads for some reason so that’s a downer and they do cannibalize from other ads on your page a little – but for the increase in income that they’ve brought in has outweighed the decrease in other ads on the page.
At this point RPU ads are still being tested but as I’ve seen them mentioned in their Support area and in their forums I thought I’d mention them as they seem to be going public about them.
Once again (and as with all Chitika ad units) these will work best on product related sites.
The only thing that I’d suggest that Chitika do with RPUs is consider some sort of note on them that they are ads like Google’s ‘ads by Gooooogle’ as they can look so integrated into sites that it’s not obvious what they are. This might decrease performance but it comes close to blurring the line between content and advertising.
I have been testing them on one of my blogs for just over a week or so and they are doing well, not amazingly well but decently enough.
Like Darren said they don’t pay so well, mine seem to be at a fixed rate right now of about 50% of my normal click value. But overall my earning have increased and my other ads have not seemed to have decreased that much.
Over all its a benefit for sure.
I’ve been using these on one of my blogs for the last three days, and the CTR has been quite good, as has the actual income : )
I’m looking forward to Chitika offering more categories for the RPUs though, because right now, even if you’re lucky enough to get into their testing group, you’re stuck with the limited ad categories they’ve included in this phase.
Unfortunately, my most successful blog doesn’t fit the current ad categories, so I’m not getting as much out of it as I could.
Looking forward to it though!
I too am one of the testers on these units and enjoying the increase in earnings.
I don’t know about your sites but the RPU’s on my sites have a “What’s this” link in every unit, much like “Ads by Goooooogle” taglines. Why you would want the unit to look more like an ad than it does is beyond me.
true feedbuzzard – I guess I’m interested in making sure my readers know what is and what isn’t an ad. Obviously labling somethingas an ad decreases its performance – however could it be seen as tricking your readers into clicking them if they are not labled appropriately.
The difference between ‘ads by Goooogle’ and ‘What’s This’ is that one says what it is (and ad) and the other doesn’t actually communicate anything unless there is a click.
Agreed.
I guess it comes down to the whole blending thing -ie: how much is too much. Google themselves tell us how to blend ads for best “results”. They want the click just as much as we do, and Chitika is no different. (Of course, they all want conversions as well ultimately)
Then there’s the integrity factor. You’re way ahead of me on that one ;-)
I think chitika is doing great on their offering of different types of ad units, only wish they can expand their product base. :-(
I would assume that these violate Google and YPN TOS’s.
What do you think?
I dont think so BMA as they are not contextual if you trigger them with keywords or the title of your post.
Sorry for the slow response. You are right Darren.
[…] From ProBlogger: How do they perform? At a glance – very very well. They integrate nicely into a site and as a result CTR is good. The cost per click amount is 50-70% lower than eMiniMall ads for some reason so that’s a downer and they do cannibalize from other ads on your page a little – but for the increase in income that they’ve brought in has outweighed the decrease in other ads on the page. […]