Chitika Premium Publisher Review

Get Chitika eMiniMalls

I’m a fan of Chitika and I reviewed them back in July. Since then I’ve been invited to participate in their new Premium Publisher Program, they are due to do a press release about it today and asked me to write up my opinions, so here goes. I’ve checked with Ryan my rep there and I’m allowed to share ALL statistics so expect a few detailed screen shots.

Premium Publisher
The requirements to become a premium publisher aren’t too high, if you’re earning $10+ per day on a quality site you’re going to be pretty close to qualifying, though I think the current group of premium publishers (DPB, GPS Review, I4U) will be earning a lot more than that. Being a Premium Publisher you get a slightly different control panel when you first log in but that’s mainly cosmetic and just tells you about the benefits. The real changes come with how you can make more money.

chitika-summary.jpg
The above table shows my stats for this month, as you can see I’ve got a pretty consistent CPC of $0.24 which in my experience from a PPC network isn’t bad in my niche. They’ve also started paying premium publishers based on impressions as well as clicks, this only happens with some advertisers and when I asked for this to be cleared up this what I was told:

So here is how it works - we have advertisers lined up that we have special deals with who realize that we have some incredible publishers in our network. They pay us extra for impressions on sites which we can prove to them have quality traffic (i.e. - clicks that convert into sales) and also a large quantity of traffic (providing branding value for these advertisers. Coolest-Gadgets has both of these elements.

So right now, we are “spreading the love” through all the ad units (we are in the beginning stages with PremiumAds, so we want to start as open as possible) and seeing how that goes.

Regarding your clicks - they remain COMPLETELY UNAFFECTED by this - every click is still paid. The CPM is in addition to the clicks. The bottom line is that your checks from this point on should be larger than they were before ;)

So I’m earning a bit extra each day with no additional work or ad units, which though not excessive is a nice addition.

chitika-detailed.jpg
This next screen-shot shows how all my different channels and ad units perform. The Linx (inline double underlined links) and RPU (Related Products at the end of each post) are my best performers and are also a fixed rate of $0.25 per click. The CPC or the eMiniMalls however are different depending on the product, normally the eMiniMalls have a higher CPC than the other two but on some sites (i.e. mine) that is not always the case, I asked Ryan about this and got a pretty in depth answer.

we figured out what is going on with your CPC’s on the eMiniMall, and unfortunately, it looks like the low CPC’s are basically due to the products that you write about. There are a few things to look at here:

* First, you write about a lot of really obscure items (and that is one of the main reasons that I love your site) - the problem with that is a lot of times, the only merchant that has those items is Amazon.com, and they generally have low CPC’s. For example, one product like this is the “Rechargeable Insect Vacuum” where Amazon pays $0.08 per click.

* Second - even if it is not from Amazon, many of your other obscure products just have low CPC’s - I am guessing that it is because these items are not in high demand (and often inexpensive too - yet another reason why I love your site). An example of this would be the “Deluxe Chocolatiere” - looks like Target is paying $0.06 for clicks on this item.

* Not all of your products have those really low CPC’s though - I am seeing items like “Dyson Robotic Vacuum Cleaner” netting you $0.96 - so it is really hit-or-miss here.

Soooo… as to how to get the CPC on your eMiniMalls up to the same range as the RPU/Linx, the unfortunate thing is you would have to change what you are writing about (which is a HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE idea!).

One thing that you may or may not be interested in is a new feature which I’m trying to add into the monthly Premium Publisher reports - I am trying to list your top 10 performing products (basically the ten products which made you the most $ for that month). Again - I would NEVER, EVER recommend you change the way you choose which products to feature on your site, but you may want to have this data available if you ever want to use it.

I do love the honesty in that answer and we have a plan for improving revenue in the future which will basically involve manually choosing the subject of some adverts which would otherwise be low paying. As a premium publisher you do get a report every month that shows you your best paying ads which you can then optimise for in the future (I’m still waiting for last months mind).

So in all I’m delighted to be in the Chitika PP club. As well as the extra revenue the customer service is what really makes it for me, if you don’t use Chitika yet I’ll strongly recommend giving it a try and if you are already using it premium publisher status is well worth the effort.

About Al Carlton

Al quit the 9 to 5 rat race in January of 2007, before then he was a software engineer and systems architect of financial system. Nowadays Al spends the days running his various businesses and experimenting with different ideas and opportunities.
Al can be found on twitter at AlCarlton.

Comments

  1. Especially as an alternative to AdSense, which I must admit is very easy to grow too dependent on. Did you branch out and start using Chikita for that reason?

    • I’m always looking at additional and alternative revenue streams. One of the reasons I use Chitika is that it can be used alongside Adsense and I find it doesn’t effect how much I earn from Google. One thing that I didn’t mention in that post is there is an option for Chitika Links to open in a new window so you also don’t lose the visitor from your site.

      • Are there any specific niches, traffic levels, and/or audiences that you would recommend (or not recommend) Chitika for? I tried it out briefly in the past, with abysmal results.

        • They work best on product based sites, especially if the items are readily available, e.g. cameras, GOS units, sat nav, gadgets.

          I wouldn’t expect them to work well on an information site like this.

  2. I am projected to have 8,000 page views this month, I wonder if they will take me or if I will need to wait. I applied - will see. I think you have a great idea to diversify.

  3. Interesting question — what do you think is the benchmark for unique visitors/pageviews they use?

    • They are after 10,000 page views per month but if you have a quality site with growth potential they may be flexible, worth asking.

      • They have made exceptions in the past based on ‘assumed growth potential’. definitely worth asking, as they do take notice from my past experiences with them.

  4. The only thing I have to go by is the Number of Pages in the stats by my hosting company. Do you know of other ways to get stats?

  5. I still need to get around to applying from when you last mentioned them a couple of months back. I think you left me contact details in a previous comment. Right now GadgetVenue should be almost 200000 page views by the end of this month.

    • 200,000 that’s nice going Matthew. You had a reply from Daniel of Chitika last time:

      @Matthew,

      If you’d like to re-apply for Chitika, simply send a note to support (at) chitika.com and I’ll be more than happy to forward your info to our applications department for reconsideration.

  6. Yes, Chitika rocks and although I was also invited to the Premium program I still don’t see the payment for impressions.

    By the way, my average CPC on a vacuum cleaner site is between 0,25 and 0,39 per click.

  7. Chitika is prett good for product related sites, it allows you to show related products.

    But what would you recommend for a resource site?

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  1. [...] of the publishers feel about it? You can take in some personal thoughts and proven effectiveness on SelfMadeMinds.com. And find an interesting review by Darren on Problogger.net. [...]

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