Chitika The Mark Of A Good Affiliate
We all know how statistics can be very useful for measuring your blogs performance. It can show whether your visits are up, how long a person lingers on your blog and even what links they are clicking. Using stats delivered by programs such as Google Analytics or Woopra can help you define whether or not certain actions are necessary. You may notice a downturn in visits coincided with the fact that you had decreased your posting frequency which would tell you that you should pull your finger out and step up your posts a little.
The thing that most programs don’t tell you is how you stack up with other sites, which is why I was pretty pleased when I got this email from Chitika. It seems that they took it upon themselves to analyze my Chitika account over a 7 day period which they then compared to 50 high-earning Chitika Publishers. They then emailed me the results in the hope that it would help me increase my earnings, which would, naturally, also increase theirs. Here are my results and their recommendations.
- Traffic: My daily average was 1,155, and although there wasn’t a comparison, I reckon it must have been low by there standards as they recommended I read the following articles to increase it Problogger, Copyblogger, Wikihow. Yep, OK, I reckon I may take the time to do that one day.
- U.S Traffic: This is important because according to them “It is well-known in the ad industry that the US market is the most developed and lucrative.” Now, Whereas Chitika Top Performer averages were at 53.29%, mine was only 42.2%, and their recommendation? “Needs Improvement. You can see where your traffic is coming from at sites like Spyfu.com, or in your Google Analytics (if you aren’t running analytics software yet, you should be!)” Shit guys, I thought that was pretty good myself, but no worries, I’ll get that whip out and make sure I improve those stats.
- U.S. Search Engine Traffic SEO: This relates to U.S. traffic sent via search engines which triggers their premium ads. Apparently, this type of traffic is important because advertisers are willing to pay more for this type of traffic, but more importantly, people who come via search engines are more likely to click on ads. My results; 40.71% as compared to Chitika Top Perfoming average of 46.6%. Damn if those guys still weren’t too happy with my results. “Need improvement here – working on your SEO will be a tremendous help to your site (and your revenue!) over time. Check out Problogger’s recent SEO article, Hubspot’s Website Grader, SEOChat, SEOBook (and their blog), SEOMoz (also has a great blog), and about a million other sites you can find on Alltop. “
- CTR or Click Through Rate: I produced 0.72% compared to their top performers of 1.59%. Yep, I certainly need to improve on that, and lucky for me they had more recommendations. “You should make some changes to your ads. To improve CTR, the most important thing is placement – check out this guide for tips. Other items that will boost your CTR are customizing your colors, fonts, etc. You can read how to do that here.“
The thing is that even though I may appear a little flippant, I really appreciate the fact that the guys at Chitika took enough of an interest in my blogs that they took the effort to produce that report. That is a sign of a good affiliate program. For those of you who are not using Chitika, perhaps you will find some of these links of use.
Other related Posts:
- January Statistics For WassupBlog
- Is Chitika Better Than Google Adsense?
- Chitika Has Proven Their Ads Actually Work
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Tagged with: Click-through rate • Google Analytics
Filed under: Blogging Tips • Just For Fun
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Hi Sire,
I’ll be re-doing (refocusing) my Hawaii site over the next couple of months. I wasn’t exactly sure how I wanted to monetize it. Thanks to your article, I decided to give Chitika a spin. If they approve me, hopefully you get some sort of referral fee.
Keep havin FuN!
Todd
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Sire Reply:
March 2nd, 2009 at 1:14 am
Hey Todd. The beauty of Chitika is that you can run it alongside Adsense, and if you use the Premium ads, they only show up when you get traffic generated from the search engines, which means your normal readers won’t be bothered by them.
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That’s pretty neat, Sire. I didn’t get anything similar, but you’ve been with them a very long time, so I’m sure they’ve had lots of time to study your site. Just asking, but does your Analytics show you getting that same number of visits each month, or is that an ISP figure? I have those kinds of numbers from the ISP, but nothing close to it via Analytics.
Mitch´s Last blog post..February Statistics Report – Still Growing
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Actually the figures were pretty close to my Analytics, if you look at it as a weekly average and not a daily one. I’ve never checked the ISP results.
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well it seems that you are on a good track there ;) keep it up and your next report will be their’s against yours :P good luck with that!
stratosg´s Last blog post..Member Of The Month: February
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Sire Reply:
March 2nd, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Thanks stratos, I’m in it for the long haul, so I reckon I will get there eventually.
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Seems interesting, I wonder if its for uk visitors or just us traffic?
sky´s Last blog post..Currys GRIFFIN ITRIP AUTO for only 39.99
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Sire Reply:
March 2nd, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Seeing as how I’m an Aussie and it works for me I reckon you will have no problem over in the UK.
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I need to stop auto filtering emails from my affiliates. Thanks for sharing your results and the links about increasing traffic. The Copyblogger article has a ton of useful resources to take advantage of.
~ Kristi
Kikolani´s Last blog post..Prolonging a Productivity Drought
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Sire Reply:
March 2nd, 2009 at 4:29 pm
No worries Kristi, it would be a pretty empty life for a blogger who was unwilling to share.
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Don’t know about anyone else, but Im pretty impressed with 1,155 visitors a day and you are only 11% behind their top earners. Would be good if you could identify who the top earners are and look at how their site differs from yours. If you do find them you can use compete or alexa to look at the traffic difference. Also just installed the keyword luv pluggin which seems a pretty good idea.
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Sire Reply:
March 2nd, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Kahled, as I host Chitika on most of my sites, that daily average figure was probably from all of them combined and not from WassupBlog alone. Hopefully it won’t be long before this blog will outperform those stats on it’s own merit.
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Chitika seems to be especially useful for sites that generate significant search engine traffic. One of the things that I like as an outsider (though I’ve beem approved to use them, I haven’t to date), is that visitors are so use to the Google AdSense ads by now. It’s virtually the same ads on every site in the niche. Chitika is a different look which doesn’t hurt. The first few times I began seeing them, I clicked out of curiosity.
Though Google Adsense produces more income than Adbrite, I like that Abrite allows you to set a price and if their ads can’t meet it they put up your affiliate ads instead of their own.
Gennaro´s Last blog post..San Marcos La Laguna: A Peaceful Retreat
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Sire Reply:
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Honestly Gennaro, you should really try their Premium ads as they only appear to search engine traffic, so your regular readers will not be bothered by them.
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Interesting comments as usual Sire. I believe in the value of the content; hopefully readers will come back for more.
Cheers
Peter
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OK! I’m the weird guy who never use Chitika. It just never click with me so I guess I’m going to pass this one.
BTW, valentine is over, Sire. It’s time to dress up your store for spring.
Yan
Yan´s Last blog post..Where Are You? and So They Ask
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Spring, it’s Autumn here, but thanks for the heads up Yan, I completely forgot about it.
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Yan from Blogging Tips Reply:
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:34 am
You see, that’s the problem when you live in a country where there is no such thing as spring or autumn. You mix it all up too often…. ;) Thanks for the heads up too……
Yan´s Last blog post..Where Are You? and So They Ask
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Sire Reply:
March 3rd, 2009 at 3:06 am
Oh well, at least you don’t have to worry about spring cleaning.
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Well Iuess I’m the odd one again. That annoyed the crap outa me and I wasn’t even the one who received it…lucky for them. I’m hoping, did you exclude some for the sake of the post?
Example – did it actually read something like, Good job! However, here’s a few tips for improvement….etc.
If I had gotten an email exactly how it’s written above, I may have replied back…..I don’t care how long it took them to insult me. LOL
Dennis Edell´s Last blog post..Best “Blog Improvement Review” Contest – 1 Winner – $100 via Paypal
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Sire Reply:
March 4th, 2009 at 1:35 am
Nope, after the salutations it began with
I didn’t see it as an insult, merely that they were trying to help me improve my stats which would in turn increase both our earnings.
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Thats both a neat thing and a great idea!! Win win for both parties!!
Taris Janitens´s Last blog post..OnePoke.com – 200 Members! – GIVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS!
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Well, it will be a win when I get time to check out their suggestion. Oh well, the year is still young.
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Gennaro from Enduring Wanderlust Reply:
March 4th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
At least they give suggestions that are specific unlike other companies that just say get more traffic and better placement. No kidding!
Gennaro´s Last blog post..8 Best Chocolate Shops In NYC
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Sire Reply:
March 4th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
That is exactly why I posted this as I figured that others could make just as much use of the information as I could. I also didn’t want people to think I was a SEO expert so I left all the quotes in place so that my readers know the tips are all from a third party.
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Chitika is awesome. I have never seen any service which tells you haw to inmprove your blog performance
Rahul Jadhav´s Last blog post..How Oscars And Nokia Brought Traffic To My Blog
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Sire Reply:
March 4th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I’m sure there are others Rahul, perhaps its just that no-one has decided to do a post on the matter.
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I have heard only good things about Chitika and perhaps I will use on future blogs.For the moment I´m happy with Kontera and Adsense.
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Sire Reply:
March 4th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
No reason why you can’t run Chitika right alongside them, as it’s all extra money in your pocket.
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I am here from Stratos blog and congrats to you for MOTM for February ‘09.
In this post you have provided two things to us.
1) What chitika wants
2) How to improve that.
I also applied at there for one of my high traffic blog. But they refused as this one was not at par with their terms and traffic is also not from Europe and USA.
Let me read their preference and hopefully this will help to me and my blogs.
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Sire Reply:
March 4th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Hi WPS, hope you don’t mind but I was forced to change the keyword you left as you did not follow my comment policy. It even states on the comment form that you are to use a name and not a keyword.
Your comment however was of a good standard and had valid points. I wish you luck with Chitika on your other blogs.
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Woah Chitika really knows how to ruin the day. It’s like one day you’re perfectly happy with your results and the next they send you a raport saying that everything you’re doing needs a lot of work – that’s seriously discouraging.
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Sire Reply:
March 6th, 2009 at 1:58 am
To tell you the truth Tom, I appreciated that they took the time to analyze my results and offer me a way of improving them.
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Chitika only 4 search engine traffic,,.. it pay us about 0.11$/click its small earning u know,..:( I prefer adsense.
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Sire Reply:
March 6th, 2009 at 1:22 am
True but I still adds to the kitty. I usually make about 20% of my adsense earnings and like I said, it all adds up.
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Have you written any posts about Chitika? It would be great if you’d link those in to this post so others who want more information can find them. If you haven’t, I for one would be very interested in what you have to say about the program and especially your results using it.
I’m off to ask you for clarification on your commenting policy in your latest post.
InternetStrategist´s Last blog post..Why You Should Enter These Contests and Giveaways – Send Us YOUR Contest NOW
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Actually IS, I have and I was just too slack to link to them, but thanks to you I have edited the post to reflect those other articles.
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Sire,
That’s very good showing. It’s funny. I don’t seem to make any headway for Chitika. I’ve had very few impressions but ZERO clicks. Could there be something I did wrong in the set up. The fact that in Asia I can’t see the widget is also not helping. Any suggestions how I should check.
Peter
Peter´s Last blog post..Make Clickbank Your Alternative To Google Adsense
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As you would know Peter that your revenue is dependent on the amount of clicks and if your not getting many views the opportunity is for earning anything at all is minimized. The fact that you are not seeing the ad means that you are using the Premium Ads and these are targeted at US traffic that are brought to your site via the search engines. If you are not getting much of this type of traffic then perhaps you should consider running some of their normal ads as well.
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Chikita sure sounds great. I appreciate you sharing and I do believe I might give it a try very soon.
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Sire Reply:
March 24th, 2009 at 2:47 am
I think that you will be pleased with the results Hanna, I know I am.
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i am an affiliate of chikita but i don’t personally use their service because they would occupy a lot of space on my blog. They supposedly have very high ctr’s than google adsense and thats saying a lot
almir´s Last blog post..Vital Tips That Can Aid Any Blogger
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Sire Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Actually Almir, they only occupy as much space as you allow them. Also if you use the Premium ads, your regular readers won’t even see them as they are only shown to visitors directed to your blog by search engines.
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almir Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
oh really, wow that makes sense i never knew that because I have always seen the same size on many blogs and so i thought to myself wow i’m not going to use it, Wow and thanks for clarifying the use of Premium ads because i signed up for their service but never used it because i didn’t know how to use it, it makes sense that the regular readers can’t see them and that they are only shown to your visitors directly by the search engines thanks for clarifying this it was real helpful
almir´s Last blog post..Vital Tips That Can Aid Any Blogger
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Sire Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
I’m glad I could be of service.
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Chitika!
I remember a time, years ago, when Internet marketing was still new and everything seemed to be so much simpler. I can hardly keep up with the every changing environment and the bombardment of new plug-ins. Oye!
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That is true Hanna, but some of those plugins actually make blogging easier and more satisfying.
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I actually love the idea of plug-ins because it makes that the main piece of software more effective and they seen to be much easier to understand.
Bill @ Secret Cash Blueprint´s last blog ..Earnings Disclaimer
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Sire Reply:
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:51 pm
You and me both Bill. :)
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