Online Advertising Cooling Off for “Big 3″ Search Engines; Heating Up for Chitika

November 18th, 2008

Posted in: Chitika | Premium, Front Page News, Industry Pulse

All across these crazy interwebs, I’ve been reading report after report of doom-and-gloom for online advertising companies.  A couple weeks ago I saw Glam Media change their payout process.  Since then, various sites have reported that even the big search engines are losing steam.

While TechCrunch reports a massive slow-down in growth for the “Big 3″ (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft grew only 0.6% from Q2 to Q3), we actually saw something quite different at Chitika - 200% growth from May - October.

Over these 5 months, our publisher base has actually doubled from 17,000-34,000, and in October we served 550 million search-targeted ads (out of over 2 billion total ad impressions) .  To put this in perspective, Ask.com (the world’s 5th-largest search engine) did 364 million search queries according to the August 2008 ComScore reports, meaning that our network almost doubled their amount of search traffic in October.

This leads to the question: Why is Chitika seeing this growth?  2 words:  Ad-Targeting.

The Value of “Big Mouths” in Helping Grow a Company

November 18th, 2008

Posted in: Front Page News, Inside Chitika

Michael Arrington is a big mouth.  So is Aaron Wall.  And ShoeMoney.  In fact, one of my all-time favorite big mouths is Darren Rowse (someone who I have collaborated/worked with for a long time on my journey here at Chitika).  To make it perfectly clear - I’m referring to the term “big mouth” as a web-influencer, and I believe being one is a good thing.

A long time ago, before I worked in the online sphere, I’m pretty sure that I saw the term “big mouth” in a negative light.  Like - something you would call someone who really liked to hear the sound of their own voice.  That all went right out the window when I entered the internet industry.

Online, having a big mouth means that you have a certain amount of influence over others.  It means that you have a lot of people who watch/listen to/read what you have to say.  It means that your fans/readers/followers (Twitter anyone?) respect you enough to take action based solely on your opinion.  And in this industry, the big mouths are the most respected (and valued) individuals of all.

I can speak to this personally - at Chitika, we’ve seen the impact of big mouths first-hand (what I like to refer to as “The Big Mouth Effect” - trademark pending).  Like when Darren Rowse writes about us on ProBlogger, or Aaron Wall does a piece on SEOBook, or Patrick O’Keefe speaks highly of us in his newest ebook.. each one of these holds tremendous value to our company.  And I don’t mean just emotional value (although we definitely do love those guys!).. I mean value as in dollars - specific addition to our company’s bottom line.  The value of a big mouth is unquantifiable, and it is what every company strives for (online and offline).

This blog post actually spurs from an email that I mistakenly sent to a big mouth, where I referred to him as such, and he (understandably) took offense to this.  But I’ll tell you what - not only do I have tremendous respect for him professionally, but I’ve met him and hung out with him before, and he’s just an awesome guy.  And the bottom line is - without big mouths like him, it is very likely that our company would not be where it is today.

So - for all you aspiring bloggers and internet rock-stars out there - if someone calls you a big mouth in the future, be proud!  You are most certainly on the right track.

-Posted by Ryan Travis, Chitika Director of Client Services

(drumroll) The Winners of $200 in the Chitika Premium Contest Are…

November 12th, 2008

Posted in: Chitika | Premium, Contests!

The Chitika Premium Interesting Placement Contest began Oct. 30th, and since then we have received over 100 contest entries from our users! We were so very impressed with many of the placements we saw that it made it very hard to choose only 3 winners - big thanks to everyone who participated.

First place: $100 Winner - Elran Oded, co-founder at Indyish.com
Elran did something really cool.. he placed the unit so that it’s actually integrated within his first paragraph text. Users who come directly to his website will see a normal paragraph of text but those coming from a search engine will see a large Premium ad unit with the text wrapping around to the side of the unit.

Here is what Indyish.com looks like without the Premium ad unit:

And here is what Indyish.com looks like with the winning Premium ad integration:

And now for our two runner-ups:

$50 runner-up: Richard Cloutier, SweepstakesLovers.com

$50 runer-up: James Nardel, FreeWeddingToasts.net

A BIG thanks again to all our users who sent in their Premium integrations!!

This was not Chitika’s first contest and this will definitely not be the last! We love attending/hosting events and we really love giving stuff away for free. Subscribe to the blog now to be sure you don’t miss out on our next contest giveaway.

$200 Giveaway in Premium Contest - Now Closed

November 11th, 2008

Posted in: Contests!

I hope you got a chance to submit your website as an entry to our Premium Ad Placement Contest because the contest closed for submissions yesterday.

We wanted to see the different ways publishers chose to integrate their
Chitika | Premium ad units to earn revenue on their site. We will be diving into all of the 100+contest entries we received (by email and blog comments) tonite and we will be announcing the winners tomorrow.
First place winner will receive: $100 and and 2 runners-up will receive $50 each.

How will Chitika | Premium ads make you money?
Sign up now: www.chitika.com/signup

Enter now, $200 Contest Ends Soon!

November 7th, 2008

Posted in: Chitika | Premium, Contests!, Front Page News

Keep the entries coming everyone - so far we have received over 70 entries by email and a handful on the blog! The contest is almost over! Submit your entry for the most interesting/cool/unique placements of Chitika | Premium ads by posting a link to your site in the comments section in this blog post here.

Here is an example of a interesting Premium placement.

First place winner will receive $100, and 2 runners-up will receive $50 each.

Enter now by posting your site in the comments here!

___________

What are Chitika | Premium ads?
Sign up: www.chitika.com/signup

Video: How Does Chitika | Premium Work?

November 6th, 2008

Posted in: Chitika Videos, Chitika | Premium, Front Page News

Lots of people keep asking us - How does Chitika | Premium work?  Well we decided that the best way to explain it is by creating a quick video:

PS: If you dont like the Youtube version: Download and view the Hi-Res Video (9.7 MB)

To get stated, grab your Chitika | Premium code here.

Not a member yet?  Apply for Chitika here.

$200 Giveaway - Interesting Placement Contest

October 30th, 2008

Posted in: Chitika | Premium, Front Page News

We are giving away a total of $200 for the most interesting/cool/unique placements of Chitika | Premium ads!

What do you mean by “interesting/cool/unique” placements?
Well take this for example:

Why is this cool/interesting/unique?
Because it is placed inside the content (right after the first paragraph) - which will generally earn a very high CTR/eCPM.  But since it will only display to search engine traffic, it will not display to your regular readers (they won’t be annoyed by ads in the middle of their content!).

What are the prizes?
First place winner will receive $100, and 2 runners-up will receive $50 each.

How do I enter?
You can submit your entries by posting a link to your site in the comments below - entries must be received by 12:00 pm US EDT on Monday, Nov. 10.  We look forward to seeing what you all come up with!!!

If you don’t have Chitika | Premium code yet, you can grab it here.  Also - if you are unfamiliar with Chitika | Premium, you can learn how it works here.

UPDATE:  The contest is now closed. Thank you all so much for your entries - we saw a lot of great implementations!  You can see who the winners are here.

Chitika is hiring !

October 6th, 2008

Posted in: Chitika Events, Front Page News, Inside Chitika

Yeah — Chitika is growing and we have a bunch of positions open at our Marlborough, Massachusetts offices. If you know of anyone who might be interested, please do send his/her resume to alden [at] chitika [dot] com or drop me a tweet @adorosario

Here are some of the positions that are open with links to more details. All positions are in-house full-time at our Marlborough, Massachusetts office.

• Web developer
• Social Marketer/Twitterer
• Account Manager - Publisher Side
• Sales Representatives - Publisher Recruitment (multiple positions)
• Sales Representatives - Ad Sales (multiple positions)
• Software engineer (multiple positions)

Please note: These are all current positions with approved budgets. Hiring for these positions is immediate. To apply, please send your resume to alden [at] chitika [dot] com or drop me a tweet @adorosario

BtoB Magazine: Chitika’s Extended Search Marketing Strategy

September 25th, 2008

Posted in: Front Page News, Industry Pulse

Chitika’s Tessa Rudd is interviewed by BtoB Magazine on cutting edge trends in search marketing. Rudd shares insight on Chitika’s Search Behavior Marketing (SBM) targeting technology:

BtoB: So this goes beyond the search engine results page?

Rudd: Absolutely. It’s true that search engine marketing campaigns [SEM] can drive highly targeted, intent-driven search traffic and produce measurable ROI, but search can be made to work harder. Search Behavior Marketing [SBM] extends the visibility of a keyword campaign by redirecting an advertiser’s keyword-based targeting channel beyond the search engine to target the same audience when they move into content Web sites. Click here to read interview.

Chitika MythSmashers - Because ‘Mythbusters’ is already taken

September 23rd, 2008

Posted in: Chitika | Premium, Front Page News, Optimizing, Publisher Success Stories, Publisher Tools, Referral Program Rewards

One of my favorite TV shows is The Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters - for those of you unfamiliar, the concept of the show is that the hosts and a team of sidekicks confront popular myths (”The moon landing was faked!“) and test them out to see if they’re true, possibly true, or untrue (”busted”).

I love this idea, especially for a company like us here at Chitika; now, we’re not going to blow something up with a ton of dynamite like the Mythbusters crew, but I wanted to confront a few myths about Chitika in something I like to call:

Let’s get started!

“Chitika & AdSense can’t run on the same page”

Absolutely, completely, 100% not true. All of our ad units, including our Chitika | Premium ads, are designed so they can run on the same page as AdSense without violating their Terms of Service. You don’t have to alter the Chitika code at all to make it AdSense-compatible - every piece of ad code you generate from your Chitika code panel is already AdSense-compatible. You can read more about this question in a previous blog post, or you can check out the article in our knowledgebase with links to articles from specific publishers.

“Chitika is a ‘replacement’ for AdSense”

Again, this is not true. Chitika’s ads are not a replacement for your AdSense ads, and any ad network telling you to replace your AdSense with their product will probably cost you revenue. Our ads are meant to be a complement to your AdSense revenue, for a number of reasons:

• The look-and-feel of the ads are different, so any readers that have developed an “ad-blindness” to AdSense will be more receptive to the Chitika ads and more likely to earn you more revenue than AdSense alone.
• Ad targeting is handled differently, so different content will be shown. Chitika’s ads are all keyword-based including our Premium ads, which use a reader’s search term (the search term they entered to get to your page) as the keyword.
• Our Premium ads will only display when relevant, so it opens up a world of new placement options. When a user is not coming to your page from a search (like users that have your site bookmarked), we will not serve an ad and the ad does not appear, so you can place the ad unit within your content and your “regular” readers will not even know it’s there. Here’s a very informative graph on this very issue.

  I think we can call that…
  

  “Chitika only does product ads!”

  I will quickly call this one not true, as well. Since it’s release back in May, our Chitika Premium ads have helped us go way, way beyond product sites by serving ads for anything you can imagine.

  
  

  These ads help sites of all types make money, from the b5media network of over 300 sites, to sites such as bankaholic.com.

  Once again…
  

    

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