'Net Features : chitika

iPad Traffic Falls After Holidays

Allison Howen — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:35:00 GMT

There has been a bit of a shake-up in the tablet world, thanks to the Kindle Fire’s popularity over the holiday season.

In fact, insights from online advertising network Chitika reveal that the iPad’s tablet Web shares fell by 7.1 percent following the Christmas holiday, while the Kindle Fire’s Web tablet Web shares rose by 3.03 percent. That being said, the iPad still maintains the overall largest share of tablet traffic at 78.86 percent. It is also important to note that Chitika expects the iPad’s share of tablet traffic to return to the 80 percent range as consumers return back to work and decrease their browsing habits on their new devices.

Chitika’s insights analyzed hundreds of millions of smartphone and tablet impressions from the Chitika ad network in the U.S. and Canada from December 1st through December 27th. The results also found that the iPhone 5 gained 1.1 percent of the smartphone usage share after the holidays, while the Galaxy S III gained 1 percent. Moreover, just as Apple’s iPad rules the tablet market, the iPhone also currently maintains the largest share of smartphone traffic at 8.27 percent.

Five Non-Google PPC Programs

Michael Garrity — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:30:00 GMT

Yes, we get it, Google does everything. Ask an affiliate marketer what they think the best Pay-Per-Click (PPC) program available is and they'll likely say Google AdSense.

Why? Because it's free, easy-to-use and comes with a very popular and proven name attached to it. And while AdSense is a great program, it's also expensive and it's not necessarily for everyone, so what are some of the alternatives out there?

Many other PPC programs offer things like a return on investment (ROI), faster payments and other features that rival or surpass Google's product. But with dozens upon dozens of different options out there, where does an affiliate start to look for the PPC program that is right for them? Well, at Website Magazine, of course!

Without further ado, here are five non-Google AdSense PPC programs to consider:

Bidvertiser
As the name suggests, this is an auction-based PPC program. Payouts with Bidvertiser are based on an advertiser's bid for your ad space, as opposed to things like keyword popularity. This makes it possible for more popular sites to make more money than their unpopular counterparts who use the same keywords. The upside here is that flash, low content or other application-heavy sites that are typically difficult to crawl much easier to monetize.

AdBrite
One of Google's biggest competitors in the field is AdBrite, largely because they accept many sites that Google doesn't, making it the sort of go-to program if you're rejected by AdSense. This PPC and Pay-Per-Impression (PPI) program rakes in over 330 million impressions and operates on approximately 100,000 websites. Members get paid based on how many clicks an ad gets or how many times an ad is viewed. Sites are monetized by AdBrite when the company pulls ads from top brands, keywords, demographics, location and over visitor targeting metrics. It's also free to sign up.

7Search
7Search, though smaller in their reach than Google, has one of, if not the, highest ROI measures in the industry based on their high quality search traffic sources. They provide solid analysis, such as letting you see how many searches were done on each of your keywords in the last month and then comparing those numbers to how many clickthroughs you got and where you're ranked. You can then see what happens if you raise or lower your bid. 7Search provides affiliates with multiple opprotunities to for revenue through their affiliate program such as standard and white label search boxes, Pay-Per-Text, an advertiser referral program, AccessoryAds and XML partnerships with other search engines, portals and directories. They also proudly claim to pay affiliates faster than any other ad network, with those who earn just $25 a month receiving their chekcs in the first ten days of the following month. Having operated since 1999 means that 7Search is a tried and tested network for affiliate marketers.

Ad:Dynamo
This PPC program is said to be the "fastest paying ad network." One leg up that they have over Google AdSense is that they show contextual ads. They also launched a mobile advertising platform earlier this year. The program offers an array of features like geo targeting that allows you to target customers in specific locations, dynamic text insertion into text ads and URLs, the ability to configue an ad to only show to the same unique user only a specific number of times and, perhaps most importantly, conversion tracking that lets you follow leads, acquisitions and sales in real-time to evalute the performance of an ad campaign. Though it's a young program (it started in South Africa in 2009 and went global even later than that), Ad:Dynamo is already considered a serious AdSense competitor by many users and reviewers.

Chitika
As a direct competitor to Google AdSense, Chitika is probably the most well known and highly regarded program on this list, and that is largely because of its proven record of success. Many who use both AdSense and Chitika have reported that they see a higher clickthrough rate with Chitika, though this is largely because the ads are product related, so they greatly outperform Google on niche blogs and sites. They have an interesting 1-tier referral program that allows you to earn 10% of the income generated by publishers that you refer. Their site claims that they are the only network that "knows when not to show an ad," which makes for a positive user experience. The compatibility with AdSense has, ironically, been the biggest boost to Chitika, and makes it a great option for those who are already using Google, but would like to add to it with another program.

What other PPC progams do you use? What do you think should be on this list? Let us know in the comments section below.

SEO: All About the Long Tail

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:20:00 GMT

A new study from online ad network Chitika reveals that ranking high for popular queries between three and five words long should see both optimal traffic and conversions.

Chitika looked at a sample of over 41 million impressions of search traffic coming into their network over a period of six days. 26% of all search traffic came from three-word searches, while two-term key phrases accounted for 19%, and four-term phrases accounted for 17% (one-word phrases accounted for 14%).

According to the official blog post on the study, "Any query beyond five words will see dramatically lower traffic, throwing into perspective just how fragmented traffic from long queries really is."

Chitika also looked at the advertising click rate by word count to determine how visitors intent was refelcted in the quantity of words they searched for.

As you might guess, the highest ad click rates were for queries of 5,6, and 4 words respectively. That means that a longer search query is more likely to convert into revenue.

Google Result Positioning Matters... A Lot

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 26 May 2010 15:30:00 GMT

Chitika has released some interesting research related to the the value of a first position listing on Google. According to the data, it's worth a lot - double the traffic of the second spot.

Chitika examined traffic coming into its advertising network from Google and broke it down y Google results placement. The first position drove 34.35% of all traffic in the sample, nearly as much as slots 2 through 5 provided combined and more than positions 5 through 20 combined.

“Obviously, everyone knows that the #1 spot on Google is where you want to be,” says Chitika research director Daniel Ruby. “It’s just kind of shocking to look at the numbers and see just how important it is, and how much of a jump there is from 2 to 1.”

Another very interesting finding from the research is the impact of moving from page two to page one. For example, moving fromt he 11th position to the 10th results in a 143% increase in traffic. The base number of course is very low as the jump is from 1.11% to 2.71% of traffic but it's certainly shows how meaningful it is to move up the SERPs towards that desired position of number one.

Editors Note: Chitika's Research Director Daniel Ruby has written an article for Website Magazine's July issue on Technographic Segmentation. If you're not yet one of our monthly subscribers, sign up today and don't miss this insightful article.

Yahoo Publisher Network Shuts Doors

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:11:00 GMT

The Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) notified its publishers that the program will cease to operate starting April 30, 2010. The program seemed to be in full swing back in 2007 but has since fallen out of sight - perhaps thanks to the introduction of the APT platform.

In the email notification to publishers, Yahoo! suggested using advertising network Chitika, a well respected contextual network which happens to syndicates Yahoo! Content Match and Sponsored Search ads. Chitika has set up a special process for YPNO beta publishers to participate in its platform.

Should you still be using YPN, expect the final payments for the month ending April 30, 2010 to publishers no later than May 31, 2010. All publishers eligible for 1099s for the 2010 tax year will have those mailed by January 31, 2011.

Mobile vs Non-Mobile Ad CTR

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:47:00 GMT

Online advertising network Chitika released a rather telling study of mobile vs. non-mobile Internet usage this week. If you've bought into the potential of the mobile market, you might want to reconsider that position. The study suggests that mobile users are approximately half as likely to click on an advertisement as non-mobile users.

According to the announcement, "Of the 92 million impressions cited in the study, approximately 1.3 million (1.5%) came from mobile browsing. While non-mobile held steady with a 0.83% clickthrough rate, mobile as a whole pulled a mere 0.48% – just over half of the average."

While growth in smartphones might indicate a strong market potential for mobile advertising, users are apparently not receptive to it (or too savvy to click on the ads) perhaps because of the immediacy (find answers quickly) that mobile provides. What I also find interesting is that iPhone users (those with the best UI) have the lowest click-through rates - just 0.30%. This might suggest, especially in light of the fact that Palm (and those from the "other" category) has an atrocious UI and is difficult to navigate around indicating some invalid clicks on some level as well.