 You've
heard about Chitika but need to get a feel for how it
differs from Adsense and whether it'll be of use to you in
making more money from your site? We attempt to outline
the main differences between these two major affiliate
programs.
The Differences
Age of the
program: Adsense has been around for a few years
now but Chitika is only a few months old. In fact, despite
all the news and buzz, it's still in beta.
User Base:
Having been around for a long time, Adsense is the
grandfather of contextual advertising and has the largest
base of publishers competing for the ads it serves.
Chitika has only a few publishers so far but is likely to
grow fast especially as it has a referral program paying
10% commissions.
Appearance:
Adsense ads are primarily text ads that fit into about 10
standard sizes from 728x90 to 120x600, 468x60 and others.
There are a limited number of image ads created by
advertisers and pre-approved by Google. When an image ad
runs it tends to fill the whole ad block. Chitika ads come
in the same standard sizes but every single ad space is
filled with a hybrid of text and image but, crucially,
promoting just one product from one advertiser. Further,
one consistent feature across the Chitika ads is the
interactivity. Each ad has a selection of tabs which
change the content of the ad block when a visitor hovers
over them. The tabs provide information like "Best
Deals" where prices for that product are compared
across different sources, "Reviews", and even a
"Search" box that allows your visitors to search
for and get results for similar products without them
having to leave your page.
Terms of
Service: Adsense has a fairly restrictive set of
terms that you have to agree to. They've been modified
numerous times and when fine tuned are made more rather
than less restrictive. Among the things publishers are not
allowed to do are to change the Adsense code, specify
keywords that ads should be targeted to, and have more
than three blocks of ads on a page. None of those apply to
the Chitika program. There are other Adsense specific
rules that don't apply to Chitika.
 Features:
Adsense has added several features over the last 2-3
years. They include channels - a way of identifying which
pages are better earners. It's not perfect and isn't
anywhere near as efficient as a click tracker program but
it's more than what Chitika have; though they are planning
a channels feature soon. Adsense also provides better
stats data (and analysis), AdLinks and other minor
improvements. Chitika, on the other hand, has some
interesting features we've never seen in Adsense. They
include targeting a particular product or advertiser in an
ad block so it always shows the same product/advertiser,
rotating keywords per refresh or by the day of the week,
changing the font and colour of the text in the ad (Adsense
offers only colour change, not font and font size),
enabling and disabling contextual serving of ads, enabling
and disabling the search function within ads, and a lot
more.
Contextual
serving: Adsense serves ads based on the context of
the page. Chitika does the same but has the option of
turning context off. Webmasters can choose to either run
it in contextual mode or specify the keywords/products
they want the ads targeted to. Note: When
running Chitika on the same page as Adsense ads you need
to turn the Chitika contextual engine off to stay within
Adsense terms and conditions.
Referral
program: Adsense has a new referral program that
pays you $100 if you refer someone who signs up as a
publisher provided that referral earns $100. Chitika pays
a flat 10% of what your referral earns and pays that for a
period of twelve months from the date of signup.
Earnings:
Which pays more? It depends. Chitika can pay very well but
it takes a slightly different mindset to what you may have
become accustomed to with Adsense. If you have the
patience to learn about it Chitika could prove very
profitable particularly if you combine it with Adsense.
Our sites tells you how to run
them both safely on the same page without
violating the legal agreements.
This isn't an exhaustive comparison
of their very detailed legal terms of service but we hope
we've whetted your appetite to find
out more about Chitika. |
