Today is a big day for the Chitika family: we’re making a huge change to our branding by completely changing the name of our company. No longer will we have awkward conversations with potential partners like “I really like what Chittyville does,” or “hey, could I buy a banana from you guys?”
“Everyone thinks our name has something to do with bananas,” says our co-founder and CEO Venkat Kolluri. “Well, it doesn’t. The word ‘Chitika’ means ‘in a snap’ in Telugu.”
In order to ease the confusion, from now on Chitika will be known as ‘Aritipandu’, another Telugu word, but one that should create less confusion over our brand.
“Now, people won’t be confused over whether or not we sell bananas,” says Kolluri. “Aritipandu pretty much says it all.”
For those of you who don’t speak Telugu, ‘Aritipandu’ translates to banana. Given how successful our Banana Party was at AdTech Chicago in 2007, we feel we’re on to something here.
Local advertising is definitely a sector we are extremely excited to be getting into. We have partnered with some guru’s in the local ad industry, like YellowBook and CityGrid Media. The potential benefits of Chitika | LAX are going to be plentiful for Chitika publishers as this will bring a great new way to monetize local traffic that was, until now, ignored.
LAX will work in two different ways, there will be a Chitika | LAX for Desktop & Chitika | LAX for Mobile. Your local search traffic on a standard home computer will see an ad featuring a map of local businesses matching what they’re looking (searching) for near them, as well as local listings- it will look something like this:
For your mobile search traffic, LAX is the first solution that will automatically detect the mobile users and adjust their experience accordingly. One touch (touch to call) will allow potential customers to call local advertisers from the mobile ad. This ad will look something like this:
(click to enlarge)
Chitika | LAX will be available soon!!
Click here to learn more about Chitika | LAX Click here to read our LAX Press Release
In addition to the current upgrades in the Chitika ad service, we have begun incorporating ads which pay per impression (CPM/CPI) along with pay per click (CPC) for your websites.
What is changing in my reports?
With the addition of these CPM ads, we will no longer be reporting on clicks. Because of this, the CPC and CTR values in your reports now become quite irrelevant and alter your focus from your actual revenue earnings. We feel that removing the CPC and CTR fields, will help you see the most important aspect of your earnings: your revenue.
How should I read my reports?
Focusing on your impressions and the revenue earnings for those impressions will show you the CPM rate you are getting. Previously, your CPC and CTR stats did not include stats from CPM ads on your site. So as of today, your reports will now give you a breakdown of Impressions, CPM and Revenue.
The Chitika Mega Unit, launched exactly one year ago, due to a custom request from a publisher, and went on to do very well for other publishers.
The Mega unit is a non-conventional ad size, and Chitika is the only company that offers it. Because the ad unit did so well for a test group of publishers, we made it available for all. The Mega Unit comes in sizes: 550×250, 500×250.
We realize that some sites do not have the space to place such a wide ad unit, but you still would like to receive the benefits from it. So, now available is the Mega Unit Jr., size: 468×250:
This will give you the large, successful size of the Mega Unit for those who do not have a 550 or 500 pixel space.
To try this size out, simply edit the ad code on your page, or generate a new ad in your code panel:
This all began with feedback from you, please let us know what you’d like to see!
Great news for publishers with traffic in Europe! We will be slowly expanding your ad display to your traffic in the following countries: UK, GB, DE, IT, ES NL, DK, NO, SE
Your Earnings Quick Report table that’s available right in your dashboard after you login, will show you a 7-day rundown:
Additional custom reporting will be available in your advanced settings:
Click to Enlarge
Please note: We will be displaying ads to only a portion of this traffic to start, and you may see some abnormalities in your impressions counts for international stats. These will be ironed-out soon.
GeoDomain Expo is the sharing of information and best practices among the Associated Cities member/operators and is the reason why Associated Cities has become one of the most important coalitions of independent media owners on the Internet.
Vik Chhabra, Director of Business Development at Chitika, was asked to present on the: Developing Any City panel.
Not all cities are created equally. What core strategies can be used to monetize any city’s potential, regardless of size or tourism numbers (or lack thereof).
Vik Chhabra speaking at GeoDomain Expo 2010
Alden DoRosario, Co-Founder & CTO, Chitika spoke on a panel about “What Works for Ad Networks: Technology Challenges” at AppNexus Summit 2010.
Alden was joined on a Technology Panel with others who represent the richness of innovation happening in the ecosystem of technology. Click the video below or click here to watch.
Update: AllForGirls.net is no longer in relationship with Chitika
A Chitika | Select Success Story
Gao, being a long-time fan of online games, one day decided to start his own online game site. “I noticed girl names were incredibly popular, so I registered domain: AllForGirls.net November 6, 2007”. The website features free online games for girls in which he is able to include his own created games. With the help of his great production team, they often include new games to keep the site fresh and fun.
One year later, Gao started using Chitika ads on the site. He always customized his Chitika ads very nicely to match the color scheme of his very colorful website, and has had a steady income stream from Chitika for 2 years.
Before Chitika launched Select ads at the beginning of last month, Gao along with the remaining Chitika publisher network relied on Chitika Premium (search-targeted ads) for revenue. However, many including Gao were missing out on potential revenue from their non-search traffic.
With the addition of Chitika | Select ads, which display to some non-search traffic (see below for more), AllForGirls.net experienced a 97% increase in revenue. Gao did not have to make any updates to his existing Chitika ad units; if you are using Premium on your site, Select ads will automatically start to display.
So why don’t we display ads 100% of the time for maximum revenue?
User experience plays a major role in the way Chitika chooses to show ads. Striking the right balance between both user experience and revenue, is what we believe to be very important to publishers. While displaying ads 100% of the time can give a publisher a higher revenue, it can have a negative impact on your visitors. This is why Chitika Select ads, will display to your search traffic as well as a “select” portion of your non-search.
The “select” portion of your non-search is the key. How we determine this portion is how we were able to take it a step further using our click-prediction technology. Explaining to a publisher that we don’t just focus on the revenue earning aspect of the spectrum is what makes Chitika different; we are the only advertising network to provide this technology. You can read more on this here.
Are Chitika Select ads on my site(s)?
We have been rolling out Select ads slowly across the Chitika Network. Once Select ads start to appear on your site, you will see an increase in impressions as well as a new Select/Premium comparison stats graph when you login.
Submit your testimonial or story to be featured here.
The man behind our newly famous “estimated number of iPads sold” is actually one of the youngest “men” here at the Chitika office; Gui Pinto just celebrated his 20th birthday.
In the picture above, Gui is holding his brand new iPad he received as a gift from Chitika CEO, Venkat Kolluri for putting together the data so quickly.
“I am super thankful and very excited to own my very own iPad. I also can’t wait to get into developing new apps for this thing.”
What is this iPad estimator and how was it born?
Gui Pinto was the recipient of a very early phone call from Chitika’s CTO, Alden DoRosario last Saturday morning in which he told him, “I have an idea…”.
Gui spent the next 12 hours putting together the data & the page featuring real time stats! During the duration of writing this post, there were 768,480 iPads sold, but if you click here now, it will be more than that.
The estimator gives you a breakdown of adoption by hour and by state. How did we do it? You can read more into the technical stuff here.
I know I am looking forward to more of Alden’s ideas =)
Hi, all! I’ve put out a few research studies showing that Bing traffic converts better than Google traffic, and always the response from publishers has been: “Great, now what do I do?” How do you optimize your website to increase your traffic from Bing specifically?
Well, last week I attended SMX West in San Jose, and had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Sasi Parthasarasy, one of the brilliant minds behind Bing, and asked him just that. Let’s see his response:
Thanks Sasi for your candor, and your advice. You heard the man, folks: secure up those sites, and blow readers away with awesome content!
Up until now, Chitika ads were only able to cater to your search traffic with
Chitika | Premium. I am now happy to introduce Chitika | Select ads, which will display to more than just your search traffic.
This upgrade to Premium ads on will allow Chitika ads to reach more visitors and directly increase your Chitika ad revenue. We estimate Select ads could give publishers a 5 – 10% revenue increase on top of Premium ads alone.
How do Chitika | Select ads work?
Using our click-prediction technology, Chitika | Select ads will display only when there is a higher chance the ad will be clicked. The percentage of non-search traffic that will see the Select ads will vary from site to site.
FAQ’s
Can I Still Use Chitika | Select With Google AdSense?
Yes! Just like the Chitika | Premium ads you can use the new Chitika | Select ads and AdSense together on the same page.
How Can I Upgrade My Chitika | Premium Ads?
You don’t need to, it will happen automatically Monday, March 8th 2010.
Are Chitika | Select Ads PPC (Pay-Per-Click)? Chitika | Select will always show the highest-paying ads possible. This will include PPC ads as well as CPM image/banner ads (which pay per impression, whether a user clicks or not).
Will Chitika | Select Ads look different than Chitika | Premium?
Sometimes. Similar to how Google shows image/banner ads if they determine that it is the highest paying ad for a certain user visiting the site, we will do the same. Some of your users will see ads with the Chitika | Premium format and others will see ads that look different but will pay more.
If you would rather have your Chitika ads continue to ONLY show to your search traffic, you can learn more about the opt-out option for Chitika | Select in our knowledgebase. *However by doing so, you will miss out on a potential revenue boost!
What do you think of our new Select ads? Please comment below.
