Chitika eMiniMalls and Google AdSense
Over the next couple of days the Search Engine Journal will be running a 50/50 split of eMiniMall advertisements and Google AdSense in our main content ad spot, shown to the right of this post (if you don’t see them, just try reloading the page a couple of times). Chitika eMiniMalls have taken the blogging and publishing world by storm ever since Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net announced that he was pulling in over $700 a day in limited testing of the ads.
Chitika eMiniMalls are interactive, shopping oriented advertisements which feature anything from digital cameras to cell phones or laptops. I’ve even seen a couple of lingerie oriented sites where the Chitika ads serve pictures of red lace panties – enough to tickle the fancy of almost any web surfer.
Since contextual advertising is a strong part of the search industry, we will be reporting on the performance of the ads, and if it falls within the Google TOS, perhaps doing a broad comparison.
With a 60% per click payout to the publisher, eMiniMalls are sure to continue to spread among web publishers as an alternative to Google or Yahoo text ads or one more tool to earning site revenue, especially from those users who have already become blind to the contextual text advertisement.
The eMiniMalls will either be serving ads on the Search Engine Journal based upon the content of the story, or via directing the ads to feature only certain products which we feel our readers may be interested in. We had tried the contextual targeting feature in the past and the Chitika eMiniMalls and noticed that they were predominantly showing email marketing kit advertisements, something not very relevant to our news. I’m assuming the focus of search engine marketing on the Search Engine Journal triggered the ‘marketing’ keyword at Chitika, serving up the old school email blast software ads.
If you’re interested in the Chitika eMiniMalls program, here’s a rundown of their advertisement method on the Blog Search Engine. I also recommend reading Darren’s review at Problogger.net.
