Chitika

Chitika - The Leader in Impulse Merchandising

Chitika (pronounced CHIH-tih-ka) was founded in 2003 and is the industry's leading impulse merchandising company. Chitika was founded in May 2003 and is based in Massachusetts. Chitika (pronounced CHIH-tih-ka) helps web publishers generate revenue using innovative publisher-side advertising and merchandising solutions and services.

Chitika began, not as a stand alone advertising solution but instead as way to compliment existing advertising / publishing programs through the use of additional Ad Units which were altogether different from the standard ad boxes, pop-unders etc that everybody else provided. Instead of displaying these 'industry standard' advert boxes with text and image ads that all look the same Chitika instead provided active boxes that showed targeted products from different manufacturers. If you ran a blog for example and discussed a product you might have found the Chitika box showing links for this product and competitors products. If people purchased these products you would get paid a commission. This was referred to as impulse marketing in the form of Premium Ad Units (eMinimalls).

Chitika has now progressed, however, into a fully fledged advertizer service. The eMinimalls initially evolved into advertizing units that would show adverts based on what people searched for to get to your site. This is subtly different from the standard keyword driven advertising since it shows ads that are more relevant to the original intent of your visitors search. This greatly increases the chance that someone will click on an ad. This type of advertising is still offered by Chitika and is a good addition to a site containing traditional banner ads. For example you could use it to compliment another advertizers service. E.g. you could show Clicksor context sensitive ads on your site and then compliment these with Chitika's search traffic oriented ads.
However, Chitika now goes beyond this, also offering what are termed premium ads. Chitika uses it custom "Click Prediction" technology to show select ads when there is a greater chance they will be clicked on. This is obviously a great way to improve your revenue.

For advertisers and media buyers, Chitika is a proven channel for targeting on-line consumers and qualified buyers. For all publishers, Chitika is an easy-to-use platform for earning daily ad revenue. If you visit a site showing Chitika's ads from a search engine then the Chitika premium ad unit kicks in showing you ads that are specific to your searching - otherwise you can have it show an alternative ad provider, such as adsense, or you can just have it collapse away to show nothing.

Recently added new features from Chitika include:

• List Unit
The Chitika List Unit (CLU) is a powerful extension of the MPU which automatically adjusts its height, ensuring no ugly white-space and thus a cleaner user experience. These can also be referred to as rotating ads. Such units really come into their own on devices such as iPads which support dynamically rotating screens. With the use of a rotating CLU you can have your ad automatically adjust to fill all the space on the screen. This also draws the users eye to the ads and makes it more likely for them to click on one.

• Mobile Code
Adverts specifically designed to be shown on  mobile content.

• Pay per call Ads
These ads are 'action based' ads which have a very high payout of between $2 and $20 per action. For local ads they greatly increase action rates since local viewers are more likely to click these ads because it will put them in direct contact with the advertiser.
Chitika's search based advert units allow you to display targeted products based on what people searched for to get to your page and you get paid for clicks. Chitika offers payment by PayPal (with a $10 minimum) or via Check (with a $50 minimum).