Chitika Overkill

It didn’t take long: Chitika ads have currently hit a state of overkill. Chitika came into the search engine marketing arena with a boom. They infiltrated the webmaster community with careful blog postings and forum messages aimed at swaying webmasters who crave additional income. But I’m wondering if Chitika really is the next big thing, or is just this fall’s latest marketing fad.

How can Chitika be right for every website?

Chitika differs from AdSense and other context sensitive ads in a few very unique ways. The box is clearly setup as a product search button, yet I’ve now seen Chitika ads added to every type of website imaginable. I guess these marketers are really optimistic. I can’t imagine the average internet marketing website visitor suddenly clicking on, and then purchasing a new Dell computer system, but I imagine stranger things have happened. Will it happen often? Do readers of blogs routinely quit what they’re reading because they’ve been mesmorized by a pretty search button near an article that shows a vaguely related product? By the looks of the millions of Chitika ads already spawned, I guess it’s a possibility.

Quality control problems are on the rise.

It didn’t take long for QC troubles to enter the Chitika network. Last evening I was treated to a remarkable website that featured the integration of 8 (that’s right! count them Chitika ads surrounding some unfortunate free reprint articles that the cad had usurped and removed the Bio box from. That is the type of quality “publisher” that AdSense is so famous for. This fool removed the copyright notice to a totally free article, and then Chitika-ized the living crap out of the page. I don’t know about you, but 8 ads from the same company always impresses me.

Chitika did pay me, and by PayPal.

At least Chitika made their first payment ($11 because I ran the code for one day), so at least that is a positive. Obviously this company (or product) is very new, so it should evolve over the years. The current Adsense and AdWords programs are well advanced of their original counterparts, so it’s not unexpected that Chitika’s program will also expand. I do think that they hype will die down substantially, and Chitika will take their rightful place as a second tier, occasional ad replacement type program that will be seen primarily on product sites.