How much money can you make serving Chitika ads on your site? Pretty much none. Seriously, Chitika has to be one of the worst major ad platforms for publishers out there in terms of payouts. In point, you run their ads, send traffic to their clients, and you receive pennies — literally — in return. What [...]
How much money can you make serving Chitika ads on your site? Pretty much none. Seriously, Chitika has to be one of the worst major ad platforms for publishers out there in terms of payouts. In point, you run their ads, send traffic to their clients, and you receive pennies — literally — in return.
What is Chitika?
Chitika is a search-targeted advertising network that mainly works around a pay per click system. They are one of the biggest and most popular ad serving networks out there, and have even had big names in blogging like Darren Rowse promoting their service.
My experience serving Chitika ads
I’ve used Chitika ads at various points over the past three years, and I know that if they are well placed they do generate a respectable click through rate (percentage of ad impressions that lead to clicks). The problem with Chitika is that they pay their publishers ridiculously low rates. I’ve found that I make roughly 1.4 cents per click on average, which is more than 30 times lower than what I make with other pay per click advertising networks. In point, I’ve found that Chitika ads are not worth losing visitors to.
There are three levels of publishers in the Chitika network: gold, silver, and bronze. Gold tier publishers get a higher PPC payout than silver, and silver gets paid more than bronze. I was in the silver level throughout my time in the program. I applied for admittance into the gold tier but never heard anything back from Chitika about it, and eventually I gave up waiting. To gauge the traffic ballpark I play in, my main site brings in over 80,000 visitors per month and my network over 90,000.
Below is a table which shows my stats for the final week I ran Chitika ads on www.VagabondJourney.com and across the Vagabond Network:
Date | Impressions | Clicks | CTR | eCPM | Revenue |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | 34,871 | 98 | 0.28% | $0.04 | $1.30 |
Dec 30, 2012 | 4,706 | 12 | 0.26% | $0.04 | $0.17 |
Dec 29, 2012 | 4,715 | 15 | 0.32% | $0.04 | $0.20 |
Dec 28, 2012 | 4,820 | 12 | 0.25% | $0.04 | $0.18 |
Dec 27, 2012 | 4,800 | 12 | 0.25% | $0.03 | $0.15 |
Dec 26, 2012 | 4,163 | 5 | 0.12% | $0.02 | $0.07 |
Dec 25, 2012 | 3,929 | 15 | 0.38% | $0.05 | $0.19 |
Dec 24, 2012 | 4,041 | 15 | 0.37% | $0.05 | $0.19 |
Dec 23, 2012 | 3,697 | 12 | 0.32% | $0.04 | $0.16 |
As you can see above, I was sending away over 90 clicks per week to Chitika’s clients for pretty much no money at all. 98 clicks for $1.30 = a horrible advertising program.
I then became curious how many clicks and traffic I would need to generate in order to make a respectable amount of money with Chitika, and the results were laughable.
Using the stats above as a basis, in order to make a measly $100 with Chitika I would need to generate 7,140 clicks. How much traffic would be needed for this amount of clicks? Using the click through rate above, I would need to show Chitika ads 2,540,200 times for a hundred bucks. This pretty much means that if I ran these ads on all of the pages of the Vagabond Network for an entire year I would make roughly $150.
These are insanely low payouts in a market where respectable ad networks pay between 30 and 70 cents per click. To put it simply, 1.4 cents isn’t worth having a visitor leave my site. Chitika ads have now been removed from the Vagabond Network. Our advice is to stay away from this under performing advertising platform.
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About the Author: VBJ
I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 93 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. VBJ has written 3728 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.
VBJ is currently in: Rome, Italy
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January 2, 2013, 4:12 pm
Good to know, I am working on launching a website in hopes to at least go through my savings a bit slower while traveling. A few days ago I noticed those ads on your website and I was wondering if those were any good.
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March 15, 2013, 4:36 am
You right Mr. Wade Shepard, and I agree with you. If you suggested some alternatives to chitika it would be so appreciable
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March 25, 2013, 12:30 am
BasitKhan1 That’s the problem, most pay out the same.
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April 22, 2013, 12:39 am
chitika is waste of time believe me
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April 21, 2013, 11:39 pm
chitika is waste of time believe me
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April 22, 2013, 12:32 am
Very well put. The CTR of their ads is excellent, but they simply don’t pay.
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May 7, 2013, 8:42 am
So, what’s the best alternative for Adsense?
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May 17, 2013, 5:18 am
Get another profession. That’s pretty much it. I have not yet found an ad program that can compare with it.
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May 7, 2013, 7:42 am
So, what’s the best alternative for Adsense?
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May 17, 2013, 4:18 am
Get another profession. That’s pretty much it. I have not yet found an ad program that can compare with it.
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May 17, 2013, 3:29 am
Absolutely agree with you. I’m in the process of removing Chitika from all my sites as I’m literally getting less than 1 cent per click. Absolutely NOT worth giving them space on my sites, particularly when I’m losing AdSense clicks because of it. Would recommend everyone stay away from them – they are charging their advertisers a HUGE amount of money (they only allow advertisers to advertise with Chitika who pay more than $50,000 a month) yet paying their publishers NOTHING.
Worse ad program I’ve ever worked with.
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May 17, 2013, 5:18 am
It’s true. What they are doing is almost criminal.
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May 17, 2013, 2:29 am
Absolutely agree with you. I’m in the process of removing Chitika from all my sites as I’m literally getting less than 1 cent per click. Absolutely NOT worth giving them space on my sites, particularly when I’m losing AdSense clicks because of it.
Worse ad program I’ve ever worked with.
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May 17, 2013, 4:18 am
It’s true. What they are doing is almost criminal.
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June 19, 2013, 6:07 am
which is the second best ad program and cpm after adsense ?
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June 19, 2013, 6:41 am
I haven’t found one that even comes close to comparing. That’s the problem.
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June 19, 2013, 6:07 am
which is the second best ad program and cpm after adsense ?
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June 19, 2013, 6:41 am
I haven’t found one that even comes close to comparing. That’s the problem.
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October 11, 2013, 8:53 am
it’s true..chitika has a low pay out..but how about Bidvertiser??it’s good??
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October 22, 2013, 8:15 am
i have using chitika, but earning slowly after visitor down because google update…
Any trick do you have? 😀
thanks bfore -
October 22, 2013, 1:13 pm
Hello VagabondJourney,
I just started my website and looking to put up chitika ads, as my site isnt old enough to apply for adsense. please any advise on how to maximize earnings fro chitika?
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November 7, 2013, 12:34 pm
I don’t have much traffic on my site. But out of curiosity I did registered for Chitika publisher program, but never started with putting ads on my site. But after reading your post, I think I made one right decision. Thanks
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November 14, 2013, 10:54 pm
I’ve been playing around with Chitika as well and I have gotten the same result. It laughable to hear people say that chitika is comparable to Google adwords. Can anyone recommend anyone else that pays something like Google or near it?
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December 15, 2013, 10:47 am
I was curious since chitika pay me fairly low, then I found this information, and I think it’s true, thank you very much for providing us this information, I wish i have another alternative for this problem
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December 21, 2013, 5:00 am
Thanks for the eye opener article. I was under impression that Chitika is way better than Google Adsense..
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December 29, 2013, 6:53 am
I have just implemented their codes onto my site and waited for clicks with eager expectations as I all the while knew nothing of their PPC rates and hoped to learn of it then (enrolled under Silver too). Very depressing to know they pay that low. I can’t wait to be approved by Adsense! Thanks for sharing.
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January 4, 2014, 9:04 am
The traffic on my blog is not a very representative one but going up, as I see. I have applied for AdSense but rejected for a few times already. So, I have made a deal with Chitika. I think that I will have to wait for two years to get some money out of it 🙁 . I still don’t understand why was I rejected by AdSense. How old my blog has to be to get AdSence? Or, what is wrong about my blog that AdSense doesn’t like?
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January 28, 2014, 10:08 am
Your blog does not follows the Adsense terms and condition or your domain is not old enough that’s why you have been rejected
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January 23, 2014, 2:27 pm
hello vagabondjourney
i have a blog but it doesnot get too much views about 6000 per month. can you tell me some usefull ways to increase the no. of viewers on my blogthank you
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January 22, 2015, 11:55 am
Really chitika giving pennies to me
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January 29, 2015, 4:28 am
looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooook
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January 29, 2015, 4:57 am
One or two decent clicks proves nothing. Show us your results after a month or two.
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May 28, 2017, 11:11 am
Hey i have just started my new website, can you recommend me any good third party adds to help me earn some money
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November 2, 2018, 1:54 am
I was about to add Chitika code to my new blog when I stumbled upon your post. I don’t know if their payment rate has increased in 2018. Now, I’m confused. Your blog post is informative and addresses the problem but it lacks a solution. I have zero experience with ads. Could you recommend a good ad network for novice bloggers?