Chitika Review

Chitika is one of the oldest contextual advertising network. It was founded in 2003 and its headquarter is located in Massachusetts, USA. Since, Chitika is one of the oldest and very popular ad network, so, there is no doubt about its legitimacy and reliability. No network can survive this long if it is not a paying network. Chitika pays its publishers on time and every time and offers various good facilities to its publishers. Chitika offers various different ad formats that publishers can show on their sites to earn a decent income from it. All the ads are contextual ads so you don’t have to worry about the clicks and conversion rate. Though Chitika is a premium ad network but it accepts almost all publishers sites which comply with their terms.
Chitika uses a layer system, which means it provides different ads for different level of publishers. If you are a large publisher and get high amount of traffic from US/Canada then you will get premium ads for your site. But, since it accepts all kind of publishers from all around the world and offers contextual ads, so, it provides good rates for all traffic. And, if we talk about its fill rate % then i would say it gives 100% fill rate to its publishers. Reason of providing 100% fill rate is quiet obvious, it is a very popular and old network, so, it has lots of advertisers from all around the world which help it to provide 100% fill rate to its publishers. One more thing that i want to add here is, Chitika uses a Real Time Bidding system which helps both of its publishers as well as advertisers. Advertisers bid for the ad space on the publishers site and the advertiser with the highest bid gets the ad space to show his/her ad. In this way advertisers get the best audience for their ads and publishers get the best revenue for their sites.

Requirements And Restrictions:

Chitika doesn’t have very strict requirements and restrictions.

No minimum traffic requirement.
Excessive profanity, illicit drug, gambling, hacking/cracking, pornography or adult content sites are not allowed.

Sign Up And Approval:

Since Chitika doesn’t have very strict requirements, so, any publisher which have a site that complies with Chitika terms can apply to join this network. Approval is also simple and quick. Usually they approve any website within 1-2 days. Sometimes they approve sites within few hours.

Ad Formats:

Chitika offers various ad formats to its publishers or you can say it offers a complete solution to publishers. The ad formats offered by Chitika are banner/button ads, linx/in-text ads, hover ads, highlight ads and mobile ads.
Banner/Button Ads: Banner ads are simply display ads that you see on most of the sites. Their banner ads shows both display/image ads as well as text ads. I am also saying them button ads because their banners can convert into text links which look like buttons. This type of ad format was introduced by media.net and now you can see button ads on various sites. The thing that i like the most about their banner ads is that they offer various banner sizes from all standard sizes to non standard sizes. So, you can fit their banner ads anywhere on your site.
Linx/In-Text Ads: They have another ad format which they call linx ads. Basically these ads are in-text ads, where their system scans the content of the site to match the relevant keywords with the advertisement and highlights the keywords with a dotted line. And when a visitor hovers his/her mouse over the highlighted keyword then an ad appears, which is in the form of a small square box. These ads are CPC based ads and pay good rates whenever clicked by the visitors.
Hover Ads: Hover ads are basically ads shown in a small square or rectangular boxes. These ads appear at the bottom right corner of the publishers site. The size of the ad is small, so, it doesn’t interrupt the users experience. These ads remain at their place while user scrolls down the page. Users can off these ads anytime.
Highlight Ads: This is something different that we can’t see often. Highlight ads are shown to the visitors whenever they try to copy something from the publishers sites. These ads appear at the end of the paragraph which users are trying to copy. These ads disappears automatically when visitors successfully copy the content or stop copying. These ads appear only when the text has been highlighted and therefore it is named as highlight ads.
Mobile Ads: Mobile ads are small banner ads especially designed for mobile visitors.

Stats Reporting System:

Like its other services and facilities, Chitika also offers a very attractive reporting system. Their reporting system shows almost all the necessary things which include impressions, valid clicks, CTR, CPM, revenue and revenue graph. On Chitika you can see the separate stats for US/Canada and international traffic. The only con that i have found in their reporting system is, it doesn’t shows stats for individual ad units.

Minimum Payout:

Chitika offers a very low minimum payout to its publishers which is only 10$.

Payment Frequency:

Chitika pays its publishers on monthly basis.

Payment Options:

Chitika offers two different payment options to its publishers, which are PayPal and Check. But, for check they have different payout limit, which is 50$.

Referral Program:

Chitika’s referral program is not very attractive because it is limited period program. Chitika offers 10% referral commission but it is valid only for 10 months period, that is, if you refer a publisher to Chitika using your referral link then you will get 10% of his/her revenue for the first 10 months only and after that you will not be earning any money from the same referral. But, since it offers a referral program, so, you can refer your friends, colleagues, family or your site’s visitors to increase your earnings.
Thinking Of Joining Chitika ?

Chitika Details At A Glance:

Network Type:	CPM, CPC
Ad Formats:	In-Text ads, Banner ads, Mobile ads, Highlight ads, Hover ads
Minimum Payout:	10$
Payment Frequency:	Monthly, Net 30
Payment Methods:	PayPal, Check
Network Popularity:	High
Alexa Rank:	5,429 (27/01/2015)
Google PageRank:	5/10 (27/01/2015)
Requirement/Restrictions:	No minimum traffic requirement Adult content, hacking/cracking, gambling or casino sites are not allowed For more info please read their terms.
Payment Proof:	Coming Soon
Website URL:	http://chitika.com