"Chitika is a free service which displays revenue-earning ads to your website visitors featuring different types of ads for different types of traffic."
"Chitika’s award winning advertising program is based on proprietary patented behavioral ad targeting technology that tracks, tags, and targets users based on online search activity, session analysis, and affinity to specific offers, promotions and adverts. For advertisers and media buyers, Chitika is a proven search engine marketing (SEM) channel for targeting searches conducted by users on the top search engines (similar to Google Adwords). For publishers, Chitika is a very effective monetization service yielding high eCPMs."
A free way to make money online and founded in 2003 Chitika (pronounced CHIH-tih-ka), is a full-service on-line advertising network serving over 3 billion monthly impressions across more than 100,000 websites. 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. Chitika works by analyzing what is called the 'search string' of your site's visitors: In short, when an individual lands on your site, Chitika's technology will analyze the manner in which they got there, cross-reference this search string with their advertiser database, and then serve the most appropriate ad to that visitor. Chitika's technology does not necessarily analyze the content of your page to search for contextual relevance, although it can and does in the event that that proves to be the best option relative to your visitor. Therefore, it is not a contextual ad network, per se; and can be used in conjunction with virtually any other ad network that you become affiliated with.
Given how it works, as described above, Chitika is generally considered to be a network to use in conjunction with other networks as opposed to the only means with which one monetizes their website or blog. There are virtually endless testimonials on the Internet as to the efficacy of Chitika, and we agree with them wholeheartedly.
As an online money making tool, Chitika presents a truly unique and additional layer of CPC (cost-per-click) monetization to one's website or blog that is exceedingly unlikely to irritate your visitors, as the ads served are virtually always directly relevant to what your visitors were looking for during their surfing, and are not the types of ads that are on the Internet as a means for advertisers to keep their brand awareness high; but are, instead, passed through a filter that was, quite literally, constructed by the visitors to your site or blog.
Chitika's customer service is very good, and when considering their size, it is reasonable to call it outstanding: Inquiries are typically responded to within 72 hours, and we have never had an email ignored. The Chitika dashboard is thorough enough, but could provide a bit more detail. The option to turn off Image ads well as Chitika Select ads is a nice feature, enabling limited clutter. Chitika will classify your site according to a color scheme: Gold, Silver and Bronze; and the rate you will receive per click is based on these categories. For our sites at Gold, we have never received less than $.75/click. For our sites at Silver, we have never recieved less than $.10/click. We have no bronze level sites, and therefore cannot report on earnings at that level. In 3 years of using Chitika, we have never had a late payment.
Chitika's ad units are customizable, and come in all standard IAB sizes and then some: 550 x 250 MEGA-Unit, 550 x 200 MEGA-Unit, 728 x 90 Leaderboard, 120 x 600 Skyscraper, 160 x 600 Wide Skyscraper, 468 x 180 Blog Banner, 468 x 120 Blog Banner, 468 x 90 Small Blog Banner, 468 x 60 Mini Blog Banner, 550 x 120 Content Banner, 550 x 90 Content Banner, 450 x 90 Small Content Banner, 430 x 90 Small Content Banner, 400 x 90 Small Content Banner, 300 x 250 Rectangle, 300 x 150 Rectangle, Wide 300 x 125 Mini Rectangle, Wide 300 x 70 Mini Rectangle, Wide 250 x 250 Square, 200 x 200 Small Square, 160 x 160 Small Square, 336 x 280 Rectangle, 336 x 160 Rectangle, Wide 334 x 100 Small Rectangle, Wide 180 x 300 Small Rectangle, Tall 180 x 150 Small Rectangle.
Network Highlights:
Ads are served based upon the keywords that brought a visitor to your site
Adds an additional, user-unique layer of monetization to your site or blog
Great customer service
Tiered, color-coded programs that allow you to increase your revenue share/ad quality over time
Huge range of ad unit sizes, ensuring a size for the most standard to the oddest fit
Compatible with nearly every other ad network in existence
What Could Use Some Work:
Not much! But, it would be nice if reporting were a bit more detailed