For our premium advertisers, including those that provide us with Rich Media/display inventory, we’re able to deliver their best ads to sites with traffic representing the greatest proverbial bang for the buck – our Gold-level publishers. With Gold-level publishers recieving our highest-value ads in terms of CPM, how can a publisher move up the tiers?
Chitika serves ads to more than 350,000 websites, and through our wide variety of partnerships, we’re able to deliver ads from hundreds of thousands of advertisers. For our premium advertisers, including those that provide us with Rich Media/display inventory, we’re able to deliver their best ads to sites with traffic representing the greatest proverbial bang for the buck – our Gold-level publishers.
While Gold-level publishers receive our highest-value ads in terms of CPM, our mission, regardless of the site, is always to deliver a “magic moment” – an ad that provides value to a particular user at that particular point in time. So what are the real differences between the tiers?
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Gold
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Publishers at this highest ad tier receive the most valuable ads from our network of advertisers
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While text ads will be mixed in based upon impression characteristics, Gold-level publishers have the greatest fill rate when it comes to display ads
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Silver
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This middle ad tier provides a mix of text and display that will rotate depending on the impression characteristics
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On the whole, publishers should expect CPM here to outperform those of bronze tier publishers
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Bronze
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Bronze-level publishers should expect to see text-based ads almost exclusively
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As with all our publishers, the exact ad displayed, along with the applicable CPM, will vary based upon the nature of a given impression (e.g. search vs. direct traffic, geography, etc.)
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As a publisher rises towards that Gold tier, CPM rises, and the amount of money they can make using Chitika increases. Moving up the levels requires a publisher to have a site where advertisers would want their ads displayed, along with traffic quality associated with top-quality online properties. For those looking to get to the next tier, we have a number of guidelines that make a site as Gold-level ready as possible.
First, the focus should be on maintenance of the current website. Following the tips below makes a site look better to advertisers, which helps increase CPM at any level, along with being prerequisites for Gold-account approval:
- Get rid of broken images and links
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Don’t place too much ad content above the fold
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Disable any full-page pop ups, or pop ups that block site content
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Keep your site’s topic/focus consistent across the entire site
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Make your content consistent across the entire site
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Customize your layout beyond the default template
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Use proper grammar and limit the use of offensive language
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Remove any adult content, including any adult ads
The second step is improving the site’s traffic mix. Overall, more traffic to a site is always good, but it’s worth keeping the following tips in mind in order to maximize your revenue with Chitika:
- Grow your traffic through traditional means, such as improved SEO, or via ads on Facebook/Google search result pages
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Do not “purchase” traffic from providers promising, for example, 1,000,000 impressions per day. This type of traffic will trigger our spam filters and your site may be banned from the network
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Focus particularly on increasing the amount of U.S. and Canadian traffic to your site
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Our advertisers traditionally pay the most for these impressions (i.e. a higher CPM for you!)
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Putting all of the above tips into action provides both short-term and long-term benefits for your site and its associated online ad revenue. Keep in mind that above all, the best way to make your site a place advertisers want to be is to also make it a place where users want to be, providing them with great content in a welcoming format that keeps them coming back and engaged. Making this your highest priority will pay dividends even if you aren’t an expert in SEO or other more technical aspects of website promotion.
Good luck – and for more ad monetization tips, check out our latest eBook!