Various Chitika eMiniMall Code to keep in mind

There are a variety of other pieces of code that you can include in your eMiniMalls code to change the functionality of your ads. These include:

Disable Search Tab -
If you want to disable the search tab (and remember if you use the Adsense search function you need to) - simple add the following line of code to the middle of the code that Chitika give you:

ch_nosearch = 1;

Make ‘Best Deals’ Tab the default -
Some site owners prefer to have the ‘Best Deals’ tab showing first to readers rather than the default one. To do this simple add the following code:

ch_default_tab = ‘Best Deals’;

Rotate Random Ads -
I’m not sure why anyone would use this one but if you want completely random ads use the following code. Before you do remember that this will mean you get ads that have no relevancy to your site’s content which is likely to decrease your click through rate and earnings significantly.

ch_non_contextual = 1;
ch_query = “”;

Change Fonts -


ch_font_text = “Arial”;
ch_font_text = “Arial Narrow,Verdana”;

How to Run Google Adsense and Chitika eMiniMalls on the same page

So how does one “make eMiniMalls non-contextual” and thereby able to be run on the same page as Adsense?

Default Code

Chitika has made this extremely easy - in fact they’ve made it so easy you don’t have to do anything different at all because they’ve just changed the default of their ads to be ‘non contextual’. So when you log in and click the ‘Get eMiniMalls Code’ link and design your ads they’ll supply you with the code that makes using eMiniMalls work with Adsense without you having to mess around with adding code.

The all important code in what they give you is:

ch_non_contextual = 1;

If you’ve previously inserted code into your site it might be worth checking its in it or else your ads will be contextual.

Targeting Keywords - Rotation

So the question many will no doubt ask is “If the ads are non contexual - what determines what ads will now be served?”

Good question. If you look at the code that Chitika gives you you’ll notice another new line of code that comes to you by default like this:

var ch_queries = new Array(”digital cameras”, “ipod mini”, “sony playstation”, “dell laptop”);

This is the line of code that tells Chitika what ads to serve your site. If you leave it as is it will rotate four types of ads through your pages - ads for ‘digital cameras’, ‘ipod minis’, ’sony playstations’ and ‘dell laptops’. The beauty of eMiniMalls is that while these ads might pay ok per click - they are not likely to be highly relevant ads to the topic of everyone’s site - so you’re able to change them. Simply remove the words between the “and” marks and insert relevant words to your site. If your site is about MP3 players try “MP3 Player”, “ipod mini”, “ipod photo”, “iriver” etc. You can insert as many keywords as you like. This will help to keep your site looking fresh and hopefully stop your regular readers becoming blind to your ads.

For example, on a cameras site,you might change the list to be:

var ch_queries = new Array(’Canon Powershot S2 IS’, ‘Canon Digital Rebel XT’, ‘Canon Powershot A520′, ‘Canon PowerShot A510′, ‘PowerShot SD400 Digital Camera’);

You might also like to periodically check and change the ads you rotate to help with ad blindness. I know of a couple of sites who are changing the keywords that they target once per week to keep things fresh.

Targeting One Keyword

If you just want to target ONE keyword do so by:

1. deleting this bit of the code:

var ch_queries = new Array(’phrase1′, ‘phrase2′, ‘phrase3′);
var ch_selected = Math.floor((Math.random() * ch_queries.length));
ch_query = ch_queries[ch_selected];

2. replacing it with:

ch_query = ‘ipod mini’;

Targeting Titles as Keywords:

One of the things that is done on many of sites is picking keywords that are pretty specific. ie instead of just adding “digital camera” you can add “canon eos 20d” and get ads for a specific digital camera. This is particularly useful on a page about a specific digital camera as it will increase your click through rate quite a bit.

One way of targeting specific words is to target the titles of your pages (if you use titles that include the keywords of your pages that is). How you do this will of course depend upon the system that you use to make your site or blog - but if you’re using Movable Type or WordPress you’ll find that both of these systems have title tags that will trigger the title for a particular post.

For example on a MT blog they line of code targeting keywords would look like:

ch_query = ‘< $MTEntryTitle$>‘;

In WordPress to target the title you’d use this…

‘< ?php the_title(); ?>’;

If you use another blog platform please feel free to let us know what the code would be in comments below.

Keep in mind that this will only be effective if you use titles on your site that are pretty specific to products. If you don’t you might want to consider specifying some keywords as you might end up with empty ads or very irrelevant ones.

Using Chitika eMiniMalls With Adsense

Many of the questions I’ve heard asked about Chitika eMiniMalls have been related to whether or not they can be used on the same page as Google Adsense ads. This was initially of major concern for a number of us when we first came across eMiniMalls. As a result, many wrote an email to Adsense for clarification some a couple times even. The final response is that it was allowable from the perspective of Adsense to use Chitika eMiniMalls on the same page as Adsense ads in the following circumstance (I’m told by a YPN publisher that this is also true with YPN):

1. eMiniMalls must be made to be NON-contexual

This is great news as it added Chitika eMiniMalls as another revenue stream to the sites of many without compromising another important source of income like Adsense.

Note: Chitika has another ad system, called RealContext, that is NOT allowed to be used in conjunction with Adsense - don’t get them mixed up.

It is worth noting that different webmasters and bloggers have seen difference results from using Adsense and Chitika’s eMiniMalls on the one page. These results have included:

A few publishers have reported small decreases in their Adsense earnings. Some have even noticed a 5-10% decrease in overall Adsense earnings since adding eMiniMalls. Of course, this is considerably less than the overall increase in earnings that the eMiniMalls have returned so many are willing to take this hit knowing that an overall considerably better financial position.

A smaller number of publishers have noticed increases in their Adsense earnings when they replaced one of multiple Adsense Ad units with a Chitika eMiniMall unit. This sounds crazy - bit it makes sense when you realise that sometimes less Adsense Ad units on a page can result in increase click value amount for some ads (thats another topic for another day)

* Some have found eMiniMalls to be so well suited to their site’s that they’ve removed Adsense altogether and are just running the Chitika ads (I wouldn’t recommend doing this straight away without testing things first).

What sites are Chitika eMiniMalls Best on?

In my experience so far with Chitika (and from interacting with many others who are testing it) I’ve found that it seems to work best on sites that are focused upon products. Many gadget sites have signed up for eMiniMalls already but by no means are their ads limited to consumer electronics. I’ve seen relevant ads served up on a variety of sites including some focussing upon clothes, baby strollers, washing machines, jewellery and other fashion items. From what I can see - they seem to have a large supply of ads for most of the products you’ll find on sites like Amazon and Shopping.com (which is thousands of products).

Product related sites are not the only ones reporting good returns from eMiniMalls though - I know of a variety of personal and general topic sites that are reporting better than normal earnings with eMiniMalls in comparison to other ad networks that they use.

Chitika eMiniMall Sign up Process

Signing up for Chitika’s eMiniMall Pay Per Click Advertising Program is quite easy to do. Simply visit Chitika eMiniMall’s sign up page and fill in your details. You will want to read thru their Terms and Conditions of being a publisher that does exclude certain types of sites. When you submit your application you should normally hear back from Chitika with a response within 24 hours (during normal business hours/days)

Keep in mind that when signing up you are being bound to their Chitika’s Terms and Conditions that include non-disclosure of some of your earnings information (eg CTR, click values etc). Also note that at this point of their beta test they are only accepting sites written in English.

Please note that if your site’s readership is mainly from Asian countries that unfortunately due to a lack of Asian merchants and low conversions Chitika does not pay out for all Asian countries and the ‘auditing’ process may decrease your earnings considerably.