Chitika eMinimalls Changes Product Images : Lower CTR?

If you are an affiliate to the Chitika eMiniMalls advertising program, you might have noticed several changes to the ad units over last week. Besides ability to fix background colours and sample keywords and advertisers now have a more prominent placement in the ad units.

Jensense has noted some Product Image changes too

“The product images are no longer “clickable” as they were before. This was done because there were “curiosity clicks”. This may affect CTR slightly, but if the person is truly interested in the product, they will click the true link instead. It would be interesting to know just how frequently the image was clicked compared to the regular link.

Something else I noticed is that many of the images were animated, so that they would first appear smaller then “zoom in” to full sized in the ad unit. I checked a variety of ad units and sites, but found they were all static images now.”

I have noticed a decline in the CTR and daily payment of Chitika over a period of time. Maybe it is because the curiosity of web surfers has ended and readers have begun identifying Chitika ads as advertising units; mainly due to its rising popularity on blogs and websites, and overplacement of multiple ad units in prime high paying locations. The disadvantage in the long run is that they are non contextual and might be treated as other affiliate banners. But it is definitely another good advertising program to help you make money quickly on web.