A couple of months ago I asked polled readers about their Chitika eMiniMalls earnings to
find out what the average earnings were and what percentage of earnings they were
losing to auditing. A completely unscientific poll (I had to scrub the data to
remove duplicate/multiple votes) but here are the results.
Average Earnings
So how much money do Chitika publishers make, before auditing, on a monthly
basis?
- Less than $10: 4%
- $10 to $20: 14%
- $20 to $50: 14%
- $50 to $100: 9%
- $100 to $250: 12%
- $250 to $500: 18%
- $500 or more: 29%
Surprisingly, almost 30% of those polled make $500 or more a month from
Chitika, and almost half make at least $250 a month. Even after auditing (see
below), half would make at least $150 a month, and I suspect a good 10% to 20% would make over $500 a month.
Average Percentage Lost to Auditing
What percentage of a publisher's monthly earnings are lost due to auditing?
- Less than 10%: 8%
- 10% to 20%: 13%
- 20% to 30%: 35%
- 30% to 40%: 16%
- 40% to 50%: 24%
- 50% to 60%: 3%
- 60% to 70%: 0
- 70% to 80%: 0
- 80% to 90%: 0
- 90% to 100%: 1%
Chitika's auditing practices for eMiniMalls brought them a lot of grief early
on, and they're still somewhat controversial. Over half the publishers lose up to
30% of their monthly earnings after auditing and 40% of them lose between 30% and
60% of their earnings. So a 30% loss in earnings is probably a good estimate for
new publishers for the first few months until a pattern emerges.
Suggestions for Improvement
The poll allowed voters to suggest improvements to the eMiniMalls program. Not
suprisingly, the majority voted for same-day auditing of data, just like AdSense
does. Another large group wanted same-day auditing plus more powerful reporting
capabilities — eMiniMalls reporting is definitely less sophisticated than
what AdSense publishers are used to.
So there you have it, some more data points. I run eMiniMalls on my electronic fence guide and while it doesn't make much, it's more than I thought it would. (I also put it on this parody site, but so far it's earned me zilch there. Not surprised about htat.) If you're an AdSense publisher with sites that match the eMiniMalls categories, sign up and give it a try — the ads can be placed on AdSense pages as long as you're using eMiniMalls in non-contextual mode (where you supply the keywords).
Sponsored Link: Here's my Chitika referral link if you want to join.
Eric Giguere is the contextual advertising expert who wrote Make Easy Money with Google and Uncommon AdSense. You can read this blog by mail if it's more convenient for you, just send a blank email to memwg-blog@aweber.com to subscribe.