Chitika Linx - Beta In Text Advertising

2007/05/25 |

Chitika have today added another new ad unit to their growing line of options for publishers - this one is called Chitika Linx.
It’s still in beta and I’m not one of the lucky few to be invited to test it - but from the overview page it looks very similar to other in text advertising options like Amazon’s Context Links system, Kontera’s ContentLink product and Intellitxt (and others).
All of these systems will look at your content for keywords that they can match to an advertisment. They then make those words links (usually with some different kind of formatting so that readers are aware that they are different - in the case of Linx a double underline) and then when readers hover the cursor over the link a small popup appears with the ad.
In the case of Linx the popup seems to contain an eMiniMall ad unit (as pictured).

The ads are CPC (you get paid if someone clicks the ad).
Publishers generally have a fairly extreme love or hate for this type of advertising.
They do interrupt the reading flow which is a cost publishers should weigh up before installing them - however I do know of a few publishers who find this type of ad converts quite well - particularly on product related sites (which I suspect Chitika will have as their focus with the invitations that they offer).
I’ve been testing a couple of other similar systems in a very limited way on a couple of my blogs with limited success but will be interested to see what the earnings per click is like on these.
You can read more about Chitika Linx Beta here.

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