Please note, this comparison may not be true for many publishers now (after April 27th, 2010). Chitika changed their process with respect to publishers. Chitika introduced 3 types of publishers: bronze, silver and gold. Gold publishers only can benefit from higher CPC, while other types getting several cents per click. In addition Chitika now not showing CPC stats at all, so that now publishers are almost blind. Unfortunately Chitika is not attractive anymore. If you are looking for Chitika and AdSense alternatives, please consider PPC advertising revenue with Chango.
I read many forums where people are asking which program is better - Google AdSense or Chitika. The majority agree that Google AdSense is much bigger, but there is not real consensus with respect to which program deliver more revenue.Some people compared these 2 networks, but simply running Google AdSense for years and then switched to Chitika for few weeks. Frankly this is not valid comparison, as I'm sure first time same people started with AdSense received much lower income.
There are many parameters we should look while comparing networks. The most important are:
CPC - average cost per click CTR - click through rate
After I did research for average AdSense CPC, I cannot consider really what it is. 30% are saying they receiving from 1cent to 5cent. Some saying they CPC ranges from $0.1 to $0.3 and few actually receiving between $1 to $2. It is impossible to conclude what is the AdSense average CPC, as it really depends on a website delivers these clicks, i.e. what theme of the website, what source of the traffic (GEO location). I concluded different test trying to get real feeling of which program deliver better CPC for same website, same content. I'm running Chitika as publisher on one of my websites and it's average CPC is around $0.09. I created Google Adwords campaign for the same website, targeting same keywords, that bring most of the traffic to this website. After few months of running such campaigns, I found that average price per click Adwords program charged me was $0.12. I will be using 75% as average market revenue sharing. I'm assuming that Google Adwords program will take 25% of my amount and will pay publishers 75%. The 75% of amount charged by Adwords delivers $0.12 * 75% = $0.09 to the publisher. This is exactly same amount I'm receiving from Chitika.From my test I can conclude, that for my website, CPC from Chitika and Adsense is the same. Another parameter is CTR - click through rate. Doing research for CTR delivered from Adsense and Chitika, majority commented and agreed, that Chitika delivers higher CTR. The reason for this is that Chitika shows ads only for visitors coming from search engines and for search keywords only. In addition Chitka ads are more eye catching.
Recently Chitika also introduced "Chitika | Select Ads" - delivers the ability to show ads to more than just your search traffic. It means that Chitika ads will be shown also to some portion of non search traffic. Using Chitika click prediction technology, Chitika | Select ads will display on your site when there is a higher chance to receive a click on the ad. This will also increase revenue coming from Chitika program.
If your website receives small amount of visitors from search engines or your visitors are not from US, Canada and UK, the Google Adsense will be most likely best for you. If majority of your traffic coming from search engines and is from US, Canada or UK, Chitika publisher program may work better for you.
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Does Chitika set fixed CPC's for each publisher? No Chitika reports are based on the average CPC for whole account, instead of separate CPC's for each of your sites or tracking channel. For example, if you have 2 sites, and "site-1" gets $0.30 CPC's while "site-2" gets $0.10 CPC's, you will see all of your channels showing $0.20 [assuming they get equal traffic volume]. Chitika do this because the revenue data we get from our advertising partners is set on an account level - unlike Google Adsense who get data on an individual site/keyword level.
What is the point of having separate channel tracking? While Chitika currently can't provide revenue tracking on a site/channel level, Chitika provides impression and click data.