AdMoolah News and Views

One excellent use of Chitika eMiniMalls is having them as alternates for AdSense ads. AdSense Alternate ads replace public service announcements that may appear in place of regular AdSense ads when Google is unable to serve targeted ads to your page.

The steps to use these eMiniMalls as alternate ads is fairly simple, and I’ll outline them here.

1. If you haven’t already done so, sign up for a Chitika account. The approval for your account usually happens within a day or two.
2. Make a note of the size of the layout for the AdSense ad you want to create an alternate ad for. For our example well use a 160 x 600 Wide Skyscraper ad.
3. Log into your Chitika account and choose the “eMiniMalls Code” link. From the Ad Layout selection choose the size that matches your AdSense layout. Then choose the colors you prefer for you eMiniMalls ad. Again for our example we choose the 160 x 600 Wide Skyscraper.
4. Copy your eMiniMalls code from the textbox on the Chitaka page. It should look something like this:
   

   <script type="text/javascript"><!--
ch_client = "example_client";
ch_width = 160;
ch_height = 600;
ch_non_contextual = 1;
var ch_queries = new Array("digital cameras", "ipod mini", "sony playstation", "dell laptop");
var ch_selected=Math.floor((Math.random()*ch_queries.length));
ch_query = ch_queries[ch_selected];
//--></script>
<script src="http://scripts.chitika.net/eminimalls/mm.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>

5. On your web server, create a file named specifically for this size ad, using the “.html” extension. (The exact details of how to create this file will depend on the specifics of you host.) In our example we choose to create a file named chitika_wide_skyscraper.html
6. Paste the code that was copied from you Chitaka code text box into this new file.
7. Save the file
8. Log into your AdSense account
9. In the “AdSense for Content” – “Ad layout code” page, create a new ad using your chosen size and colors.
10. When you get to the Alternate ad URL or color section, check the Alternate URL radio button, and type the full URL of your save Chitika ad file name into the text box.
    
11. Select the code form the “Your AdSense code” section and paste this into you web page just like normal. It should look something like this:
    

    <script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-111111111111111";
google_alternate_ad_url = "http://example.com/chitika_wide_skyscraper.html";
google_ad_width = 160;
google_ad_height = 600;
google_ad_format = "160x600_as";
google_ad_type = "text_image";
google_ad_channel ="";
//--></script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>

That’s it! Now, when Google cannot determine what to display because your page is brand new, or there is not enough inventory, Chitika eMiniMall ads will be displayed instead.

(Note: The Chitika links in this post are referral links.)