Chitika MiniMall Ads Can Give Unexpected Results

Posted on October 6, 2005

The new Chitika MiniMall ads, like Google text ads, can sometimes have unexpected results. One example is on a post at Ensight. The post about the Weblogs, Inc. sales shows an ad for a Jason costume based on the Jason villian from the Friday the 13th series of horror films.

The Jason character was probably picked up by Chitika from reading the word "Jason" on the page from where Ensight wrote, "This isn't surprising. What is surprising is that WIN took this deal. I was under the distinct impression Jason was holding out for significantly more than this."

Chitika says in a FAQ that it targets ads based on a website's content.

How does Chitika determine what product to show in the eMiniMall?
At first, eMiniMalls will display products that are extremely targeted to your website's content. Then, over time, the content and behavior-based Feedback Loop intelligently learns what products are working best for a particular website and will prioritize those products for display.

Google ran through early complaints for inappropriate ads during the early days of its text ad program. There was a reported case where inappropriate ads for a suitcase where displayed next to an article about a murder where body parts were placed inside a suitcase. We haven't heard stories of this recently so Google must have tweaked its algorithm to avoid inappropriate placing of text ads.