People always want to understand how we create banners that consistently get efficient
click through ratios - or more accurately why the banner that they created,
isnt bringing in the hits - so we decided to create this primer.

The most important thing:

You have to grab the viewers attention and grab it fast, in less than 20
seconds by most accounts. This means having a banner that loads fast, if it
takes 20 seconds to load its wasted.

With this in mind you will want to keep your banners document size down to a
minimum. It takes some knowledge to be able to produce a high quality
banner with a low file size. This also means that, for whatever reason, the
viewer has to notice the banner. How many times have you clicked on a
banner? How many times have you surfed and been oblivious to banners. Why
did you click on the banners that you have clicked on?

Animation:

A recent ZDNet article indicated that a study concluded animated ads have a
18-40% higher click-through rates compared with static ones. Animated
banners tend to get noticed more and therefore stand better chances of being
clicked, and while this is the objective you have to keep in mind that the
banner also says something about who you are. Sometimes there is a very fine
line between good and obnoxious.

To color on not to color:

The colors choice that you make for your ad graphic is very important as it
can work for you or against you. Youll have to limit your palette to keep
the file size low and stay away from dark text on a dark background. Colors
such a bright red and yellow tend to do better than drab colors like brown
and gray.

Do not keep beating a dead banner:

The forementioned study also concluded that advertisement banners effectiveness
increased noticiably when the banners were frequently changed. You banners
response rates usually decrease by the second to third instant someone sees it.
We recommend that you rotate several versions of your banners every few
weeks.

KeyWords & Experimentation :

While the words "Click Here" and "Free" are not magic bullets, they do generally
help a banner get a get better response rates. Of course, if you have
nothing free to offer, dont make use of the word "Free". We do not do "Trick"
banners.

The bottom line is that making workable ad graphics could be very involved -
experiment , keep nice performance stats, enjoy the creative process.