Color Me Clickable
Famed blogstress Jennifer Slegg unmasks the mysteries of color matching 
Many publishers fail to realize the true importance of ad unit colors when generating their Yahoo! Publisher Network ad javascript. In fact, I have seen revenue quadruple when publishers make a simple change to their color schemes.
So how do you know if a color scheme is a good one or a bad one? By testing. For each color scheme you choose, you will want to create a new Reporting Category. But before you do that, you need to figure out what color schemes might work best for you.
There are four types of color schemes that I use for my Yahoo! Publisher Network ad units:
1. The blended technique
This technique sets the ad unit’s background and border color to the same color as the page background color. The title is then in either traditional hyperlink blue or in another color used for page links.
2. The matching technique
If your logo is green, you might try matching both the border and background of the ad unit to the same green, then use the page background color as the ad unit’s text color. You aren’t introducing new colors, but matching the on-page colors, and this makes the ad unit more noticeable than the blended technique.
3. The complimentary technique
This would use new colors not currently on the page, but colors chosen to complement the colors that are. There are many tools available online to help you figure out what colors complement the major color elements on your page. You can leave the border hidden and use the complementary colors for all the text, or use those complementary colors in the ad unit’s border and background, as well.
4. The contrasting technique
This isn’t used as often, but there are publishers who find contrasting ad units perform the best. For contrasting colors, think bold, bright and, most importantly, obnoxious.
What makes an ad unit “obnoxious”? It could be a red border with a yellow background. Or a lime green background with a hot pink border. These draw the eye because they are so garish. But while this technique works best on some types of sites, you should avoid this if your visitors return often or have a high number of page views per visit—you don’t want to alienate them!
Finally, a free script like PHPAdsNew will allow you to rotate your tested ad units evenly. As long as you have set up a new channel for each ad unit color scheme, after a few days you should easily be able to see which ad unit has the highest CTR and is performing the best for you.
Happy testing!
– Jen Slegg, Publisher, Jensense.com
| Post Comment | categories:: Guest Columns, Optimization
May 25th, 2006 at 10:32 am
[…] Boy, that Jen girl (woman) from Jensense is every where. Today she has a post on the YPN blog about color matching ads. […]
May 25th, 2006 at 11:08 am
Jen is a very smart cookie. Any advice she gives is well worth following.
May 25th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
Hey Jen, thanks for the new tips. I’ve never heard of the complimentary one before.. I’m going to try that one out ASAP.
May 25th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
Is that Jen? wow you look so cute lol. I haven’t seen her before though. But anyway, thanks for the tips.
May 25th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
I also never thought about the complimentary methodes, although I saw them here and there in use… personally I don’t like this technique, I prefere the blended one. This performs after a blogpost very well
May 25th, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Thanks for the tips, Jen!
I’d say techniques 1,2 & 3 may work for me. I doubt if technique #4 really works for anyone. Let me guess, in addition to above techniques, the scrolling ads should do magic with the clicks. When are we going to have scrolling Yahoo! ads?
?
May 27th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
I must admit, I am a fan of those scrolling ads, you obviously read my blog
I do know sites that #4 works best, but I must also admit, some of them make me cringe when I see the color scheme!
May 27th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
[…] According to Jennifer Slegg at the YPN Blog, sometimes being obnoxious is best. […]
May 30th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
Hi Jennifer!
thanks for this timely info!
& especially the link to PHPAdsNew!
I’m currently researching this specific area to come up with a new advertising model that will be more visually appealing to Bloggers than plain Adsense text ads.
Thanks & Cheers! Billy ;))
June 1st, 2006 at 8:24 am
[…] Änderungen Von Änderungen betroffene Channels: internetmarketingNewsDe_start1: Ist jetzt inaktiv. Muss weichen weil der Platz durch internetMarketingNewsDeInjec überflüssig wird und auch nur 3 Anzeigen pro Seite angezeigt werden dürfen. internetmarketingNewsDe_rechts: Ist jetzt inaktiv. Muss weichen weil er zu früh im Quelltext erscheint und daher die hochpreisigen Klicks erreicht, obwohl er nicht die beste Klickrate hat. internetmarketingNewsDe_block: Statt 4 werden jetzt 5 Links angezeigt. Nur ein kleiner Test. internetMarketingNewsDeInjec: Ein neuer Channel für größere Umbauten. Dieser Channel trackt jetzt die Daten der durch das WP-Plugin AdSense Injection angezeigten AdSense-Anzeigen. Ich habe alle möglichen Formate (234×60, 125×125, 180×150, 120×240, 300×250, 250×250) aktiviert. Außerdem werden die Anzeigen nur rechts angezeigt und auf der Startseite und den Kategorieseiten werden die ersten 3 Beiträge jeweils mit einem solchem Anzeigenblock ausgestattet. Dank Jennifer Slegg bin ich auf die Idee gekommen es statt einzublenden in den Farben der Webseite zu gestalten. Dadurch fällt es nicht extrem als gänzlich anders und damit wahrscheinlich Werbung auf. Auf der anderen Seite ist es aber trotzdem klar vom eigentlichem Content getrennt. Das geht sicherlich ein wenig auf die Klickrate, aber ich kann ja dann immer noch anderes ausprobieren. Ich hab am Script noch eine kleine Änderung vorgenommen und folgendes in die Einfüge-div´s als style mit reingepackt: margin:5px; border:5pt solid #b82619; Daher der dicke Rahmen und der Abstand zum angrenzendem Content. Störend finde ich teilweise die Platzierung der Einblendungen. Grade in Kommentierungen sollte die Anzeige nicht rein. Vielleicht schau ich mir diesbezüglich den Quelltext mal an. Wäre auch nicht verkehrt wenn das Script es ermöglichen würde alternative Anzeigen anzugeben. […]
June 1st, 2006 at 9:51 am
[…] 4 Techniken Anzeigen farblich zu gestalten Im einem Gast-Artikel im Yahoo Publisher Network-Blog beschreibt Jenstar 4 Möglichkeiten Werbung farblich zu gestalten: […]
June 7th, 2006 at 10:16 am
[…] Jen Slegg is one busy bee. Two weeks ago, she wrote her first guest column for our blog, “Color Me Clickable,” which garnered considerable attention from the publishing community the world over. That same week, Jen went on air at Webmasterradio.fm to interview none other than Will Johnson, our VP and GM here at Yahoo! Publisher Network. […]
July 13th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
[…] Good points, Gary. We’re always looking for ways to help you earn more money. Sometimes that’s straight-up optimization tips like ad placement and color matching. Other times it’s helping you build better experiences for your users and offering techniques for driving traffic. We will explore a lot more of these strategies in detail in the months ahead. Frank asks: Concerning announcements: What about something like a rollout-plan for other countries then US? […]
July 28th, 2006 at 8:27 am
[…] Today and Saturday at the Hyatt San Jose, women bloggers from around the world will attend “BlogHer ’06.” Conference sessions will cover blogging basics, good writing techniques, primping your blog, multimedia and political blogging from a female perspective. In addition, Jen Slegg, famed JenSense blogger and guest columnist for us, will be talking turkey about monetization, and Flickr’s Heather Champ will show you how to give your site photographic appeal. Lastly, be sure to look for some of the women of Yahoo! Publisher Network, who will be there to represent. […]
August 9th, 2006 at 10:32 pm
[…] Today and Saturday at the Hyatt San Jose, women bloggers from around the world will attend “BlogHer ’06.” Conference sessions will cover blogging basics, good writing techniques, primping your blog, multimedia and political blogging from a female perspective. In addition, Jen Slegg, famed JenSense blogger and guest columnist for us, will be talking turkey about monetization, and Flickr’s Heather Champ will show you how to give your site photographic appeal. Lastly, be sure to look for some of the women of Yahoo! Publisher Network, who will be there to represent. […]
October 16th, 2006 at 9:15 am
[…] Jen Slegg, famed blogstress of Jensense, and an occasional contributor to the blog […]
December 19th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
[…] For further insights into improving performance, Jennifer Slegg, a guest blogger back in May, had some good thoughts on optimization, as did our own Margaret Holland. […]
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
[…] You’re free to dabble in our hues, and experiment with all the colors of our rainbow. You may not verge on a Van Gogh, and maybe your aesthetics don’t match Mondrian’s. Maybe you want your ads to stand out from your page, or maybe you want them to blend in. We’ll never tell you what colors you can and can’t use, as long as your users know they’re looking at “Ads by Yahoo!” […]
April 17th, 2007 at 10:15 am
[…] • Optimization Tips like your ad display preferences, choosing clickable colors and ad placement tips. […]
May 24th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
[…] It Up! In this session, a panel of noted SEOs, including occasional YPN blog contributor Jen Slegg, share some of their favorite and largely overlooked SEO tips. Shhh! No blogging allowed from this […]
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:15 am
[…] discussed ad placement and color strategies in general terms before. This post offers tips on ad placement and color based on your […]
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:55 pm
[…] discussed ad placement and color strategies in general terms before. This post offers tips on ad placement and color based on your […]
July 1st, 2008 at 11:16 am
[…] Strategies : The Blog Herald SEO as Website Positioning Strategy? - Updated at Emergence MediaYahoo! Publisher Network Blog Archive Color Me Clickable Tags pay per click internet marketing search engine make money adword marketing money advertising […]