Alternating Color and Placement Can Keep Your Ads Looking Fresh

Ventura Boulevard in L.A. is a focal point for Hollywood studios advertising their latest cinematic blockbusters. The ads are displayed on massive billboards that soar high above the traffic. Look up on any given week and you might see a seemingly endless parade of gigantic green ogres, dopey-looking 40-year-old virgins, dashing swashbucklers or cat-suit-wearing superheroes.

Tourists and newcomers to the area can be dazzled. But to long-time residents, they barely register an impression. That’s because seeing the same ads in the same places can lead to ad fatigue.

What is “Ad Fatigue”?
The average American adult sees more than 3,000 ads each day, but by necessity we tune out most of them, so we can get our work done, drive home without crashing into the guy in front of us, etc. Your users can suffer from ad fatigue, as well. This can be a real problem, especially when you have many repeat visitors. People can become so used to your ads that they are less likely to see them—and less likely to click.

Fortunately, there are a couple of fairly simple ways to keep your Yahoo! Publisher Network ads looking fresh.

Vocal Color
The first solution is to take advantage of the more than four billion color combinations you can choose from in your publisher account interface. In general, our publishers have found that choosing a color palette that complements their existing color schemes tends to be the most effective, although this should not be considered a hard and fast rule.

Subtly alternating your color palette periodically can keep your ads looking fresh. Create three or four ads, each with a distinct but still complementary color scheme. You might try starting with the most subtle, blended colors, then progressing to those bolder in color. Swap out each ad on a periodic basis: weekly, monthly, quarterly—whatever seems best to you. This can help keep your audience’s attention on your ads.

Keep ’Em Moving
Another way to keep your users on their toes is to alter your ad placement. As noted above, people get used to ads when they’re always in the same place, even if the ads themselves are changing, then fatigue and indifference cab set in. Try changing the placement or layout of your ads, or inserting an extra ad in an unexpected place (but no more than three per page, please!), on a periodic basis. 

Remember, you can test the effectiveness of each color scheme, layout and placement by using the Reporting Categories feature.

Lastly, we’ve also discovered that mixing display (that is, “graphical”) ads with your contextual ads can be more effective than depending on either graphical or contextual ads alone. So you might want to look into the Right Media Exchange, which allows you to show display ads from a variety of networks—and get paid for them.

—Michael Mattis, Blogster-in-Chief