I’m interested in what studies have been done on the subject, but I will say that if your ads aren’t getting many clicks, the first order of business should be to re-evaluate how effective they may be — which could be design, message or placement. You may want to go from just putting them on Adwords (which I really don’t suggest anyway) to buying adspace directly from site owners. There are lots of different things you can do that don’t necessarily involve scrapping the ad altogether, but I think that a redesign is something that you should always consider when ads aren’t performing well.

As always, testing is key.

@Jermayn: Exactly :D

Attractive banners will usually get more clicks but you need to test to be sure.

In some cases ugly banners may get more clicks in the short-run, but in the end they may irritate visitors and make them less likely to come back.

Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs!

Darren, I’ve read a few studies on the subject, and I don’t recall seeing any data that supports your theory. Sure, people say they like pretty ads, but what they actually look at and click on is another matter.

Does anybody know of any designers who would do this for us, for free?

Yes! If you have charity ads that you would like redone, you can contact me and I will work on ads for free (charity ads only please).

I’m in the process of re-tooling my site to provide free stuff for people, including free adsense colour schemes with previews (which will probably be images of the final ads as opposed to just adsense ads). So at least with that area you’d be covered.

I think that a lot of animated ads get too annoying, sometimes to the point where I wouldn’t visit the site even if it were something I’d be interested in. Tasteful amounts of movement can be great and draw attention to your ad, but too much movement can cause people to block your ad (using adblock or similar firefox plugins).

You may see the earlier ad samples on my blog.

Does anybody know of any designers who would do this for us, for free?

But after a while, I received an email from the ad agency that they’ve been receiving complaints that the charity ads were “ugly and old-fashioned”. I was soo sad to have to request him to remove the ads until I find other designers to help me with the ad banners.

Perhaps somebody who’s reading this would like to offer their services, and help Eden design something prettier? Please…??

My email is pelfism [at] gmail.com

Are they specifically aiming for a cheaper market in some cases? Is it ineptness? Or is this just a lack of resources devoted towards web ads so they assign any random intern to crack open Photoshop and crap out an ad with bad copy assigned by a marketing dullard?

Sports team websites are one area where this practice is especially pervasive. As a sports fan, this is something that is bothersome. But it isn’t just in the sports world, it is all over the internet.

If I was designing ads for the web, I’d be more likely to have a simple logo and short bit of text like that WordPress ad up above. Pretty interesting post and something I’d like to examine in more detail in the future.

Designing the banners isn’t that hard. It’s hard to decide what text will you put on the ad.