YNOT – In a previous article, we saw how to place a banner in the best manner possible to maximize its profitability. Today we dedicate ourselves to a complementary aspect that is equally important: the colors to use for advertisements.

Every self-respecting website should be viewed as if it were a sort of magazine. The user is the reader, and the publisher must decide what will work best for his or her market.

Advertisement color and type are of key importance because they can convice users to spend money, but if used haphazardly or too heavily, they can lead to counterproductive effects. Professional advertising services or networks often will let you customize the color and the type of banner.

Type
Be careful when choosing between text and mutlimedia banner ads; that is, advertisements containing pictures and short videos. In general, the second type will attract more attention from the reader, but multimedia ads take up more space on your server. It is also important to note that multimedia banners require a greater amount of bandwidth and can slow down the loading of a page. They usually are available in a limited number of sizes, so special spaces may have to be made to accommodate multimedia ads.

For smaller spaces or for inclusion within the text of an article, instead use text links that have a lesser impact on your site’s resources and therefore are more easily “digestible” by users.
In general, it is counterproductive to use too many ads of the same type. Consider mixing and matching the types of ads you run in order to streamline your pages and make all of the ads more effective.

Color
With multimedia banners, color changes are very limited because the content is provided to be used as-is. Most of the time, customization is limited to the color of a small logo in a corner that serves to identify the banner as advertising. In this case, color customization does not exert a particularly important influence on revenues, although any ad will be more pleasing to the eye if it adopts at least a few colors corresponding to those used on the rest of the page.

Three basic chromatic techniques exist for dealing with advertisements:

• Integration: This technique employs the same color combinations that are used in the rest of the webpage. The color of the text in the articles and links on your pages will be the fabric used in the advertising text. In this way, especially in the case of advertisements placed within text, the reader’s eye will not distinguish between content and advertising. The use of this technique is recommended only if the ad provider will allow it, as camouflaging ads often is prohibited. The technique is capable of exploiting the good faith of the visitor.
• Contrast: This technique is diametrically opposite to the technique of integration, based on the philosophy of “hiding in plain sight” by using colors that are in direct conflict with those used by the layout of the page.You should not use excessive chromatic colors (fuchsia text on a banner with a white background would be too much), but do use colors that attract attention. Contrast is especially recommended for sites that need a very serious and professional look. There are no contraindications for using contrast, except those relating to good taste of the combinations that are used.
• Complementarity: This technique is based on the integration of the two previous techniques. We use colors complementary to the ones used for the rest of the page. For example, if the page has blue writing on a white background, the banner would have a blue background and white lettering. In this way, advertising content will be fully integrated into the site even in color, but it will have the necessary contrast to stand out from the rest of the contents of the website without incurring issues relating to exploiting the good faith of the reader. Complementarity does not present any contraindications unless the colors complementary to those chosen for the site layout are particularly irritating to the eye.

The only rule to be respected in the choice of the three techniques is to avoid using too much of anything, thereby making your portal seem unprofessional.
This article was written for YNOT by Eng. Antonio Lodesani. For more information, visit ingoccupati.blogspot.com (in Italian).