If you want the biggest revenue impact for the smallest effort, we recommend optimising your colour palettes. Choosing the right palettes can mean the difference between ads your user will notice and click on and ads he/she will skip right over.

We have outlined a few strategies below that are designed to decrease ad blindness, the tendency for users to ignore anything that is separate from the main content of your site. By making these changes, you will be making your ads more visible to users. The goal is not to confuse the user into thinking ads are content, but to get the user to see and read the ads so he/she can click on those that interest him/her.

The colour strategy that you should use on your site varies depending on the ad placement and the colour of the background where the ads are placed. Review the table below for a quick reference about which strategies we suggest will work well on your site.

For most colour techniques, we recommend using colours for your ad text and links that already exist on your site. For example, if the links on your site are all green and your text is black, use green links and black text in your ads as well. Since most users are accustomed to seeing blue links, you might also try using blue.

In general, use common sense when choosing your colour palettes. If your site's main colours are pastels, do not design ads that are all primary colours. Users will not click on ads that are visually offensive.