What kind of creative (graphic ads) works?

Trying to help my affiliates and make my program more enticing....

[tolachi]

I'm on the verge of throwing some money into fresh professionally designed creative. I'd like to go into it with a little bit of advice as to what works. We're looking for banner type things gifs, animated gifs, flash... These will primarily be used by our affiliates. Businesses in my industry (retail specialty apparel) usually capitalize on t and a to get eyes. We'd like to do something more original and interesting.

What type of strategy has worked for you? What has failed miserably?

TIA

[raywood]

Personally, I don't like the animations, and I won't use them. I build content sites, so I want the creatives to been seen, but not overwhelm the page. Also I don't like things like black backgrounds with huge red lettering.

What I do like are creatives that blend well with the color themes of my sites, like neutral colors that can fit anywhere, or a couple of different color choices for the same layout. I like images and catchy text and headlines. For example an interrogative headline.

[chrisgarrett]

My main concern is that they are tested and work (ie. get good converting clicks) but after that a variety of sizes, shapes and styles are available so I can choose the most appropriate placement.

[GerBot]

Banners that have content so they look like their are editorial comments can work well if integrated into a webpage.

[tolachi]

So what I'm hearing here is that graphical ads that use text that engages the reader/browser can actually work quite well? That is kind of what I had wanted to hear, so please correct me if I am wrong. I guess what I am thinking of is the equivalent of the citibank billboard text ads except online in gif format.

[skibum]

Sale, promotion, free shipping, stuff like that tends to pull well. Free shipping of a minimum order size, 10% off a minimum order size. Get them to spend more in exchange for something "free".

[itisgene]

it is always good to have a "call to action" texts on the banner. Just static banners don't draw attention.