What is the best format?

placement, format, color: what's the best choice?

[WebRankInfo]

I'm wondering what is the best format for optimizing the earnings.
Have you ever made some tests to compare the different formats, placements, colors?
I think that the 468x60 format is not a good one because it resembles too much to the classic banners.

Did you notice significant differences by changing the colors?
Is is better to use exactly the same colors as your site design?

Thank you for your answers!

[steverose]

I am having good luck using a column to the right that mirrors a left hand menu column with page title and text space in the middle using the same colors -- four ads whereas i could only have two in my older format. Best, S

[creepychris]

Background of ad = background of page (location on page)
Border of Ad = background of page (location on page)
Link color and text color = same as link color and text color on rest of page.

Essentially make the links look as if they are 'your' links. Make the ad blend in with your page. If it weren't for the 'ads by Google' a visitor would never know they were ads. When I did this the CTR increased on average by 60%. That is to say: New CTR = Old CTR X 1.6.

But every site is different I suppose. So you'll probably have to experiment and find out if the same holds for you.

[Teshka]

In my experience, ads do well on the pages that are the least busiest. My highest performers are white pages with no tables or anything, just black text articles, with the big horizontal ad block across the top next to a link back to the main page.

I think when you've got a very plain page, people's eyes are drawn to the one thing that's different. However, when you've got a lot of ads, banners, menues, colors, etc, people tend to zone it out and just read the article. I have no proof to back that up. Just a theory. =)

[stargeek]

I'd have to say its all about the whitespace, I added line breaks before and after my leaderboard ad, and my ctr went up a good bit