Because frankly, I think doing a black and white ad well would be hard.

As the person up there commenting was Galaxion, I must say–Ttallan–I’ve seen your ads before and clicked and do not feel that I received something other than what your ads implied I would receive. Colored or not. I feel her ads work and are not misleading even though her comic is black and white but her ads are colored.

As long as the art you display will appear in your comic… it’s okay if you put flat colors on it… I don’t feel disappointed… I just expect to see art in that style in your comic! All of my ads have been snatched from various panels, though. Edited up, yep, but still in the same style.

Of the sample ads you posted, the square is the only one I would have clicked. I really like the black and white one but I’m not into animals, so I wouldn’t have clicked it. I might have if it was a human or humanoid but I’m just not hugely into animal comics. Same with your skyscraper… I might click the banner, but by now I know what your comic is and where it is so I don’t really need to… the eye animation is ugly and the kind of thing I, as someone studying advertising as a potential career, ignore. Because I know it’s made to be eyecatching to people who don’t know marketing, I’ll intentionally ignore those sort of ads. ^_^

The reason I would click the square is simple: it appears to be a panel from the comic, the art interests me, something interesting seems to be happening and I want to find out more. It doesn’t need a tagline. I simply find it interesting.

Thank goodness I’m not the audience you’re advertising for. XD

I think the biggest thing to keep in mind while designing an ad is this: would YOU yourself click on that? That’s what I design for, when I put up an ad, at one point I thought ‘I would click on this’ for whatever reason… then I test to see if someone else would. Often people disagree with what my opinion is. My favorite ads don’t always do as well. But it’s a good base to work from. If you would click it, someone else would. If you wouldn’t click on it, consider why you wouldn’t. In my case, I wouldn’t click the animated eyes because I KNOW it’s made to be attention-getting and I have an uncanny habit of looking for the ads that aren’t so typically eye-catching and clicking them to be rebellious.

Oh, and one final note!

The ads I tend to click on most were the ones that made me go WAIT. WHAT? Such as the “absinthe lollies!” ad. That’s all it said. No art. No picture. Just “Maple bacon lollipops. Absinth lollipops”. I had to click. It brought up questions in my mind. Sometimes simple works best. And for me, simple is making the viewer go ‘wait, what’s behind this?’ enough that they’ll click.

In short, good article and you covered all the useful stuff. ^_^ Can’t wait for the next. But I have to!