Google Adsense has become one of, if not the, most used advertising platform for website owners to use to make money online for many many reasons. One of these reasons is that Google Adsense offers publishers of the advertising platform to have quite a lot of freedom in how the adverts appear visually in terms of size, colour, text and so on. However, by having more freedom means it will be harder for web users to find the ‘sweet spot’ for optimised adverts (as it will take longer to experiment through all the different variations a publisher could make to an advert). So, to try and save publishers some time, here are some tips you can take away to help you with choosing the right colour combination for your Adsense adverts.
 
Firstly, before we start, it must be acknowledged that there are potentially thousands of colour combinations that publishers can use with their adverts (as many combinations as there are colours). So, for this reason, this article will look into the three main categories advert colour combinations fall into: blend, compliment and contrast.
 
 

Blend

Blended adverts have the sole objective to try and camouflage as much as possible into the theme and the content of your website. Therefore, whatever colour the titles to your articles are, you make the title of the advert the same, whatever colour your text is, you make the description the same and whatever colour your links are, you make the URL to the advert the same.
Pros

• Makes it harder for web users to purposely ignore adverts.
• Looks very nice on the website.

Cons

• Since blended, adverts have the potential to go unnoticed.
• Can result in low but consistent click through rates.

Compliment

Adverts that are categorized into the ‘compliment’ category have some of the colours of the theme of the website implemented into the advert. However, the main difference between compliment adverts and blended adverts is that compliment adverts introduce an additional and new colour (or two):
Pros

• Introduction of a new colour attracts web users to the advert for good ad exposure.
• Still looks nice on the website.

Cons

• Advert is not camouflaged into the theme any more so could be ignored by web user.
• More ‘stand out’ than blended adverts which may not please some web users.

Contrast

On the other end of the scale, there is the option to completely contrast your advert against the theme of your website. This is when you use bright, bold and, potentially, many different colours not found in the theme of your website.
Pros

• Bright colours immediate attracts web users to looking at it.
• Gains maximum ad exposure of the three categoric options.

Cons

• Looks terrible when implemented into the theme, potentially ruining your bounce rate and more important statistics.
• The advert will look 100% like an advert.