I know there are a thousand threads out there on this topic but I think it's always useful to discuss specific examples.

I have a private label agreement to partner with a paid social network platform. I have a subdomain set up which is CNAME'd to their own server but for all intents and purposes, it is branded up with my logo and site design... they just handle the payment processing and I take 40 percent. In fact, it's my main source of net income... all well and good.

I decided I wanted to put some text ads to this social network service in the middle of my content so I did so... but I was worried about boiler plate repetition, so I decided to put the text into a 468x60 banner (it looks like text but it's a gif file). As my overall site colour is blue and as blue is a known good click generator, I wrote the headline in blue and the rest in black Ariel. Just to ad a flash of colour to the bland white box, I put a little branding in the bottom right of the banner...

... and then it hit me... it look exactly like a Google Adsense ad!

Now, there is a reason they design their ads like that... and it's the same reason I did... it's works.

The other thing I think is pertinent here is the fact that it looks like two seperate text ads in the box but of course it leads to the same link.

What colour is my hat?

[edited by: Asia_Expat at 3:13 pm (utc) on July 10, 2008]