• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, March 13, 2015

So Rocket Fuel evaluated 38,000 online ads and came to the conclusion that the best-performing ads have a few things in common. Namely, the color red, men's faces and animation. The study, The Definitive Guide to Creative Optimization, examined 38,151 banner ads from 1,076 advertisers across 2,184 campaigns in 16 verticals between November 2013 and June 2014.

And while the study did arrive at certain conclusions, the study overview reads: "Our intent was not to create a set of rules or hard-and-fast principles for design. After all, applying the data presented here will not guarantee greater performance. The goal is to identify ways you might be able to improve performance when a campaign is struggling, or to increase the chances of launching a successful campaign by using creatives that are similar to those that have historically performed well."

Will your next ad be red?