Here are some simple, no-nonsense tips that can greatly improve the performance of your banners.
1. Keep the banners small.
Make sure that your banners are small in small in size (kb). The less bytes the banner takes up, the faster the banner loads. The faster the banner loads, the quicker people see it. The quicker people see it, the faster they will see it before other parts of the page loads. This is the number one tip. If a banner is too big, it runs the risk of loading after the web surfer has moved on and may never see it. The is a free gif cruncher at www.bannermakerpro.com/gifcruncher.html. Generally speaking, a 468 X 60 banner should be under 12KB.
2. Keep the animation small.
Animation definitely draws attention to images, but it needs to be kept in context and it needs to obey rule number one. More animation in an image means more frames and a bigger image. If you can keep the number of frames to a minimum, you can keep the size down. Good, small animation effects include a slide show or a wiggle of a graphic.
3. Add a call to action.
Entice the user with a "click here" or "free" or offer to go to the web site. This works much better than just a company name or logo and gives the user a reason to go to the website.