Best Banner Design Gets up to $300!

Up to $300 in Prize Money to Winner! Looking for a banner that gets results!

Accepted File Formats:
gif or jpg

OK - This is going to be a unique contest. If your banner design tests out the best - you will have the opportunity to win up to $300 for your design.

Results will be determined by our website visitors! That means your banner will be graded by the Click Through Rate (CTR) it gets. For instance, if a banner is shown 100 times and it gets 3 clicks, that means that banner is getting a 3% CTR. HIGHER IS BETTER!

Our current banner is here:
http://www.cm-tracking

Size: 746x46
Static - NON Animated
Format - gif or jpg

It is currently getting a 1.35% click through rate.

The base payout for the contest is $100 for the winning banner. You will earn a bonus based on your click through rate if your banner is chosen for testing. I will choose banners to test at my discretion and you are not guaranteed to be chosen. Each banner picked for testing gets $5 guaranteed as the second prize. The banner with the highest click through rate will be the winner and gets paid on the following scale:

1.6% CTR - $125 Total Prize
1.75% CTR - $175 Total Prize
1.85% CTR - $200 Total Prize
2.00% CTR - $225 Total Prize
2.25% CTR - $300 Total Prize
If the winner gets less than 1.6% CTR, then they will get $100.

* Our current banner was at over 2% CTR when it was new so I know it can be done. That banner is just a little stale now because we have used it so long.

* You may use the same text, some of it, all of it, on your design. We will have you revise it if we need to before we test. The new design is up to your creativity.

* Our current banner was a great performer because we had it designed to NOT look like a banner ad. We tried several that did look like banners, but always came back to this one because it performed better. So- if that gives you any ideas go for it. I would suggest designing something that looks like it is part of the site within the listings or some type of "featured ad". That means we may choose a banner for testing that looks "boring" compared to other banners. We are guessing he winner will do the best job of blending into the current site while looking "Featured" at the same time if that makes sense. That said, we may test a banner that is off the wall too to see what will happen.

* Here is where the banner is now. You can get a feel for what the environment is and design accordingly.
http://www.employmentguide
Just hit refresh a few times and you will see our current banner rotate through.

* Banner tests will be for 24 hours minimum (we get enough impressions in that time to make a valid decision)

* I will post results as we go in this thread.

* I don't know how many banners we will try -- depends on the interest in this contest.

* We plan to start testing right away and try others as the contest goes on.

Post questions if you have them!