In fact, some will go as far as deception to gain your click. Some of our advertisers, especially the ones placing ads on the HotBot search engine, say that consultants and agencies recommend banners that mimic operating system interfaces, because these ads increase clickthroughs. So advertisers blindly submit ads that look like dialog boxes or download-progress indicators, aiming to trick people into clicking through to their sites. In fact, they do work. We've consistently seen clickthroughs on banners like this double or even triple the average yield across our sites.
Clickthrough rates mean nothing.
In user testing, we've seen subjects fall for these deceptive banners again and again. Users go for the Cancel button, but it sends them to the company's homepage. They are confused and disoriented. They scan the page and suddenly realize what has happened. And then they immediately hit the Back button, often with a few choice words about the company.