Simple color control can be achieved by just changing a few parameters in some embed code. If you want full control over what types of links appear in an ad unit and how they are arranged, you can use custom templates.
To create a custom template, select Global Controls >> Custom templates from the control panel menu and click Create New Template. The short description is only used for organization, so enter whatever you'd like. For the width and height, enter specific pixel values. Fluid dimensions tend to be ineffective because of the ways browsers handle iframes.
The skeleton is a combination of HTML markup and "magic words." These magic words are as follows:
Please do not use any root tags (<html>, <body>, etc.) in the HTML skeleton. These are generated for you by the link generator.
If your custom template involves text links, keep size standards in mind when deciding how to arrange them. When users set up their websites, they preview the title and description in 10pt Arial type inside a 200 x 65 pixel container. To ensure that descriptions don't get cut off, it's generally a good idea to follow this convention.
You can view the skeleton code of any template using the template-source page. To find the ID of a template, look for the second number in a URL that references it (i.e. a link found in the Publish Links area). For instance, the URL http://affiliateexchange.org/linkgen/4/9/fafafa/ uses the template with ID 9, which is the horizontal banner template. This works for both standard and custom templates.