Here is a comment you might not take as good critisizim at first, but hopefully will make you improve later. Your tags are big. So big in fact you have ALLLLLLL the room you wan't to cram in whatever neato effects you want and still see the focal, and have "flow" (wtf why does everyone obsess over flow in this forum).
I think by forcing yourself to make a tag with much smaller proportions, you'll be teaching yourself how to make a aesthetically pleasing tag without cramming a load of neato cazito wowie kazamo effects into it. You'll quickly find that the way you've been making tags is a way that you haven't had to worry about effect placement. This is because you have all the room you need in something like a 500x240 banner.
So yea here are a few examples of what I'm talking about:
Un-needed or misplaced effects on either side of the tag. The biggest example is the clipping mask on the splatter on the right hand side of the tag. I hope you notice that it is out of place. Kinda just floating around out there, hanging out. But the point is I'm sure you made the clipping mask because as a effect by itself you think it's pretty cool, but you have to remember to look at it in conjunction with the whole tag. You'll quickly find that it is out of place, or not needed at all!
So thats it.
- Think about effect placement
- Try making a tag with smaller boundries
- Have fun
P.S. Why do you like making clipping masks of the focal then dragging it to the far off boundaries of the image?
I'm sure most people will agree with me when I say that effect looks weird just fyi.