Ad Rotator: So you want to learn about ad rotation eh? ASP.NET has a built in banner management system, albiet a fairly simple version. Banner Management Software can get fairly complex depending on your websites requirements, but for starters the built in ASP.NET Banner Management will suffice until you out grow its limitations.

With .Net's built in controls you can now have your very own banner rotation application without writing any complex code.

<%@ Page language="c#"%>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" >
<html>
    <head>
        <title>adRotator</title>
    </head>
<body>
    <asp:AdRotator
             ID="adBannerTop" 
             target="_blank"
             AdvertisementFile="Banner.xml"
             Runat="server" />
</body>
</html>

The banner rotation control uses a xml based file that contains your banners image and hyperlink information. Below is a sample of what your xml file can look like. We will get into the details of your options in a later tutorial.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Advertisements>
<Ad>
<ImageUrl>images/orcsweb_468x60.gif</ImageUrl>
<NavigateUrl>www.csharpfriends.com</NavigateUrl>
<AlternateText>Try us!</AlternateText>
<Keyword>asp</Keyword>
<Impressions>5</Impressions>
</Ad>
</Advertisements>

Possible Improvements

With most commercial grade banner management software, you will want to expand the built in capability of ad serving with the following features:

- banner uploading
- advertiser information
- campaign management
- reporting
- statistic tracking e.g. impressions, clickthroughs, clickthrough details
etc.

If your looking for a more advanced, professional ad serving software package, I have developed my very own http://www.idealadserver.com .

Happy Programming!

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