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A banner ad is an electronic band of text and graphics appearing at the top，bottom or，occasionally，in the middle of a Web page．The banners typically contain a link to the advertiser's homepage．

An Anderson Consulting survey of around 1，500 Internet users discovered that banner ads are generally more effective than TV or radio ads in luring Web shoppers．According to the survey，banner ads drove 25 percent of users to shop online，beating newspaper or magazine ads(which only brought in 14 percent)．However，the fact remains that，large amount of Internet users remain cynical regarding online advertising and are reluctant to click through a banner to the advertiser's site．Online advertising is not going to bring immediate sales．It is only really effective in the long term，in building brands online．

As a seller，you can purchase banner ads—sometimes for very high prices—or you can exchange banners with other online companies．A banner ad is always a link to the sponsoring company．Figure 4 shows an example of a Web site containing several banner ads．The effectiveness of banner ads depends on factors such as their placement on the Web site and their ability to attract clicks．Banner ads might be most effective when placed on sites that attract people in a target market．For example，a banner ad for video games would not be well-placed on a Web site that has a target audience of aged people．

If you want to try out online advertising for free，your best bet is to join one of the many banner exchange programs．Once you have designed a banner that promotes your site，all you need to do is submit it to the program and offer to put ads for other people's sites on yours．The banner exchange site sends you different banners and records how many times banners are displayed．This record is then used to monitor your credits．Your banner ad is sent to other sites according to how many credits you have gathered．Some services even provide free credits when you sign up，which means that your banner can be displayed on other sites straight away．

1．Nearly every Web site uses lots of different soft wares to design its banner ads so as to make them attractive，such as Flash，Firework，Dreamweaver and so on．If you are interested，learn more about these soft wares by yourself．Lots of information is available on the Internet，www.flash.com(Figure 5)，for example．