Advertising on the Internet has become increasing popular as an effective method of getting an advertising client's message to the consumers. A web banner ad is one form of Internet advertising. Through this form of advertising, consumers who are interested in the product or service advertised can click through to the company's website. Its main purpose is to generate traffic to a specific website for the advertiser.

A banner ad consists of an image that often uses simple animation to attract the attention of the consumer. Sometimes banner ads also utilize sound. The images are normally in a high-aspect ratio shape and that is why they are called banner ads, because they resemble the shape of a banner. Most banner ads are placed on websites that have interesting and useful content so there is a potential of a higher rate of click through stats for the banner. A typical banner ad is 468x60 pixels.

The banner ad is placed on the website in a prime location (many times at the top of the page or at the bottom after an article) and is monitored by the site it redirects to. The site keeps a record of click through statistics so that it knows whether that particular banner has been clicked on more times than the same banner in another location or on another site. This will optimize the advertising that the company needs to do in order to get more click throughs, and in turn, more potential customers.

Many websites use banner ads and advertising banners as the major source of income for a website. While other companies pay to have their own ads randomly placed on websites throughout the Internet as a form of advertising. Advertising banners have recently moved from static pictures to full blown moving ads.