ASP Banner Ad System

To the Reader from Joe: This is a user-submitted tutorial by the author above. I have read the tutorial and
set the format to fit HTML Goodies, but for the most part have not changed the language. I chose this tutorial because
many readers have been asking for more ASP tutorials. This is a great one.

Sorry I cannot show you the event here.
The HTML Goodies servers do not offer ASP. I will tell you though that if you run IE5.0 or better, open the contents
of the zip file into a directory and it runs just fine.

If you haven’t already, you may want to read my introductory ASP tutorial before this one. If not,
then enjoy.

    There may be a point in your web design career, where your site becomes real
popular. That is when companies become interested in advertising on your site. A
Banner Ad system can be built to control all those advertisements that you are so
willing to display, for a price. Active Server Pages
makes it very easy to create a banner ad system. So easy, that the Microsoft ASP
developers created an “AdRotator” component for the occasion. Before you begin reading this article,
make sure you download the support material below.

Banner System Zip
All the files you need are right here

The files included are

ad.txt
banner.asp
3 banner images
clicks.asp
example.asp
redirect.asp

ad.txt

   
In order for the AdRotator component to work, you must configure a text file. This
text file contains all the banner ad properties. However, The text file must follow a certain
format. The first four lines are as follows…

REDIRECT redirect.asp
WIDTH 400
HEIGHT 50
*

REDIRECT

    When a banner is clicked, the “AdRotator” component goes to a preliminary page.
This page is called a redirect page. The redirect page handles any extra programming events
before directing a user to the banners destination. In this example banner system, I called the
preliminary file “redirect.asp”.

WIDTH

    This sets the width of the banner ad image. The value must be in pixels.

HEIGHT

    This sets the height of the banner ad image. The value must be in pixels.

*

   
The asterisk tells the “AdRotator” component that it is about to acquire banner ad information.
The asterisk is required.

   
Once you define the general properties above the asterisk, then comes the list of
banners to display. In the ad.txt file, there are three banners defined below the
asterisk.

banner1.jpg
https://www.htmlgoodies.com
HTMLGoodies.com
20
banner2.jpg
http://www.yahoo.com
Yahoo.com
30
banner3.jpg
http://www.dogpile.com
Dogpile.com
30

   
Each banner requires four lines of properties, which follow the format below…

Image filename
Web Address 
Description
Banner Weight

Image File

    The image filename can be a fully qualified web address or relative name that points to
the image. If the image is in a different folder, then you also include the folder
name as well.(http://www.test.com/banner1.jpg, banner1.jpg, or foldername/banner.jpg)>

Web Address

    The web address can be a page on your site or a fully qualified web address that
leads to another site.

Description

    The description will be displayed as a tool tip. When you rest your mouse over the
banner, the description pops up.

Banner Weight

    The banner weight determines how much a banner is displayed. The “AdRotator”
component adds all of the banner weights and determines the probability or percent
chance of a particular banner being displayed. A banner with a higher weight has
better a better probability.

NOTE: You can disable a banners property by substituting with a dash.

banner3.jpg
–
Dogpile.com
30

    The example entry above would create a banner ad that does not have
a web address.

Banner.asp

    This file uses the “AdRotator” component and analyzes the
contents of the ad.txt file. Below is the code.

sub banner(strTarget)
   dim bannerad, html
   set bannerad = server.CreateObject(“MSWC.adrotator”)
   bannerad.TargetFrame = strTarget
   html = bannerad.GetAdvertisement(“ad.txt”)
   Response.Write html
end sub

    The first thing to note is that the ASP was written with VBScript. The
second thing to note is that the code is written inside a sub procedure called
banner(strTarget). For those of you who do not know, a sub procedure allows you to group
together a bunch of code that can be reused over and over. Like a function, it takes
an argument, such as a word or variable. In the code above the argument isstrTarget. Unlike a function, a
sub-procedure does not return any values, it just executes the code inside line by
line.

    Inside the sub I declare two variables…

dim bannerad, html

    Next I store the “AdRotator” component inside the “bannerad” variable. When storing a
component inside a variable you use thesetkeyword. Since we are programming
server-side with ASP, we use server.CreateObject to summon the component.
“MSWC.adrotator” is the component key or name value.

set bannerad = server.CreateObject(“MSWC.adrotator”)

    Next I use a property of the “AdRotator” called “TargetFrame”.
This property is equivalent to…

    The target-value can be one of the values below…

    Next, I use an “AdRotator” method or function called “GetAdvertisement” and stored its
results in the “html” variable. Notice that the “GetAdvertisement” takes the name of
the ad banner text file as an argument.

html = bannerad.GetAdvertisement(“ad.txt”)

    Finally, I want to print the contents of the “html” variable.
This prints the code that displays the banner images.

Response.Write html

Redirect.asp

    This is the file that is processed before someone is redirected to the banners web
address. Inside this file, we can capture information like how many times a particular
banner is clicked and so on. To start things off, I defined a variable called “strUrl”.

Dim strUrl

    Next I store a querystring value inside this new variable.

strUrl = Request.Querystring(“url”)

    A querystring is nothing more than a bunch of name/value pairs
attached to a web address. When a user clicks on a banner, the “AdRotator” component
attaches a querystring to the redirect file. So if we were to click banner1.jpg,
defined in ad.txt, we would end up with a redirect web address that looks like so…

Redirect.asp?url=https://www.htmlgoodies.com&image=banner1.jpg

    In essence assigning “Request.Querystring(“url”) to “strUrl”, is the same as
assigning https://www.htmlgoodies.com to it.

    Finally, I check to see which banner was clicked. I accomplish this with the VBSCript
inStr( ) function.

if instr(strUrl, “htmlgoodies”) then
   Application.Lock
   application(“htmlgoodies”) = application(“htmlgoodies”) + 1
   Application.UnLock
   Response.Clear
   Response.Redirect strUrl
end if

    The inStr( ) function returns the number position of a sub-word (sub-string)
within another word (string). The format is as follows

InStr(main word, sub-word)

    If the sub-word exist within the main word, then the function
will equal a number greater-than zero or true. If the sub-word does not exist, then the
function will equal zero or false. In the example above, I check to see if “htmlgoodies”
exist within https://www.htmlgoodies.com. Since the answer is true, then the code
inside the if… then… statement will execute.

    Inside the if… then… I use an application variable. An application variable is
native to ASP. Application variables store information as long as a web application
exist, a web application ceases to exist when say someone shuts off the web hosting server.
The beauty of an application variable is that you can define it on one web page
and use it in other web pages within your web application. The downfall is that the users computer must
have cookies enabled.

    Anyways, the code adds one to the application variable, every time a banner is
clicked. After one is added, the code redirects to the banners web
page. So if banner1 was clicked then you shall be redirected to “https://www.htmlgoodies.com”.

Response.Redirect strUrl

Example.asp

    This is an example page that uses the banner ad system. When you
refresh the page, you should most likely see a different banner. Whenever you want to
insert the banner ad on a page, you can use the SSI directive below…

    Once you include the file above, then you can call the
sub-procedure inside the banner.asp file like so…

Call banner(“_blank”)

    Notice that I supply one of the values for the “TargetFrame” as an
argument. So if the banner is clicked, then the web page should open up in a separate
browser window.

Clicks.asp

    This is a very simple page that displays the number of clicks
per banner ad. To display the number of times a banner was clicked, you just print the
contents of the application variables that were created inside “redirect.asp”. Pretty
nifty.

<% =application(“htmlgoodies”) %>