Normally, the asp.net AdRotator sever control reads the advertisement information from a xml file but if the rest of your data driven web site is getting its data from a SQL database, then you might be tempted to move your ads to the database as well.

To get started, you will need to create a new table in SQL, lets just call it "Advertisements". Remember to set the ID column to auto increment.

Next, we can add a new web page to our site and drag an AdRotator onto it. Switch over to your code behind and add the following to your page load event:

AdRotator1.DataSource = LoadAds();

AdRotator1.DataBind();

Then also add the following method to your page (remember to modify the connection string):

private DataTable LoadAds()

{

    DataTable ret = new DataTable();

    SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection("Your Connection String...");

    try

    {

        SqlCommand cmd = conn.CreateCommand();

        cmd.CommandText = "SELECT ImageUrl, NavigateUrl, AlternateText, " +

                              "Keyword FROM Advertisements ";

        SqlDataAdapter adap = new SqlDataAdapter(cmd);

        adap.Fill(ret);

    }

    catch (Exception ex)

    {

        // Handle the exception

    }

    finally

    {

        if (conn.State == ConnectionState.Open)

            conn.Close();

    }

    return ret;

}

Now, create 2 or 3 images which you will be using as advertisements, create a new folder inside your web site call "Advertisements" and copy the images you created into the folder.

Now the only thing that's left to do is create our database records:

If you run the page now, you will see a new advertisement each time it is refreshed.

The cool thing about getting the data from your database is you can add some meta data to each advertisement and even a IsActive bit field where you can quickly and easily enable or disable some of the advertisements.