According to Kleppner (cited in Okpoko, 2008, p.7), the practice of advertising is as old as man. The urge to advertise seems to be part of human nature. The oldest method of advertising is by town crying. It became the earliest medium of announcement in England in 1100AD. William Caxton, an early English printer made advertising history in 1478 when he printed a handbill now regarded as the first known printed English advertisement, which advertised the book he had printed (Kleppner, 2002, cited in Okpoko, 2008).

Wilson (2000) (cited in Odunze, 2013, p.2) states that advertising is an ancient activity that has been traced to have began since through the word of mouth to persuade people, which is the major (and still known as the most powerful) form of persuasion in advertising. Advertising has been in existence since humans began to provide each other with goods and services. Advertising as an individual form is generally accepted to have started since the advent of newspapers in the 17th century.

The advent of advertisement dates back to the old times. To persuade product users, societies make use of pictorial signs and symbols. For centuries, these main elements were basically used to promote products. Also, Belch (1998) and Aaker (1991) (cited in Ma and Liu, 2010) records that, for many decades, advertising has been in existence. It is the only means of relating to a promotion mix that has its final function to set up channels of information and make people to sell goods and services or promote an idea by persuasion. Due to the importance of advertising, persuasion is considered to be one of the most effective communication tools in marketing. In the world’s convoluted society, both customers and businesses are connected due to the significant communication system advertising has developed into.

Abideen and Latif, 2011 (cited in Abideen & Saleem, 2011) records that nearly everyone grows up in the globe which is filled with the mass media, for example television, videos, music, billboards, magazines, newspapers, internet, and advertising. When it comes to advertising, all media affect audiences, but that of the internet is regarded as one of the strongest media of advertising due to the number of people it can reach and persuade. But in today’s environment, online advertising happen to be one of the most important sources of communicational instrument between the manufacturer of a product and the consumer of the product (Abideen & Saleem, 2011). Furthermore, Katke, 2007 (cited in Abideen & Saleem, 2011), states that as a promotional technique, online advertising serves as a basic tool for drawing the attention of potential consumers to take eventual purchase decision.

Advertising on the web (since 1994) is known as one of the efficient and effective means of marketing and advertising due to its global visibility, low-cost, effective performance tracking and measurement. In an article published in New York’s PR-Newswire on August 9th, 2001, $906.4 million was spent on online advertising in the U.S in 1997, and the top five web sites data released by the Jupiter Online Advertisement Forum shows that the sites (MSN, Yahoo, iWon, Excite, and Netscape) made close to 10 billion U.S. Dollars from online advertisement at mid-2001 (Gao, Sheng, & Chang, 2012).

According to Belch and Belch (1998) (cited in Ma & Liu, 2010),the different traditional mass media that have the ability to convey or disseminate advertising communication include TV broadcasting, newspapers and magazines. Hamill (1997) (cited in Ma & Liu, 2010, p. 6) also states that the Internet is the latest medium for businesses, which has brought about the growth and development of enterprises mainly by providing a new living space. Lavidge and Steiner, 1996 (cited in Ma & Liu, 2010) records that online advertising has been considered to be an investment in a long term process, when it comes to the effects of advertising.

Tavor, (2011, p. 121) records that the Internet has turned into a major source of consuming information, and to some level, has changed old media i.e., the television, the newspaper and the radio. The commonest ways people use the internet are mainly for searching through recent information and data, and for purchasing products and services because of its mass availability. Luk, Chan, and Li (cited in Tavor, 2011, p. 121) state that online advertising helps to sell products and services through interactive and colourful catalogues and makes audience have recent and available information. It also enables them to purchase both international and local products. The ability for internet users to interact with a company’s website makes their purchasing decision more efficient, because the website can provide more complete information on the product line than other media tools which will eventually persuade them to purchase it.

Prabhakar and Alwitt (1989) (cited in Schlosser, Shavitt, & Kanfer, 1990) state that the determination of how online advertisement persuade Internet users has been regarded important to trace because it likely affects consumers’ attention, reaction, and exposure to individual ads done through a variety of intellectual and emotional processes