Pixel advertising was started by a young man called Alex Tew from a small town in Wiltshire, England as a way to generate some income to pay his University fees. The idea founded on his site called Million Dollar Homepage (milliondollarhomepage.com) worked and companies began to pay for the pixel space on his homepage.

Once word of Alex's success spread lots of copycat sites started appearing. There are now so many people trying to get a part of the pixel ad craze that some Internet software developers have created applications for webmasters who want sell pixel ads on their own site which has increased the speed at which the pixel ad phenomenon is expanding.