Nielsen: Super Bowl Ads Drive Web Traffic

GoDaddy.com

As Super Bowl advertisers look for spots to reverberate beyond the game, the freebie strategy employed by Denny's appears to be a grand slam. But many marketers have more pedestrian goals: Driving viewers to their Web sites. And a new Nielsen report shows some had notable success last year, with significant lifts in traffic the day after the Feb. 1 game.

One finding bears little need for exhaustive research: GoDaddy.com saw a 112% lift in Web traffic (unique visitors) during those 24 hours, more than any other advertiser.

The company's two provocative Super Bowl spots, featuring race car driver Danica Patrick, directed viewers to GoDaddy.com to view the spots' culminations. Unique visitors were an estimated 1.2 million for the day.

Job search sites Monster (70%) and CareerBuilder (61%) also saw big jumps, just trailing GoDaddy. Again, profound analysis may not be needed: The spots came during the depth of the recession. CareerBuilder day-after traffic was 2 million, Monster at 831,000.

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Hulu saw a 59% jump in traffic with its Alec Baldwin-starring spot. That lift may have been a function of simple awareness building, with the message that episodes of TV shows are available free and on-demand with a few clicks of a mouse. Traffic was 1.8 million the day after the game.

Overall, Nielsen said the average leap in Web traffic for Super Bowl advertisers on Feb. 2, the day after the game, was up an average of 63%.

Denny's, of course, used its spot not to drive Web hits, but store traffic. Its ad told people a free Grand Slam breakfast would be available to all visitors two days after the game. There was hardly a need for Web activity -- all the info was right on screen.

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