Overnight traffic results for dot-com Super Bowl advertisers are in, giving early indications of which companies' high-price spots may pay off and which ones may have already failed. The immediate impact of this year's ads - the most expensive ever, and some of the most-widely watched second-half ads in Super Bowl history - may surprise some observers.
This year's Super Bowl, infamous as much for the 17 dot-com advertisers as for its down-to-the-wire finish, had a widespread effect of boosting Web traffic. Media Metrix reported a 38.7 percent increase in unique visitors to Super Bowl-advertised Web sites on game day and the following Monday, relative to the same period three weeks earlier. The company reported a jump from 2.8 million unique visitors to 4 million visitors for the advertisers.
NetRatings reported that from Sunday to Monday, 10.7 percent more unique visitors browsed the Web and 15.7 percent more visitors viewed Super Bowl advertisers' sites. Separately, NetRatings reported an 18 percent increase in unique visitors to sports-related sites on Super Bowl Sunday relative to the previous Sunday.
E-Trade, Monster.com and Schwab may have been some of the most high-profile, big-budget dot-com advertisers on the Super Bowl, but the companies' sites benefited the least, according to reports by Media Metrix.
Despite advertising during the Super Bowl and sponsoring the halftime show, E-Trade suffered a 5.5 percent - or 24,000 persons - drop in the number of unique visitors on Super Bowl Sunday and the following Monday relative to the same period three weeks earlier, Media Metrix said.
Although the E-Trade ads did not generate much immediate site traffic, an outside survey of more than 10,000 site visitors rated the company's ads as the number-one most effective, and separately, favorite Internet-related ad. The survey also picked E-Trade's ads as the "biggest waste of money."
Monster's launch of a new ad campaign, more somber than last year's well-liked ads, only increased the site's total of unique visitors by 4.5 percent, Media Metrix said, or 18,000 visitors. The outside survey showed Monster clearly in the middle of the pack for most effective and most memorable among Internet Super Bowl ads.
Schwab, the most successful of the Super Bowl advertisers according to the Media Metrix survey, picked up an unique site viewer increase of 13 percent, or 25,000 visitors, during the two-day period compared to three weeks earlier.
A few sites that launched fairly recently or in conjunction with Super Bowl advertising saw increases upwards of 100,000 new unique viewers relative to three weeks ago, Media Metrix said. Computer.com launched during the Super Bowl with three quirky, second-half ads, drawing 155,000 unique visitors to the site.
New jobs-category entrant Kforce.com saw its site traffic jump 2600 percent in just three weeks, Media Metrix said, from 4,000 unique viewers to 98,000 unique viewers. Considering its game-time competition with Super Bowl advertising veterans HotJobs.com and Monster, Kforce has arguably received the most significant early success from its ads during the game.
Two sites targeted to women launched with significant site traffic after advertising during the Super Bowl. A commercial for OurBeginning.com, a site that sells wedding stationery online, increased the number of unique visitors from 9,000 to 98,000 from Super Bowl Sunday to the following Monday compared to three weeks earlier. Oxygen Media, a cable company oriented to women, saw a modest 32 percent increase in its site's number of unique visitors after advertising during the Super Bowl. The percentage increase understates a jump in unique visitors to the site from close to 150,000 to close to 200,000 visitors.
Other winners included Pets.com. The site received 118,000 more visitors than it did three weeks before the Super Bowl, increasing traffic by 311 percent, Media Metrix said. HotJobs benefited from a similar increase in its site's traffic after advertising during the game. HotJobs' total number of unique visitors increased from 83,000 to 282,000, an increase of 240 percent, over the three weeks preceding Super Bowl Sunday and Monday,
