Super bowl ads are known for their price tag. At $ 7 Million for a 30-Second Spot, Each Second Costs About $ 233k. But is it really Worth it?
Some say the exposure is priceless, but with a cost-pha-mille (CPM) of Around $ 71IT’s Nearly Ten Times More Expensive Than Digital Alternatives.
So, how do brands make sure they get the best return on investment (ROI) after the Final Whistle? It comes down to the digital follow -up – running the same or similar creatives on social and digital display platforms to ensure the campaign gets seen.
Whether you’re aiming for a slow burn or a quick burst of Attention, The Key is Having a clear Digital Strategy that Complements that Complements Your Super Bowl Investment. With adclarity, you can track which approach is more effective for your competitors –nd use that insight to shape your own campaigns.
We took a quick look at some of last year super bowl advertisers to
The importance of digital channels post-supar bowl
After the Excitement of the big game subsides, the real work begins. That’s where digital follow-up comes in -LOling Brands to Leverage the Momentum Generated by Their High-Profile Spot.
This Momentum Can Retarget Viewers, Expand Reach to different audience segments, and keep their message top-up-mind in a competitive landscape.
For marketers, there’s a real fear that a single, high-profile ad might not drive the long-term engagement or conversions they’re after.
A super bowl ad reactions millions, but without sustained support, the buzz fades fast. The goal is to extending its impact beyond game day through an integrated digital strategy – Ingaging audiences, driving traffic, and converting leads on Social Media, Display Ads, and Search.
2024 Super Bowl Campaign Case Studies
Using Adclarity’s Insights, We Examined How Some Top Brands Leveraged their Super Bowl Spots to Drive Impactful Digital Campaigns.
Crave: The Michael Cera Campaign
First, we dove into crave’s “developed with dermatologists, not michael cera” campaign.
According to adclarity data, the company spent an estimated $ 339.3k on this campaign in Q1 of 2024, with most of the spending happying on February 12 (the day after the game).
In the trend chart Above, we can see the campaign’s digital push lasted about a month.
Bell’s take a quick look at the top ads they Ran on social media and youtube.
Notice that the creatives all feature roughly the same story and design, with michael sera as the star. And the numbers under each ad represent the total spend, impression, and length of the video.
We can also see the top publishers of this digital follow up. For a skincare brand whose audience
This shows that perhaps the brand treated this super bowl ad as a chance to reach a new audience segment of sports fans.
Now, keep in mind that the three screenshots Above are just showing data on the michael sera campaign. If we look at crave.com’s total advertising spend and placements for the same time period, we can see a big difference.
First of all, we can see their total digital spend was over $ 5 million, meaning the michael campaign was only about 6% of this brand’s digital spec in the first quality of quarter of 2024. Ghout the Quarter, while the Michael Cera Campaign was roughly just one month.
Looking at their top ads from this time period, we can see the creatives all feature women using the product.
However, if we look at the full list of campaigns, its looks like the michael campaign actually had the best cost per mill (CPM), at $ 5.21 compailed to Most of his campaigns in the $ 8 cpm Rangi.
It looks like, in the case of this brand, they used the super bowl to reach a new audience segment with a funny idea.
And it turns out it may have been a more cost-effective digital campaign
Moving on from a nerdy celebrity to a nerds candy, let’s see how uniform brand supported their super bole ad on digital.
Nerds Candy: Unleash Your Sense
Nerds have been Around Since the 80s, but the 2020 release of their “Gummy clusters” products took the brand to new heights.
Of course, this hype product was the star of their first-Eve super bole ad.
According to adclarity, The Candy Brand Spent An Estimated $ 1.1m on Digital Support in Q1 2024.
Note: Check how much of an advertiser’s buying method is Programmatic vs direct with the ad buying methods widget.
Interestingly, they have their biggest online spending day on February 5, exactly one week before the game.
Their Digital Ad Creative Mostly Featured Tiktok Star Addison Rae And The Dancing Personified Gummy Cluster from the TV Spot.
While crave as a brand had a ton of digital campaigns, adclarity saw just two for nerds, with the majority being this super bowl campaign. Both Campaigns Had A CPM of Around $ 9.
Looking at the full list of publishers, we can see again several sports-Related sites in addition to youtube, facebook and instagram.
So, this brand may have taken the same approach to digital support for super bowl ads by targeting sports-themed sites to live
How Much of the Annual Budget is for the Super Bowl?
One Last Difference we Saw Between the two advertisers was how they are spent through the year.
When we look at the 12 months overview, we saw that nerds spent most of their annual budget Around the time of the super bole.
Nerds Candy Annual Digital Ad Spend Trend
And most of it was on video ads, with social media ads following shorting after.
But, looking at crave, we saw a more consistent spending trending through 2024. Once 2025 Hit, The Brand’s digital ad spending actually started to ramp up (especially on video, AS WE CAN SEE WEENELE).
Crave Annual Digital Ad Spend Trend
Again, this just goes to show two unique approaches to handling digital support for a super bowl ad.
- Nerds Spent Most of their Budget One Week Before The game
- Crave Spent Most of its Budget The day after The game
- Crave Had a Much Larger Annual Budget, and Dedicated Just 6% of it to Support their Super Bowl Ad Campaign
- Almost all of nerds’ budget see to be supporting this same campaign
TakeaWays from different speeding strategies
Which Campaign was more successful?
While we can’t definitively say which campaign was more successful, we can draw key lessons from their strategies:
Crave Took a methodical, steady approach. They used their super bole ad as an entry point into a broader, long-term campaign that targeted a new audience on sports platforms like Espn.
This approach sugges that, for brands with more evern products or services, sustaining momentum after the game may be more important than all in upfront.
Nerds Went for a more concentrated push. They spent the bulk of their budget leading up to the game, using the super bowl as a major moment to drive awareness for a newer product.
If your goal is to capitalize on buzz and excitement in a short time, Nerds’ Strategy shows how focusing ad speed before and around the big Event can deliver impact.
The takeaway? Different Businesses Need Different Strategies, and Both Approaches can work depending on your goals.
Wondering how advertisers will follow up their super bowl ads this year? Take a free trial of adclarity today.