Yesterday, Hitwise released some interesting statistics about the impact of Superbowl commercials on web traffic. The results were pretty interesting. Some sites showed a significant increase including Budweiser, Budlight, and infoUSA. Showing the most significant increase was Snickers; a result of their controversial commercial with two men kissing.

The Hitwise article poses an interesting question, “What kind of traffic increase would be expected from $2.6 million in online advertising?” My guess is there would be a huge impact (at least a million unique visitors to your site). Additionally those users would be targeted users, not a broad based audience. Conversely, for large companies it’s probably best to use a diverse set of marketing channels. Check out LeeAnn Prescott’s article.