The Super Bowl is a huge event for football players and fans, but it also represents the one time of the year when the TV viewing public actually enjoys commercials. Brands pay an obscene amount of money to capitalize on a captive audience with the hope of making it back in sales. Immediately after the game ends the Internet is flooded with articles on the best and worst Super Bowl ads of the year—and 7X the number of searches for advertised brands on Google compared to typical television ads.

But which brands were most prepared for that increased visibility? With the help of Ben Wood, our Creative Director, I took a look at websites and landing pages from the top brands because online excitement and eyeballs can only translate into growth with a good user experience.

Amazon and the Baldwin Bowl

Amazon knows how to sell products. It’s one of the best at it. So when you arrive at Amazon after searching for more on the star-studded Alec Baldwin ad, it’s no surprise that Amazon is there waiting with bonus footage right next to calls to action for buying Echo, Amazon Prime and other Amazon devices.

Ben agreed and thought Amazon did a good job “balancing giving users an opportunity to view the campaign’s entire story arc with ad-specific calls to action to buy.”

Auto Industry – From Audi Commander to Kia’s Walken Closet

Five of the most searched brands during the Super Bowl were car companies. Audi, Kia, Acura, Honda and Jeep all put their hats in the ring. But, Ben notes that each squandered their opportunity. They “offered very little once users got to the landing page. They chose to engage their audience with nothing more than an embedded video of the ad or the ad serving as a hero image/video player screen takeover. In either case, you’re rewarding someone who sees your ad and takes action with, what? Another viewing of the same ad?”

Kia did the most to try and bridge the gap between ad and product by including an #AddPizzazz hashtag and car selector on the landing page. It’s a fun way to get users to look at each car model, but likely does little to move them down the sales funnel towards buying.

Doritos Ultrasound and Crash The Super Bowl

Doritos’ digital strategy starts well before the Super Bowl. They’ve been crowdsourcing their Super Bowl ads for years and using online voting to decide which to air during the big game. Ben notes the Crash The Super Bowl “offers a nice microsite to view current and past videos as well as social chatter around the hashtag.” It doesn’t offer much in terms of urging users to buy Doritos, but the buying threshold is much lower for snacks than a luxury vehicle like above. Just seeing the product featured in humorous videos will probably be enough to give a large percentage of viewers a craving.

Shock Top with TJ Miller

Beer commercials and the Super Bowl have a storied history, but its typically flagship Light (Lite) beers getting all of the attention. This year Shock Top got into the game—using two Super Bowl ad staples: a celebrity and sentient object. The Shock Top homepage has been taken over to showcase the ad. They “offered an extended version of their ad so i get a little bit of a reward to seeking them out.” Plus Ben learned about two new booze delivery services on the same page—good news for everyone (over 21). The page subtly provided a direct way to purchase the product while giving users a chance to view extended commercial material.

Mountain Dew Kickstart, AKA Puppy Monkey Baby

Probably the most talked about and most disturbing commercial of Super Bowl 50. Ben puts it bluntly: “creepy ad, better landing page. Nicely designed product section and the character builder at least gives me a little bit of background on where the hell Puppy Monkey Baby came from. The creature animations on the shareable gif were also well done.”

The entire experience mirrors the ad’s quirky aesthetic while providing the user with product information and an interactive element to keep them interested (creeped out).

Avacados in Space, From Mexico

It came as a surprise to me that the avocado industry had Super Bowl commercial money. It also came as a surprise to me that they had a great ad. After that, it should be no surprise that they went all in on their website.

Ben’s thoughts: “Making myself a part of the exhibit was fun, even if I didn’t ultimately end up sharing it. It had some nice CTAs for recipes and contests, but I was a little bothered by being asked to vote for their ad in the hero and then again at the bottom of the page.” Voting for their ad seems to be a weird CTA to focus on but the rest of the page does a good job of blending the ad content with the product’s.

The Bud Light Party

They put a lot of effort into this campaign. They hired celebrities, put them in multiple locations, and built an app for iOS and Android to support the whole thing. The homepage and app give anyone who’s interested in the product a lot of ways to show their loyalty. For those not already interested, it does little to convince them: “Honestly, I don’t even care…You *might* get a thumbs up and a high five for flooding your social channels with free ads for Bud Light, but you have to download an app to do it? Maybe I’m missing something here, but the page didn’t do enough to bridge the gap for me.”

For the page itself, if the goal is to have users download an app and share Bud Light images on social, it’s doing a good job of putting that out in front—it just might be missing some of the “why” users should take action.