Car brands have been advertising in the Super Bowl since there were Super Bowls. However, over the years, some of the most popular game-day advertisers opted to avoid the multi-million dollar spots in favor of other forms of advertising. This year's game featured ads from eight different brands: Audi, Porsche, Toyota, Hyundai, GMC, Kia, Genesis, and Jeep. The original Super Bowl advertisers – Ford and Chrysler, opted out this year.

We set out to examine the effects of the Super Bowl ad on car brands – does the model still drive traffic, and does the ad structure matter?

We reviewed mobile web traffic to each advertiser site, alongside non-advertisers, and compared that to the average Sunday traffic during the month before the game. We used mobile web under the assumption that anyone visiting a brand site following a game day ad, will do so on their small screen, rather than opt to turn on their laptop.